William Smith biography digitized

This short biography of William Smith was written circa 1924 by Anna Botsford Comstock. Enjoy!

J. G. Vail Portraits Online

J. G. Vail was a photographer in Geneva in the second half of the 19th century. The Colleges' Archives has a collection of portraits of local citizens in a format called cartes-de-visite. Through our participation in the Rochester Regional Library Council's Finger Lakes/Genesee River Valley Heritage project, we are able to make them available online using a digital collection solution called CONTENTdm. Each of Vail's cartes-de-visites has been scanned both front and back. In addition, the collection includes a selection of stereographs Vail took of Geneva and Hobart College. The Vail collection of images may be viewed at: http://cdm15109.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/p277601coll11

Archives open for Reunion Weekend

The Archives will be open on Friday June 5th from 10am-3pm for Reunion. Stop by and take a look.

Senior student workers honored

Each year we honor our Senior student workers by purchasing a book of their choice for the collection. A book plate in their honor is placed in the front of the book.



This year's honorees:

Taylor Eliza Braendel, Killer Angels

Sarah Holland, Ecology of Woodlands and Forests: Description, Dynamics and Diversity

Hayley Mason, Outlaw Bible of American Poetry

Oliver Meeker, Lessons of the Vietnam War (containing chapter: Boat People and Vietnamese Refugees in the United States)

Kelsey Rioux, Wildlife and Society: The Science of Human Dimensions

Caitlin Seadale, Everyone Poops

Jennie Seidewand, Wall and Piece

Deana Stuart, Best Plays of 2004-2005

Mame Thiam, Cosmospolitanism

Daniel Thorson, Breaking Open the Head

Dale Watkins, Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture

Kristin Yerkie, Adolescents and Risk

Valerie Saiving Papers

Valerie Saiving taught Religious Studies at the Colleges from 1959 to 1987. She is often hailed as a founder of feminist religion with her 1960 article "The Human Situation: A Feminine View" originally published in the Journal of Religion. In the article she forms what can be called a feminine complaint against contemporary theologians who make the mistake, she believes, of assuming that a "thinking man's theology is equally good for a thinking woman."

Valerie Saiving received the Distinguished Faculty Award last year and her daughter, Emily Gray donated her papers to our archives. You can access the Finding Aid to her papers via the Archives web site.

Mummy Preservation

Our mummy has been laid to rest.

The mummy had been on display here in the library for close to 20 years. In that time she was visited by campus and local community members often. Due concerns about her continued exposure to the light and her ongoing preservation, along with lack of display space with the Learning Commons renovation, it was decided it was time to see to her welfare.



She is now at rest in our climate controlled art storage room. We took every care to make sure she would preserved in line with the best practices of the day. And, we feel certain that any curses have been lifted since she is back in the dark where she longed to be.