The Raymond F. and Mary Kennedy Family Library Endowment was established in 2006 by Ray’s family in his honor. Ray, who attended New York University’s MBA program and Harvard University’s Executive Marketing Management Program, was a successful business executive. At Notre Dame, he was a member of the Sorin Society and the Hesburgh Libraries Advisory Council until his untimely death in 2003. Today, Mary is a member of the Council. The couple has three sons: Raymond (’87), Michael (’88), and Kevin (’90).

This endowment supports and encourages excellence in academics on many levels. It helps fund institutional and individual memberships in organizations such as the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Research Libraries, OCLC Research Partners, and the American Library Association. These important connections keep the Libraries in touch with how universities produce, disseminate, and collaborate on new forms of research and scholarship. In addition, it supports scholarly work ranging from that of an undergraduate business student preparing a case study, to an engineering faculty member advancing humanitarian research, to a graduate student creating new data from old manuscripts.

The family has also established the Ray and Mary Kennedy Family Endowed Collection in Irish Music and the Raymond and Mary Kennedy Family Library Preservation Fund.