A major fundraising campaign, which began after the School of Information Resources and Library Science found out it was slated for elimination, has landed the school a $20,000 donation.

The donation came last spring in honor of former professor Arnulfo Trejo to aid the Knowledge River Program, which targets American Indian and Hispanic students.

The Knowledge River Program enables students to study information resources and technology issues related to American Indians and Hispanics.

The money from the Trejo Foster Foundation will be split in half in order to fund two projects. The first $10,000 will be used for student scholarships, said Pat Tarin, SIRLS project director. The other half will be used to start an endowment that will continue to award scholarships to minorities interested in SIRLS.

"We're trying to recruit more Latinos into the library community," Tarin said.

We're trying to recruit more Latinos into the library community. -Pat Tarin SIRLS project director

SIRLS, which was one of the schools the administrators initially planned to cut as part of Focused Excellence until they scrapped the proposal a few months later, draws students from all over the country.

It also has the largest number of minority graduate students at the UA, Tarin said.

The school has decided to name a Trejo Fellow each semester as an expression of its gratitude towards Trejo and the foundation he started, said Edna Meza Aguirre, associate director of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Tarin said the general requirements for the fellowship are that the student is Latino, bilingual and has shown a commitment to working within the community.

This year, the Trejo Fellow is Leigh Esquerra, who is pursuing a master's degree from SIRLS.

Trejo was a professor emeritus at the university. He founded REFORMA, the Association for Spanish-speaking Library Services, as well as Hispanic Books Distributors and established the Graduate Library Service for Spanish-speaking Americans.

His wife, Ninfa Trejo, is a librarian at Pima Community College.

Trejo, who was well respected in the library community, died in July 2002. He was referred to by Aguirre as "soft-spoken in many ways, but at the same time a pioneer."

Aguirre said the gift does not surprise those involved with SIRLS, because they already know it's a worthy program.

"It's a validation, or encouragement of the continued good work we are doing at SIRLS, we couldn't be more grateful," Aguirre said.

"I'm not at all surprised that people want their money to go to SIRLS," Aguirre said. "It makes sense, it's a validation of what we already know about the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. It's a great college doing great work."

SIRLS was saved from elimination last spring after a large effort to make the importance of the school known.

Tarin said that what saved the school was the student attendance at every meeting and press conference about the proposed elimination.

"A number of things were done (to save SIRLS)," Tarin said. "The director of the program came up with ways to make SIRLS more self sufficient. Students and alums attended all of the meetings and we had a ÎSave SIRLS' dinner."

To donate to SIRLS or the Knowledge River Program, or to get more information about the programs, write to the UA Foundation/SIRLS/Trejo, 1515 E. First St., Tucson, AZ 85719.