The David McCullough Conservation Fund was established in 2001, to provide a consistent source of funding for the restoration and preservation of the BPL’s Special Collections. The fund is dedicated to the conservation, cataloging, digitization, and exhibition of the Library’s historic, literary, and cultural treasures. Named after historian David McCullough, who during his tenure as a Boston Public Library Trustee (1995-2000), became convinced of the growing need to conserve the Library's many irreplaceable treasures. Not so incidentally, McCullough made extensive use of the Library's Special Collections while writing his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography John Adams published in 2001 and subsequently 1776, published in 2005. To this day, McCullough is a strong advocate for preservation and for our work.

The William O. Taylor Art Preservation Fund was created in 2010 to honor Bill's many years of service and generosity to the BPL. In addition to serving as a BPL Trustee from 1990-2006, Bill also headed the Trustee Collections Committee (now the Special Collections Committee). He, like McCullough, was a passionate advocate for the preservation of the BPL's most important historic and artistic holdings. As the publisher of the Boston Globe, Bill had a particular interest in photographs documenting the city's people, politics, architecture, history, and changing landscape.  He was also an ardent admirer of art in all its forms, and artists, especially those who had been inspired by New England, and whose careers had been nurtured by Boston patrons, galleries and institutions. Accordingly, the Associates Taylor Fund is dedicated to conserving, cataloging, digitizing, and exhibiting the BPL’s collections of prints, drawings, photographs, and works of art.