Schaffer Library at Union College

Say hi to Paxton Ouellette! Paxton is a student in Summer IDEaS, our librarian-taught research opportunity uniting traditional research and digital humanities. She is a rising senior with majors in history and political science and a minor in English. She is a member of Phi Alpha Theta (National History Honor Society) and Sigma Tau Delta (National English Honor Society). She has been on the Dean’s List since her freshman year. Paxton has been involved with Residential Life... since her sophomore year, spending time in Webster as an RA and her junior year as the HRA of Davidson-Webster. As a senior, she’ll be the HRA of Fox. Paxton is also a student mentor for the Accommodations Office. In her free time, Paxton loves learning about Martin Van Buren, who is her favorite president and will (hopefully!) be included in her political science thesis. Welcome Paxton! For more on Summer IDEaS, see this link: https://amaze2.github.io/sum-ideas-21/ #SummerIDEaS2021 #DigitalHumanities #DH #UnionCollege #ScafferLibrary

Meet Mandy Blakeman! She is a student in Summer IDEaS, our librarian-taught research opportunity uniting traditional research and digital humanities. Mandy is an English major from New Jersey going into her senior year at Union. She’s also minoring in theatre and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies. On campus, she serves on the Gamma Phi Beta and Sigma Tau Delta executive boards, as well as a member of the Order of Omega Greek honor society. This past year, she was the re...cipient of the Edward Everett Hale, Jr. prize for best essay by a Sophomore or Junior student. She hopes that this work, along with the experience she gains in the Summer IDEaS program, translates to whatever she goes on to do after Union. We're looking forward to see what she does this summer. For more on the Summer IDEaS program, see this link: https://amaze2.github.io/sum-ideas-21/ #SummerIDEaS2021 #DigitalHumanities #DH #UnionCollege #ScafferLibrary

Summer IDEaS begins this week! The Summer Institute for Digital Exploration at Schaffer ("Summer IDEaS") is a librarian-taught, extra-curricular, project-based, research opportunity that unites traditional research and digital humanities (DH), an increasingly ubiquitous approach to humanities scholarship that critically engages with data and computing technology. Through Summer IDEaS, students will explore both longstanding and emerging methods of scholarship that will enabl...e them to achieve and share insight, readying them for an increasingly digital world. The theme of Summer IDEaS 2021 is Identity and Power at Union College. We'll be introducing our students to you this week and following their work as they go through the next six weeks of the program! Check back to follow along with us. And for more information on the program, click here: https://amaze2.github.io/sum-ideas-21/ #SummerIDEaS2021

Reminder: July 5th is a holiday and Schaffer Library will be closed. Happy Fourth of July!

"Fifty years ago this month, thieves broke a rear window on the ground floor to gain entry to Schaffer Library. They headed to a locked case and smashed the quarter-inch thick glass with a hammer to retrieve the bounty on display for Commencement weekend: a single volume of naturalist John James Audubon’s stunning 'Birds of America.'" This is the start of the Union News article posted this week, which goes on to tell a story with as many twists and turns as a mystery novel. ... Check out Schaffer's brush with true crime 50 years ago in this riveting article: https://www.union.edu//audubon-heist-50-irresistible-myste

Here are some more title page drafts the History of the Book CLS-155 created. For the full story behind these, see our last Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQbiMh_AVFw/ #TitlePageTuesday #SchafferLibrary #UnionCollege

The evolution of a title page. In this year's spring term History of the Book course, CLS 155, taught by Dr. Laura Winters and Sarah Schmidt, our Director of Special Collections & Archives, the class created a title page. The first three images here show the progression of the title page, from conception to etching to the final printed version. The second three show other title page conceptions created by the class. Here is the process as told from Sarah Schmidt:... "The class voted on all of the title pages and we etched and printed the winner. We partnered with Sandy Wimer in Arts who advised us to use plexiglass and lent us two etching tools, a spiral etcher and a diamond tip etching pen. Then we created a mirror image of our title page, printed it out with a grid overlay so that each student (and teacher) had a square to etch. Then taped it to the plexiglass for etching. On Friday May 28th and Saturday May 29th Sandy Wimer showed the entire class (and teachers) how to use one of the printing presses the Art Department owns. We prepared the paper, inked the plexiglass plate, aligned the paper and plate, and turned the press wheel. All the students participated in printing copies of the title page." #TitlePageTuesday

As we continue to digitize our unique collections, we generate new datasets of machine-readable text and metadata available for computational analysis and other digital scholarship methods. We now have a github page where you can download our collections data. Data from our collections include text files from optical character recognition (OCR) extracts, structured metadata files (e.g., in CSV or TSV format), and XML files. Collections currently available include the Concord...iensis, the OD Putnum Photographs, and the Jonathan Pearson Diary (pictured here). https://github.com/schaffer-library/collections-data

Please Note: Our Library book drop will be unavailable from Sunday, June 20, 2021 through Monday, June 21, 2021.

