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.

Holiday Cards from HWS Presidents

Archives has digitized our collection of Holiday Cards sent between 1919 and the present by Hobart and William Smith Colleges Presidents and other officials. Take a look and get in the mood for your holiday of choice, or just the school break.


The oldest card in our collection, sent by President Bartlett between 1919 and 1939.

Thanksgiving Week Hours

Please note our reduced hours this week. The library will close at 3 pm on Wednesday for Thanksgiving break and will reopen on Sunday with regular hours. We hope you all have a good and restful break!

Archives Scrapbook Collection

Join us this Friday, November 7, between Noon and 4:45 in the Rare Book Room on the lower level to view several scrapbooks from members of the early classes of William Smith College.

Serendipity in the Archives

October is American Archives Month. Join us next Wednesday, October 22, at 7:30 PM in the Learning Commons Presentation Room (Warren Hunting Smith Library, 1st floor) for a talk by Michael Tinkler, Associate Professor of Art. Professor Tinkler will talk about "Serendipity in the Archives" -- how an archives visit to answer a simple question of fact turned into a research project, an article, and a new field of interest. Tinkler, a medievalist, while preparing to give a tour of Hobart's St. John's Chapel on behalf of the Geneva Historical Society, ended up learning much more about Gothic Revival than he ever expected - and is working on it still!