Special Collections & Archives at Wesleyan University
A place for news and information about rare books, manuscripts and university archives.
Freshman beanies, a 1927 letter sweater, a 1970 “Strike” arm band, a 1985 Feminist House T-shirt, and more—this exhibition includes items of student apparel that were (or could have been) worn on a day-to-day basis, and those that were not are evocative of key social and academic aspects of student life. The show is on … Read more
SC&A doesn’t just contain the textual and photographic record of Wesleyan’s history, we also have some sound recordings — from speeches and lectures to cds of recent student groups, such as the Wesleyan Spirits, the New Group and Quasimodal. If your group has produced a cd, please consider depositing one copy with SC&A (for safekeeping) … Read more
This morning the Introduction to Environmental Studies class (E&ES 197) taught by Helen Poulos visited Special Collections & Archives to learn about artists’ books that address environmental issues. It’s a large class, so students were split into two groups. Their backpacks and other paraphernalia more than filled our closet! Making an artist’s book that expresses … Read more
Sponsored by the Council of State Archivists, Electronic Records Day is October 10, 2015. You’re probably creating all manner of electronic records in your everyday worklife, such as Word docs, pdfs, Excel spreadsheets, and webpages. But you’re also creating them in your personal life. Your texts, your email, all those selfies you’re taking? They’re electronic … Read more
Olin Library staff members recently had the pleasure to meet Bunmi Alegbeleye, Professor of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, while he recently visited Olin Library as a guest of Michaelle Biddle, Collections Conservator and Head of Preservation Services. He also met with Digital Projects Librarian Francesca Livermore and received … Read more
A Spatial History of Wesleyan University combines geographical and quantitative analysis with archival and oral history research to interpret the past in place. It is the product of the Spring 2015 course in Digital History at Wesleyan taught by Visiting Assistant Professor of History Amrys O. Williams, part of the university’s Digital and Computational Knowledge … Read more
When sophomore Arch Doty moved into room 23 of Clark Hall in September, 1939, he brought with him a radio transmitter he had built at home the previous summer. Using a turntable, 78 rpm records, a microphone, the transmitter, and an antenna wire hanging out of Arch’s window, student-run radio at Wesleyan hit the airwaves. … Read more
Here’s one of our newly-cataloged artists’ books: Everyone Sang, by Siegfried Sassoon, with woodcuts by Terry Schupbach-Gordon (Tobaccoville, N.C.: Catbird Press, 2009). Siegfried Sasson is best known as a poet of World War I, along with Robert Graves and Wilfred Owens. He wrote this short poem called “Everyone Sings” in celebration of the end of … Read more
This week, we just added a new artist’s book to our collection: HERetic: Joan of Arc, by Dorothy Simpson Krause (Marshfield Hills, Mass. : Viewpoint Editions, 2009). What’s an artist’s book, you say? One short definition, by scholar Stephen Bury, says that “Artists’ books are books or book-like objects over the final appearance of which … Read more
It’s been just over a year since the Occupy Wall Street protest movement began. In honor of the anniversary of the movement’s beginning (on September 17, 2011), here are some images from a new addition to our collection, just cataloged this week: an artist’s book consisting of 24 plastic cards, made to look like credit … Read more
