Olin was started by a Babson alum with funds that originated with another Babson alum, on Babson's campus.

Actually, the funds came from the F. W. Olin Foundation, originally from funds left by Franklin W. Olin after his death. He got the money by starting the Olin Corporation which among other things owned Remington rifles and did a lot of chemical engineering. Olin himself was a Cornell graduate.

This made me think of Salon's recent article about the closure of most of the EPA's libraries. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/10/30/epa_l ibraries/index.html Ironic that as the prospect of more accessible information arises, some is lost and well. The $100 million could go to digitizing works such as these that rights-holders agree should be available, but don't have the funds to disseminate themselves. The salary of someone running a scanner should be much less than $100,000.

The article doesn't make it seem as if librarians are being fired, but I think it would be good to make sure, and if they're just being transferred into jobs that don't utilize their expertise, perhaps some of the money could pay their salaries so they can continue their work. Also, does wikipedia have anyone analogous to a research librarian? I haven't had to ask for help many times, but having someone who knows what they're doing can speed up the search for information dramatically. IANALibrarian, but even having some sort of internship program for people doing their Masters' of Library Science might be interesting.