News

August 29, 2017
Reunifying Oberlin’s Natural History Collection
Inside King Hall, Associate Professor of Anthropology Amy Margaris ’96 sifts through bins of plastic sleeves. In each is a carefully preserved object from the department’s ethnographic collection. Margaris gingerly holds a colorfully threaded sack made from the pericardium—the membrane that surrounds the... Continue Reading

June 22, 2017
Alexia Hudson-Ward Fills Azariah Smith Root’s Very Big Shoes
After a year on the job, Oberlin’s director of libraries shares her vision for the position. Alexia Hudson-Ward likes to brag about her namesake and endowed title, Azariah Smith Root, because anyone in the world of librarianship knows about his legendary career. For the uninitiated, Root (Oberlin graduate of 1884 and... Continue Reading

March 02, 2017
Making an Imprint
Letterpress Printing has been a mainstay of on-campus winter term projects since it began seven years ago. Led by Ed Vermue, Special Collections and Preservation Librarian, the class introduces students to the basics of letterpress printing—typesetting, page architecture, page setting, and illustration—and allows... Continue Reading

August 22, 2016
Who's That Girl?
A marble statue by American sculptor John Adams Jackson (1825-1879), The Reading Girl has held court in the Oberlin College libraries since 1885. She served as a focal point for the central reading rooms of the old Spear and Carnegie libraries before finding a permanent home in Mudd Center, the main library. The Reading Girl... Continue Reading

February 13, 2016
Learning from Activist Mary Church Terrell
This weekend, scholars, historians, and activists will gather on campus to attend the symposium Complicated Relationships: Mary Church Terrell's Legacy for 21st Century Activists. Beginning at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, February 26, and concluding early evening on Saturday, February 27, the symposium will celebrate a significant... Continue Reading

April 15, 2015
Learning through the Letterpress
One of the best resources for hands-on learning at Oberlin hides in plain sight behind large glass windows on the second floor of the Mary Church Terrell Main Library. This is the Letterpress Studio, containing three manual printing presses surrounded by cabinets of moveable type. Special Collections and Preservation... Continue Reading

March 05, 2015
Diversify Your Collection
Some say people read because they want to see themselves in their favorite literary heroes; others claim reading is a process of escapism that allows people to immerse themselves in another world and another life. All Our Worlds: A Database of Diverse Fantastic Fiction, created by second-year Kate Diamond for a winter-term... Continue Reading