Dear Friends of SCU Archives & Special Collections,
Happy New Year! Winter quarter is usually our busiest time in the Archives & Special Collections Department. We expect to have a few classes every week in the reading room this quarter, as well as continuing our regular work answering your questions, providing access to rare materials and curating our collections.
Reading Room Hours for Winter 2024
Starting on the first day of classes (January 8th), we will be going back to our regular hours: Monday through Thursday from 10 am to 5 pm and Friday 10 am to 3 pm. Finals week and Spring recess (March 18-28) will be by appointment.
Please remember that we need time to retrieve materials from the vault for your visit, so try to email us in advance for a research appointment at specialcollections@scu.edu
New A&SC Student Assistants!
Pooja Gona
We are happy to welcome to Pooja Gona to A&SC! Pooja started working for us in the beginning of fall quarter and also works at the main library help desk. She is working on her Master’s degree in Computer Science at Santa Clara University and is an international student from India.
Aditya Patni
Welcome to Aditya Patni, our newest student worker! Aditya joined our team at the end of fall quarter. He is also working on his Master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Santa Clara University and is an international student from India.
Collection Spotlights
New Faculty Publications
A&SC continues to collect new faculty publications. Faculty are invited to deposit their new research publications with the department, either online with ScholarCommons or physically with special collections. For deposits of digital publications, faculty can contact Ray Scroggin. For physical copies, we collect faculty books in their first edition and inquiries can be sent to A&SC director Nadia Nasr. We anticipate this year’s New Faculty Publication Reception to be held in the Reading Room on March 13th from 4-6 pm.
Stainforth Additions
To continue supporting faculty research and teaching, A&SC has recently purchased several works related to the Stainforth Library of Women’s Writing, a digital humanities project led by SCU English faculty Kirstyn Leuner. We have acquired the published Stainforth Catalog (1867), a list of books mainly by early modern English women poets that were sold at auction after the death of Francis John Stainforth (1797-1866), as well as two works with bookplates showing that they are from his collection, Jane Cave’s Poems on Various Subjects, entertaining, elegiac, and religious (1786) and Katherine Philip’s Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (1710). Together with another Stainforth book, Celia Moss & Marion Moss’s Early efforts: a volume of poems by the Misses Moss, of the Hebrew Nation, aged 18 and 16, these new additions will be featured in Dr. Leuner’s 18th Century Literature course (ENGL 144) this winter.
Recent Blog Posts
Origin Unknown: A Mysterious Rare Book Leaf
How do you identify a book leaf that has been removed from its binding? What if the accompanying information is wrong? This post gives background on the Stanley Slotkin Collection, which consists of a set of rare book leaves on (mostly) religious topics that is currently being processed as an archival collection. It delves into how we identified a rare woodcut from a German incunable.
Support A&SC
We welcome your support! If you would like to donate towards preserving and making available Santa Clara University’s rare and unique materials, please consider giving a donation to University Library, Archives and Special Collections.