Libraries’ Winter Term Courses – Teaching and Partnering

February 23, 2024

Student working on Winter Term project

The College’s 2024 Winter Term included seven courses taught or supported by Library experts, many of which fulfill the practicum requirement for the Book Studies minor.

Terrell Library Special Collections offered its Letterpress Intensive, experience-based instruction for students in the operation of four types of hand-operated presses, movable type, and linocuts. Also included were discussions of printing terminology and typography. Students designed and printed projects of their own, and contributed to a creative group project which this year was an illustrated version of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky."

An annual favorite among students, the popular studio course, “Papermaking and Book Art” by artist and award-winning author Aimee Lee ‘99 was also sponsored by the Libraries this year. Using East Asian and European techniques, students processed plant materials to make paper, decorate it, and bind it into books. This year the course included a special focus on historic and contemporary methods of sustainable papermaking and how it began in harmony with the environment in Asia as an extension of responsible agriculture.

Celebrating its second year, the “Digital Archiving Practicum” used the Theater Department’s archive and examples of historic period costumes and costume accessories to learn digital scholarship skills. The Libraries’ Digital Imaging Lab (“DigiLab”) collaborated with the Theater department to give students an introduction to the theory and best practices behind the digital archiving of a cultural materials collection. Throughout the class, students were introduced to different two- and three-dimensional digitizing technologies and the creation of archival object records and associated metadata.

The Conservatory Library Special Collections sponsored two students' independent projects on Japanese- and Chinese-language music materials. Emma Wei ’27 visualized the geographic names of mountains, rivers, and towns in people's songs for the Long March (1934–5) under Mao Zedong with text by Xiao Hua and melodies in jiǎnpǔ 简谱 numeric notation. Adriana Hernandez ’27 visualized the artistic networks of jazz musicians across the U.S. and Japan by gathering information from the obi 帯 and liner notes of albums released in Japan from 1968 to 1988. Some of these jazz titles are unique to the Neumann Collection at Oberlin with no other copies held by libraries worldwide.

The Oberlin College Archives oversaw ten students in the “Oberlin Review Winter Term project.” The group researched the newspaper’s archives to select articles and photographs for a commemorative edition celebrating the Review’s 150th anniversary (first issue: April 1, 1874). The students used the Review’s Archives and the College Archives, learning about events, people, and issues in Oberlin’s history.

The Archives also had nine students participate in its sponsored project “Affinity Groups Archiving – Preserving Minority Student Life.” The students received hands-on training on how to arrange and describe the records of student organizations, including the Asian American Alliance and Afrikan Heritage House. The students learned about the rewards and challenges of preserving records related to student life at Oberlin.

These Winter Term projects continue the Libraries’ mission and strong record of collaboration, instruction, and educational programming.