Be on the lookout for some intriguing items in the library this Fall – like the biggest Collins Library scrap book you’ve ever seen!
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Collins Unbound Summer Break!
Dear Readers,
Collins Unbound is taking a summer break – check back in August to catch up with all the latest news!
-Collins Library staff
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Celebrating "A SOUND PAST"
As we approach the end of the academic year, Collins Library is proud to launch a new digital resource for the campus community. A SOUND PAST chronicles through historic photographs the people, buildings, events, athletics, and campus environment that make the University of Puget Sound such a unique place.
Since 2007, John Finney, class of ’67 and retired Associate Dean and University Registrar has been selecting, scanning and describing these images with assistance from the staff of the Collins Memorial Library. The collection represents an ongoing library effort to make photos from the University Archives available to a wider audience. Read more about John’s work on the Collins Unbound Library Blog.
Spend some time this summer enjoying the wonderful images in A SOUND PAST and we look forward to a “Sound Future” and fall semester 2010.
Congratulations Graduates!
Below is the text of a letter written by one of our student assistants to seniors. We thought you might enjoy it! Be sure to check out the yearbooks in the front lobby and the many images of graduation on display in the LINK. Best of luck in the future and congratulations, once again!
A Fond Farewell
To all of my Dear Graduates,
I’ve known most of you for four years now as you’ve studied among my stacks. I’ve watched you change from eager freshmen into astute seniors. Now, I am delighted to send you out into the world, as graduates.
Congratulations.
Do you remember the first time you walked through my shelves, running your fingers along the spines of books, taking deep breaths of the studious air? I do. Perhaps you were awed by the number of books, more than you can imagine, on any given topic. Perhaps you could not wait to crack them open and smell the knowledge seeping off the pages. I waited for you to begin your research, excited for you to plumb my depths, and uncover my hidden secrets. Your first forays out of the front reading rooms and Learning Commons were exciting for me. I watched quietly as you found treasures in my stacks.
Your minds grew as we got to know each other better. At first, you continually asked for the fiction section, the novels. Slowly, you encountered the wonders of the DVD stacks. Eventually you found in me your quiet place, somewhere to study without distractions. Around your junior year, you realized that all of those books were something more than decoration. You began to find the treasures I had been so eager for you to find. We became close as you grew to know me and I became your confidant, your research assistant, your comfort in stressful times. I knew the secrets of your exciting research. I watched your face glow with excitement when you made your first big breakthrough. I stayed up with you at four in the morning writing your one last final paper before you could escape for a much needed break.
Now I must say goodbye. As school comes to an end, we will see less and less of each other, until the echoes of your whispered voice will be mere memories among my walls. You have now realized that my resources are not limitless. It is time for you to move on to bigger libraries, with more books, and other secrets for you to uncover. I ask only that you remember me, your friend, confidant, and comforter, as you move on into the world. Perhaps, someday, you might add a book to my stacks, a product of your long hours of study. Perhaps, maybe twenty years from now, you will return, with a young researcher of your own, a student whose voice will be added to the excited whispers of a new freshman class. I will smile, remembering your quiet footfall, and the times we shared, and then open my arms to embrace a new mind to nurture.
Now, I send you out into the world. Make me proud.
Your Friend,
Collins Memorial Library
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Good Luck on Finals! Need tips for stress reduction?
Collins Library can help! Take a 5 minute break and browse the ArtStor Image Database. Looking at great works of art reduces stress. If you are in the Library, take a minute to look at Holly Senn’s tree in the corner of the Learning Commons or the Dale Chihuly piece in the Link. Logon to NAXOS music database and listen to a soothing piece of music to calm your nerves. Pick up WIRED Magazine or the Village Voice and have a quick read, and if all else fails, try the Virtual Bubble Wrap site – a sure stress buster!
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Micah Fillinger Wins Library Art Award 2010
worlds un(sung), heads un(hung), by Micah Phillinger. Photo by Ross Mulhausen.
Bold, provocative, memorable, and big. These are some of the words that describe worlds un(sung), heads un(hung). The large work is oil on benderboard and laminated poplar and will be displayed in the Library Link for one year. It was painted by senior Micah Fillinger, the 2010 recipient of the Collins Library Art Award. For more information and images of his works, view Micah’s web site.
While at Puget Sound, Micah pursued dual majors in Studio Art and Business, earning his BFA in May 2010. His work has been exhibited in juried shows, traveling print collections, the Smithsonian Zoo, and other venues. Micah was born in Oakland, California, and grew up in Eugene, Oregon. He plans to travel to Switzerland after graduation.
The jury members were drawn to the work’s ideas about diversity, one of the University’s core values. The jury also felt it would complement the National Race and Pedagogy Conference which will be held on campus in October. The Library is one of the venues for the conference’s arts events and it is hoped this piece will stimulate open discussions about race.
Artist Statement
I have always been drawn to the communicative and incredibly universal potential of image. The exceedingly rich visual vocabulary developed over the history of painting, as well as the infinite control of image, render painting such a powerful means of conveyance. With this as my language, I hope to reach out and spark a reaction.
We live in a society so saturated by media that we are able to gather information on almost any happening we wish. In doing so, we inevitably come across the evidence of the suffering of many peoples. Most people are able to grasp this on an intellectual level. But even as we recognize this undeniable aspect of human existence, we veer away from reminders. We discard the articles and images of the less fortunate. The sound bites are limited to twenty seconds or less.
