Collins Unbound

We recently acquired Local Conditions: One Hundred Views of Mount Rainier (At Least), a stunning artist book by Chandler O’Leary, a Tacoma-based illustrator, letterer, and entrepreneur. O’Leary was inspired by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai and his collections of woodblock prints from the mid-1800s titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. Just like Mount Fuji, Mount Rainier is part of the Ring of Fire, and both Hokusai and O’Leary were drawn to their local volcanoes. Unlike Hokusai, who saw Mount Fuji as eternal and immortal, O’Leary sees Mount Rainier as impermanent and ever-changing. Through her series of prints, she sought to capture 100 unique views of Mount Rainier, observed over a two-year period from September 2008 to October 2010. The book contains 120 image flats that make up all of the 100 real-life scenes, and can be combined in new ways to create new views of Mount Rainier.

Each scene consists of two to four flats, which are hand-drawn, painted, and cut by the artist. While the background flats are solid, the others have cut-outs, so that they can all be seen together to complete the scene. The flats are inserted in slots in the Viewing Box, which can hold up to eight flats at a time. In order to determine which flats belong in a scene, O’Leary includes a color code at the bottom of each flat, along with a Locator Key that contains the location, date, time, and weather for each observed scene. To learn more about how the book works, visit the Archives & Special Collections or take a look at O’Leary’s blog post about it.

The Archives & Special Collections is open Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM or by appointment.

By Julia Masur

Logbooks are one of my favorite resources in the Archives & Special Collections. Logbooks, also known as student handbooks, were printed every year for incoming students. They often included a message from the university president and the ASUPS president, and outlined many aspects of social and academic life at Puget Sound. They included the student government bylaws, a social and academic calendar for the year, and descriptions of student clubs and activities you could join. They were printed for the entire campus, but were geared towards incoming first year students.

Our collection of Logbooks ranges from 1916 to 2009. Throughout the decades the Logbooks evolve and they serve as a wonderful indicator of what campus life was like in the past. They give us a glimpse into campus traditions, social norms, and the administrative structure that influenced students’ lives. If you’re interested in investigating an aspect of campus life, the Logbooks are a great place to start!

The Archives & Special Collections is open Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM or by appointment.

By Adriana Flores, Archivist & Special Collections Librarian

Access to materials is one of the core functions of all archives. Part of the way that we provide access to and knowledge about our materials is through outreach in the form of classes, events, exhibits, and presentations. These interactions help members of the community understand how our legacy informs our future and draw connections between the past and the present. In keeping with this mission, Archivist & Special Collections Librarian Adriana Flores ‘13 recently gave a presentation to the Division of Student Affairs on learning from the past to build the future, and led staff members on an interactive investigation of Puget Sound’s history.

To select materials for this workshop, we drew from three of our most frequently taught class sessions on fraternity integration, the Vietnam War’s impact on campus, and the history of the Gender & Queer Studies program. Participants split up into three groups, each of which examined materials related to one of the three topics covered. They discussed what change is portrayed in the documents, what surprised them about the documents, what questions they still had, and what connections they can draw between the documents and our campus today. This exploration sparked a lively discussion about how the records we create tell our story and create our legacy.

Is your campus group or department also looking to collaborate with the A&SC? Contact us at archives@pugetsound.edu to set up a similar workshop. We can also assist with presentations for individual departments or groups, workshops for work teams or student employees, displays and exhibits, research support, and transferring departmental materials.

The Archives & Special Collections is open Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM or by appointment.

By Julia Masur