Established by Anne and John ’48 Hoeck

The Thomas and Marcia Blum Family Library Collection for American Catholic Intellectual Thought, established in 2005, was funded by Anne and John (’48) Hoeck. John was a member of the Hesburgh Libraries Advisory Council from 1982 until he passed away in 2012. Anne is a current member. The Hoecks and the Blums forged a deep friendship through their shared devotion to Notre Dame and her Libraries. Tom Blum retired in 2012 after more than thirty years of service to Our Lady’s University.

The Blum Family Collection will support scholarship and research in American Catholic thought. Funding will enable the Libraries to build primary source materials that encompass past centuries through the written word, including novels, memoirs, travel narratives, newspapers, and popular periodicals. It will also aid in the advancement of the Catholic intellectual tradition by allowing the Libraries to become a humanistic laboratory filled with collections reflective of the past and influential of the future of the Church.

The Hoecks have also funded the John L. Hoeck General Library Endowment, and the Blums have also established the Thomas and Marcia Blum Family Library Collection for the Study of Christianity: From Rome to Byzantium.