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During the summer, fall, and winter of 2022, I was afforded the opportunity to work on a cataloging project for the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives regarding its Elzevir collection. We hoped to completely catalog this collection of more than 700 volumes of rare books to facilitate better access alongside other offerings of the department. It was a tremendous opportunity to develop skills in rare books/special collections cataloging. The Elzevir Printing House was founded in the late 16th century by Lodewijk (Louis) Elzevir in the city of Leiden. The collection consists of the works of the various Elzevir printing houses operated by him and his descendants throughout the modern-day Netherlands in the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries. The collection also contains many works of their contemporaries in the Low Countries, such as Francios Foppens and Abraham Wolfgang, whose work strongly resembles the Elzevirs. The collection was...

Andelina Dreshaj ALBANY, N.Y. (May 13, 2022) –- The University Libraries at the University at Albany, SUNY today announced that second-year doctoral student Andelina Dreshaj was the 2022 Patricia Stocking Brown Research Award recipient. Ms. Dreshaj’s research explores the Women’s Building Collection and how activists in the Albany, New York community, specifically the Committee for a New Korea Policy, were a part of a larger global conversation about capitalism, neocolonialism, human rights, and the creation of asymmetrical geopolitical power. This project was created in the Department of History’s graduate Research Seminar. Dr. Alexander Dawson of the Department of History serves as faculty advisor. The annual Award honors Professor Patricia Stocking Brown, who taught Biology and Women’s and Minorities’ Studies for 35 years at nearby Siena College. Trained at the University of Michigan in comparative endocrinology, and a self-described feminist, Patricia Stocking Brown was the first female faculty member in the...

One of the remarkable aspects of web archiving work is that it allows for greater access to digital content. This serves an obvious purpose of helping scholars and researchers access material that they cannot access in person, but it also lends itself to the visibility and accessibility of voices or communities that have been oppressed or misrepresented throughout history. Through the UAlbany Web Archiving Project, archivists at the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives focus not only on capturing, preserving, and making accessible New York State and University-related web content, but they also are granted the responsibility of helping preserve important projects that are the creation of researchers or faculty. Through these digital repositories, users can learn more about the subject matter, but they serve a greater purpose in representing, or even reworking, how a historical event is described. One example found in the UAlbany Web Archives Collection...

Ruth Murcia ALBANY, N.Y. (April 29, 2021) – The University Libraries at the University at Albany, SUNY today announced that graduate student Ruth Murcia was the 2021 Patricia Stocking Brown Research Award recipient. A second-year master’s student in the Department of History, Ruth Murcia received $500 for her research to explore the complicated relationships between labor organizers, unions, and undocumented workers from Central America in New York during the 1980s. Many of these workers were women performing domestic labor, individuals historically ignored by formal labor law protections. Ms. Murcia is also analyzing the role of politics in these relationships. This project was created in the Department of History’s graduate Research Seminar. Dr. Ryan Irwin of the Department of History serves as faculty advisor. Ms. Murcia enrolled in the combined BA/MA program in History and received her bachelor’s degree in May 2020. She expects to receive her master’s degree next month....

When you think of your freshman year of college, what first comes to mind? Would it be the partying? Maybe even the clubs you joined, or special events your school held? In my case, the first thing that comes to mind is COVID-19. I think about how it shifted my way of learning, and even working. The experience was definitely something new to me, which surprisingly wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated, but I hope it never occurs again. One thing I was excited about, was being employed my freshman year. Not only was the transition into college hard mentally, but financially as well, so a job for myself was a major goal I wanted to accomplish. Thankfully, for my spring semester my professor had introduced me to a position with the Department of Special Collections & Archives at the University at Albany. (This is also a good tip...

My experience working for the Department of Special Collections & Archives was great. I really enjoyed working for the department on campus. But working from home was an adjustment, along with working on my time management. Unfortunately, it has been very hard for me to keep focused and get work done while at home. Supervisory Archivist Jodi Boyle has been very helpful with walking me through this process, which I greatly appreciate. Although I have not been able to completely explore the department, I would like to see more collections from historical Black figures. I am currently working on a minor in Africana Studies and would love to have the opportunity to study the works of historical Black figures that could possibly be featured in the department in the near future. At times it became very challenging to juggle archive work and schoolwork while also dealing with the affects of...

Carissa Halston Shelby Hafener ALBANY, N.Y. (May 1, 2020) – The University Libraries at the University at Albany, SUNY today announced the 2020 Patricia Stocking Brown Research Award recipients are University at Albany graduate student Carissa Halston and undergraduate student Shelby Hafener. A second year doctoral student in the Department of English, Carissa Halston received the graduate award for research on mass incarceration of women in prisons for a novel in-progress that will ultimately become her dissertation. This project, under the supervision of Dr. Laura Tetreault, builds upon work Halston began in the Department of English’s Current Trends in Rhetorical Theory and Research: Research Methods in Rhetoric and Composition course. A senior with a double major in History and Political Science, Shelby Hafener received the undergraduate award for her research into the organization ACT UP’s activism efforts in regard to the New York State prison system and the state’s budget,...

Upon the arrival of the societal table-flipper that is the COVID-19 virus, UAlbany closed down, pushed their students out, and required employees to work remotely. This left me in a place where I had to adapt to a new form of schedule which relied entirely upon my own discipline and choice as opposed to the set structure found on campus. This change allowed me to choose where and when I wanted to work. Instead of working in the brightly lit processing room of the Department of Special Collections & Archives, I would find myself surrounded by family and in the comfort of my own home. Moreover, I would be in a place where I would not have to worry about contracting the pandemic virus. Before the pandemic, my project in the Department of Special Collections & Archives involved vetting books in our department’s stacks to potentially be transferred to the...

Exactly two weeks ago, I was working at the Archives on the reference desk, as students from a variety of classes came to look at collections that they were assigned to for projects that were due right before spring break. While the time before Spring Break is usually busy with students trying to get last minute information before they went home, this time it was different. This time, the students did not know if they would ever get the chance to come back to campus this semester. Nervous students came in, trying to gather as much information as possible, and I tried to manage the reference desk, along with my co-workers, while also being hyper aware to sanitize our hands after we pulled collections from the back or handed a researcher a photo form. This anxiety continued throughout the day, but the staff at the department greeted everyone with a...

Greetings from the University Libraries! Hi my name is Mark Wolfe and I work in the Department of Special Collections and Archives that's actually located in the Science Library. While we wait for the coast to clear again to resume our normal lives, the librarians and archivists are all still here working, but instead of face to face we're helping you online. We can assist you with research projects using historical resources such as digitized photos, digitized audio and video, and digitized documents newspapers, and books. All of these resources that are online are historical in nature. If you're interested in these, you can go to our website, the archives website, which is https://archives.albany.edu. When you get to that website all you have to do is click on a contact button and you'll be led to a form that you fill out with your question or what interest you have...