Looking to learn a little bit about fingerprinting between your classes or errands? Ron Thom has got you covered! President Emeritus Ron Thomas donated a collection of his favorite books to the Archives & Special Collections upon his retirement, and one of the books is Practical Fingerprinting by B.C. Bridges. In this book you can discover a little more about the history of the fingerprint identification process. You can learn terms like “Radial Loop” or my personal favorite, the “Exceptional Arch” to describe attributes of fingerprints. President Emeritus Thomas was specifically interested in the history of criminology in the Victorian Era. At this time the modern police force was emerging, identification technology was becoming more advanced, and detective stories were booming. President Emeritus Thomas wrote in his essay, “Literature is Everything”,that these phenomena were all “forms of storytelling, too, about the very nature of individuals during a time of dramatic social change”. The book collection also contains many other criminology books such as Crime: It’s Causes and Remedies by Cesare Lombroso and Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri. Come to the Archives and Special Collections and explore a bit of the history of criminology!
The Archives & Special Collections is open on Monday – Thursday from 10:00-3:00 p.m. or by appointment.
By Laure Mounts