With my works I am trying to confront my audience with a respectful portrayal of the faces of the issues that we find so easy to forget, in such a way that demands a visceral emotional response. I paint in an attempt to spark an internalization/understanding of a persistent reality that goes beyond the intellectual. I paint as a way of honoring those who have had to bear the externalities and collateral damage of the human race.
-Post by Lori Ricigliano
Spotlight: John Finney & the Hidden Treasures of the Archives
John Finney served as the Associate Dean and University Registrar for many years. He currently writes a column on Puget sound History for Arches magazine and has been a volunteer in the University Archives since fall 2007.
Tell us about your project?
The project has evolved into the digging out of some of the college’s stories. The framework for this is the scanning into digital form of some of the old photographs in the archives. Scanning photos is what I started doing fall 2007, and soon I realized that with every photo is associated an interesting story. Gradually, the writing of the stories began to assume a larger share of my time in the archives. Beginning with the spring 2008 issue, I have written a “From the Archives” column for Arches that features the story associated with one or more photographs. Writing is one way to share the stories. Another way is to make the photographs themselves available in one of the library’s contentDM collections. The archives digital image collection currently contains some 700 images that I hope can be made available on-line in the weeks or months ahead.
What do you see as the value of this project?
It is important to understand where we have been so that we can know where we are going. This is the value of an archives collection in any organization, especially a college such as ours, which follows many important traditions. Making relevant information available about where we have been can be helpful to students, faculty, and administrators in charting the future.
What are 2-3 favorite fun facts about the University?
The college owned its own ski lodge near Crystal Mountain between 1948 and 1956. We acquired the lodge cheap because we were “ahead of the curve” in terms of the growing interest in winter snow sports. “Was selling it a good idea?” is an interesting question.
The unidentified professor in the Rowena Alcorn painting hanging in the library outside and to the left of The Shelmidine Room door (Library 209) is Walter S. Davis, who began teaching at the college in 1907. It is because of Professor Davis, an historian, that the earliest history of the college is well documented and preserved. Professor Walter S. Davis looms large in the archives. He was known as Senator Davis because he served several terms as senator in the Washington State legislature.
A tradition that we still have yet have lost concerns the hatchet. The original tradition was that the senior class passed the hatchet on to the junior class by providing a menu of clues and riddles that juniors had to solve in order to find the hatchet. This went on year after year for decades. Now the hatchet disappears for years or decades at a time and when it (or a facsimile) does reappear, it is locked away until it is literally stolen and is once again gone for years at a time. Perhaps the original tradition was more exciting.
We are the Loggers, and we all know that we owe much of our institutional strength to the support of lumbermen, such as Charles Hebard Jones, Leonard Howarth, and the Weyerhaeusers. But we may not know that we also owe a large debt of gratitude to one of the most important railroad men in history, James J. Hill, builder of the Great Northern Railway, one of the predecessor lines of today’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. It was Hill who took an interest in a small, struggling Tacoma college and pledged to give $50,000 if the college could raise $200,000 by a certain date in 1914. Meeting the “Hill Challenge” was one of the first significant achievements of President Edward Howard Todd, who began his 29-year presidency in 1913. Hill’s gift was critically important at a precarious time in the college’s development.
Student milk drive for European World War II relief December 1947 in front of Jones Hall
Students observing the September 20, 1960 eclipse of the sun
Professor Walter S. Davis wields the shovel at the February 16, 1938 Anderson Hall groundbreaking ceremony. Dean John Regester holds the microphone
Biology Professor Gordon Alcorn, for whom the University of Puget Sound Gordon Dee Alcorn Arboretum is named, 1980
Students boarding a city bus at the campus bus shelter, 1949. The bus shelter was a 1948 gift to the college from the Northwest Tacoma Kiwanis Club. It was located on the southwest corner of Lawrence and North 15th Streets. The shelter was removed in the 1980’s when Lawrence Street was closed so that Rasmussen Rotunda could be added to the student center. The exact location of the shelter is known from the location of the giant sequoia tree in the photo, still thriving across from Wheelock today.
More on the Future of the Book – Publish or Perish…
The future of the book. Where are we (and the books) going? Read on about intriguing changes and future possibilities in The New Yorker article by Ken Auletta: Publish or Perish. Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business?
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“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” -Arthur Conan Doyle
How do you get all this data? Good thing Puget Sound is a member of ICPSR! Established in 1962, ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) is an international consortium of about 700 academic institutions and research organizations, that provides leadership and training in data access, data curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community. ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences. It hosts 16 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
How do you navigate all of this data? Collins Library was fortunate to have staff from ICPSR come to campus last Friday to provide training on how to search for, download, and utilize the datasets found in their archive. Faculty and librarians from Puget Sound, the University of Washington Seattle and Tacoma campuses, Pacific Lutheran University and Saint Martin’s University attended a very informative session that assisted us in answering those questions and many more.
How do you use all of this data? ICPSR also promotes educational activities including their ‘Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research,’ a comprehensive curriculum of intensive courses in research design, statistics, data analysis, and social methodology. ICPSR also leads several initiatives that encourage use of data in teaching, particularly for undergraduate instruction. Check out their teaching and learning site for more details.
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Collins Library – Food, Drink & Noise Policy
We would like Collins library to be a clean and pleasant environment for everyone. Please follow our Food, Drink & Noise policy. In summary:
- Drinks must be in covered, spill proof containers.
- No messy foods, hot prepared meals, or dining hall trays.
- Use the designated Break Zone when possible.
- Be aware of other library users: keep your voice down and cell phones off.
- Use designated recycle bins.
- LEAVE NO TRACE of food or drink.
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