News & Updates

Adam Wickert joined LITS on April 11 as Desktop Systems Administrator. In this position he provides technical services related to supporting desktop computer hardware and software. In this role, Adam’s focus is supporting the labs and research facilities within academic departments.

The Couper Press recently published a comprehensive collection of more than thirty Iroquois language documents from the Samuel Kirkland Papers at Hamilton College. Dating from 1768-1803, these manuscripts have been transcribed, transliterated, and translated, many for the first time. The volume includes line-by-line photographic illustrations of each letter, along with the translator's work.

A recent acquisition to our general rare books collection is what appears to be a very unassuming 66-page volume entitled Hunter’s Panoramic Guide from Niagara to Quebec by W. S. Hunter published in Montreal, 1857.

It is bound in brown cloth with gold stamped decoration. It measures only 5 inches by 7 and one half inches. However, when you open the front cover, you realize that is a pretty special book.

It is hard to believe, but the 2015-2016 academic year is complete.  At Class and Charter day we celebrated faculty and student achievements, the staff recognition luncheon did the same for our non-faculty employees, and Commencement celebrated the graduation of our seniors.  When our students leave the campus, many Hamilton departments move into high gear to prepare for the start of the next year. 

Christian Goodwillie, LITS Director and Curator of Special Collections and Archives, recently published “Baseball, Beards, Bands, and the Babes: Michigan’s House of David Religious Community” in Ephemera Journal, the quarterly publication of the Ephemera Society of America.

Fifty graduating seniors were recently honored at a luncheon in Burke Library to thank them for their years of service to LITS.  A special feature of the luncheon was the unveiling of books purchased in each student’s honor, based on recommendations by LITS staff.  Student majors and interests are taken into account when selecting the books, and a book plate with their name is placed in the front of each item. These books will become part of the general collection.  

These works are designed to show a personal experience of place. The blurs of color that seem almost randomly arranged represent how I view my surroundings. I break down the things I see into their most basic elements: line, shape and color. By appreciating each element individually, it enables me to have a great understanding of how every part comes together to create what we visually experience.

In groups of 2-3 each, students in Nhora Serrano’s Visual Narratives: Images With(In) Books course were responsible for a collaborative illumination and/or print that ‘considered’ the tenets of “visual textuality,” i.e. images with(in) books.  This interdisciplinary assignment provided the opportunity for students to interrogate the genres of illumination manuscripts and print culture within a visual studies critical lens and in a hands-on manner. 

Join us on Thursday, April 7, at noon in the Burke Library All Night Reading Room for a demonstration of Digital Commons, a web platform that provides faculty with a place to archive and share their scholarship. The event is part of the Library and Information Technology Services’ (LITS) ongoing initiative to help faculty make their scholarly work more widely available to other scholars, students, and the general public.

“It’s a Google and two clicks to get to the [Bon Appétit] menu,” Chris Lee ’16 noted, “and that’s just annoying.” Lee, a computer science major, isn’t being lazy; he understands that in the age of smartphones, convenience often determines usefulness. With this in mind, Hamilton App, available on both the App Store and the Play Store, aims to “centralize information to one useful app for the benefit of students, alumni, faculty and staff.”