When Dr. Buford Norman reflects on giving, he speaks with both scholarly conviction and deep personal devotion. His philanthropy is rooted in a love of music and language—and in honoring the legacy of his late wife, Dr. Elizabeth Joiner. Together, their lives intertwined around literature, culture, and the arts. Today, his gifts to the University Libraries, the School of Music and the College of Education at the University of South Carolina carry those passions forward for generations of students.
For Buford, libraries have always been more than repositories of knowledge—they are sanctuaries of thought, portals to discovery, and quiet companions through a lifetime of research and reflection.
“My idea of fun is spending the day in a library,” he said with a smile. “Especially since Elizabeth and I taught and grew up in an era before digital media took hold, libraries were where we went—for pleasure, for work, for life.”
That lifelong affinity now lives on in the University of South Carolina’s Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Buford’s recent gift includes a rare and meticulously curated collection of books focused on the 17th-century French librettist Philippe Quinault—materials he gathered over decades of study, both in Columbia and in the great libraries of France.
“I’ve spent thousands of hours with editions of librettos and scores, archival documents, and scholarly writings,” Buford said. “And I always knew I wanted these books to eventually live at USC, where they might help students and scholars connect literature, music, and history the way I have.”
The collection has already begun making an impact. Faculty in USC’s Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures are incorporating Buford’s Quinault volumes into teaching sessions held in the rare book room, bringing 17th-century French opera to life for a new generation.
“Thanks to Dr. Norman’s generosity, students can now hold history in their hands,” said Dr. Michael Weisenburg, Director of Rare Books and Special Collections. “These rare seventeenth-century works not only complement the Library’s treasured music and theater collections, they also bring classroom discussions to life—offering students in Music, Languages, Theater, and Education a chance to work directly with the kinds of primary sources that shaped artistic traditions for centuries.”
Recognizing that rare books require thoughtful stewardship, Buford paired his gift in kind with a financial contribution to support the Libraries’ acquisitions and preservation efforts. His generosity ensures that USC can both care for treasures like the Quinault volumes and continue expanding collections that inspire curiosity across disciplines.
“Even if no one but students or specialists ends up reading Quinault,” he said, “I believe it’s essential that USC continue to grow a library with both reach and depth. Communities need spaces like this. They need collections that reflect the full range of human inquiry.”
A Gift Across Disciplines
Buford’s gift to the Libraries dovetails with his recent gifts to the School of Music, which support opera scholarships, student travel, and programming for early music and chamber music, and to the College of Education, which honor his wife’s role as a trailblazer in foreign language education at USC through the establishment of the Elizabeth G. Joiner Bilingualism Matters Fund.
With each of these gifts, Buford has chosen to invest in futures that connect cultures, expand minds, and build understanding. His philanthropy ensures that Elizabeth’s vision endures while broadening USC’s impact on the arts and language.
For Buford, these commitments are not separate—they are threads of the same fabric. Whether through the resonance of a concert, the opening of a bilingual classroom, or the turning of a centuries-old page, his generosity celebrates the universal power of human expression.