Read Gift to Aid Library, Create First Assistantship January 2007 A generous gift from Victoria C.T. Read and the late Dr. Gerald H. Read will make it possible to renovate the 10th floor of the University Library to double the space available to its Department of Special Collections and Archives. The gift also will establish the Gerald H. and Victoria C.T. Read Archival Assistantship, the first endowed assistantship in Libraries and Media Services.   The project will create classroom space dedicated to teaching archival research skills to graduate and undergraduate students. The renovation also will provide more space to house and process special collections. Among these will be the archival collection of the Comparative and International Education Society, which Dr. Read co-founded at Kent State in 1956.   A professor of comparative education at the university for 33 years, in 1958 he arranged the first educational exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The special collections classroom and processing center are a tribute to Victoria and Gerald’s generosity and to Dr. Read’s influential scholarship aimed at bringing together educators from diverse cultural and intellectual traditions.