Marianne Puncheon Noah’s Ark Endowed Fund

Marianne Puncheon has the soul of a true collector. Throughout her life she has created unique assemblages of objects ranging from sculpture to books, each well-chosen, sometimes rare, and always with an interesting story behind it. Her most impressive collection started in 1989 when a single book caught her eye. Two by Two — The Untold Story by Kathryn Hewitt was the first in a collection of almost seven hundred Noah's Ark books. Ms. Puncheon worked with booksellers, pored over catalogues and scoured antiquarian book festivals as far as Scotland and Japan to build this collection of unique renditions of the biblical story in a multitude of languages and in a variety of formats. When Ms. Puncheon, a retired schoolteacher, donated her collection to UCLA Library Special Collections, she added an endowment to further support acquisitions, processing, preservation and access to its contents. The Marianne Puncheon Noah's Ark Collection thus continues to expand and evolve as a significant component of the department's noted children's literature holdings.