This is a shot from a few days ago, but we're using it to wish the Class of 2020 a wonderful commencement ceremony this weekend. You made it through a rainy year, but the light is coming. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors! #NottShot #2020 #Commencement

Hiram S. Wilson Civil War Letters Jewish Women Postcards Kay Flickinger Dockstader Papers... The Concordiensis These are the current featured collections on our new digital collections homepage! Check it out to discover more library, faculty, and student digital collections and exhibitions. https://digitalcollections.union.edu///digital-collections.

Happy #TitlePageTuesday! This one is from a 1944 version of "Nikolai Gogol" by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, 1899-1977. Thanks, as usual, to Special Collections.... #SpecialCollections #SchafferLibrary #UnionCollege

Good luck, class of 2021! Congratulations! Schaffer Library wishes you all the best on your future endeavors.

You made it through a tough year. Congratulations! It's a big deal. We wish you a restful summer. Returning students: We'll see you next year. Graduates: Good luck as you embark on post-college life!

Say Hi to Andrea Belair! She's the first librarian we're featuring in our Schaffer Spotlight. Andrea is the Archives and Special Collections Librarian a.k.a. our fabulous historical #NottShot supplier. See the photo for her favorite. You can find out what she loves about her job, her favorite book in the collection, and what she does when she's not working at this link: https://www.union.edu//20/schaffer-spotlight-andrea-belair

Faculty: Did you know you can teach with the library? We offer consultations with faculty members interested in improving research-based assignments, partnering to develop librarian-led instruction sessions, and developing online course resources. Interested in learning more? Check out this page for more information: https://www.union.edu/schaffer-libra/teach-with-the-library

Have you taken the new online tour of Union College's Permanent Collection? See this link to get lost (in a good good way) and inspired: https://digitalcollections.union.edu/s/union-college//home #Repost @mandevillegallery... For the first time, digitally search the Union College Permanent Collection database online! We are pleased to announce that you will be able to learn more about the Permanent Collection artworks digitally, on our brand new web portal! This searchable portal features remote access to the College’s art collection, which includes over 2,800 significant cultural resources from eastern and ancient cultures, as well as artworks from internationally recognized artists. Close observation of these artworks is possible via a magnification feature, encouraging comparative analysis enhanced by contextual information. The portal currently displays only a limited selection from the Collection, but we are in the process of adding more artworks all the time! Be sure to check the link in our bio to explore the portal for yourself! Image: Katrina Andry, "Mammy Complex: Unfit Mommies Make For Fit Nannies" #art #artonline #artcollections #academiccollections #remoteart #remotelearning #unioncollege @unioncollege

Starting Winter 2021 term, the Bloomberg Terminal will be available for use on the first floor of Schaffer Library, at its new location near the photocopiers. Due to demand for this service, we ask that anyone interested in using the Bloomberg Terminal please sign up for time using the online appointment calendar. Covid health and safety capacity limitations mandate that only one user can be in the Bloomberg Terminal room at a time. Reserving your time on the terminal gives y...ou primary access on the terminal at that time and ensures that everyone in the Union community has equitable access to this popular and limited service. If you are attending Union remotely and need to use the Bloomberg terminal for a class or senior thesis, please contact Sean Tennant at [email protected] for accommodation. For more information see: https://www.union.edu/research-services/bloomberg-terminal Here's the link to the scheduling calendar: https://union.libcal.com/reserve/bloomberg-terminal/station

It's MLK day today. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s wisdom on justice, love, hate, hope and despair, is more important than ever. Spend some time reading his words today and you'll be better for it. This quote is from his 1958 book "Stride Toward Freedom; the Montgomery Story," which those with a Union login can access (on or off campus) with HathiTrust's digital covid collection. Simply search the title in Primo at union.edu/schaffer-library. #MLKday #MartinLutherKingJr #MLK #SchafferLibrary #Justice #Peace

#TBT to 1880 and a #NottShot. Looks to us like there's a very big hole there...