The McGovern Family Collection in British Fiction and Criticism was established in 1997 by Brian and Marsha McGovern. Brian is founder of McGovern Steel Fabrications Inc., in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company designs, fabricates, and erects quality structural steel and miscellaneous metal products for the construction industry. Marsha serves as corporation secretary. The couple has three children, Patrick (’99), Christopher (’01), and Hayley (’09).

The McGovern Collection supports the research and classroom needs of literature students and faculty at Notre Dame as well as scholars in the departments of history, anthropology, philosophy, and theology. Specifically, it has aided in purchases of contemporary scholarly and literary publishing, including recent acquisitions of rare books like A Midsummer Night’s Dream illustrated by Arthur Rackham and the first edition of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1765), one of the earliest Gothic novels. The collection of the major American poet Robert Creeley now includes numerous books of poetry and manuscript correspondence between him and his daughter, Sarah. The Libraries have been able to complete holdings of British small press poetry publishers, such as Carcanet and Anvil Press, and the electronic resources Romanticism Redefined and the fifth segment of 18th-Century Journals, through McGovern Endowment funds.