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The exhibit The Secret Lives of Toys and Their Friends is on display in the lobby of the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives on the third floor of the Science Library at the University at Albany. A small number of items and information from the exhibit are made available online at http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/secretlives/ as an introduction to the physical exhibit. This exhibit contains items drawn from The Miriam Snow Mathes Historical Children’s Literature Collection and is on exhibit through early October 2006. This exhibit features a small sampling of the many stories written for children from either a toy’s point of view or about adventures based on the lives of living toys or objects. The over fifty items in the physical exhibit, including the small number displayed in the online exhibit, are a fraction of what the Mathes Collection contains on the subject of animated objects and/or toys....

The M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives will resume evening hours with the beginning of the Fall Semester on Tuesday, September 5, 2006. The Department's regular hours during the Fall Semester will be: Monday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Exceptions: Monday, September 4th: Closed Wednesday, November 22nd: Closed at 5 p.m. Thursday, November 23rd: Closed

The M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives is one of nine institutions in New York State to receive a grant from the New York State Archives' Documentary Heritage Program for 2006-2007. The award of over $12,000 will be used to arrange and describe records related to environmental affairs including the collections of New York Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides and Lou Ismay. Louis Ismay was a member of the Department of Fine Arts at the State University of New York at Albany (as the University at Albany, SUNY was then known). However, this collection documents his work with the Environmental Studies Program in general and the Environmental Forum class in particular. The collection also documents organizations such as the Protect Your Environment Club. New York Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NYCAP) was formed as a non-profit citizens' organization committed to reducing hazardous chemical pesticide use through education and...

Over 1,000 publications and 4,000 photographs from the records of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), United University Professions, and IUE-CWA (International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers) Local 301 were recently made available online. The digitization of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) newsletters was begun with the support of CSEA with issues of The Civil Service Leader from the years 1946-1947 and 1950-1953 currently available in PDF format through the finding aid for the collection, which is available at http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/findaids/apap015.htm. The digitization of the CSEA’s newsletters is an ongoing project and eventually issues from 1944-1989 of The Civil Service Leader and its successor The Public Sector will be available online. Also, over 700 images documenting labor from the early 20th century to the present from the records of CSEA are also available online. A link to the CSEA images in the University at Albany Libraries’...

The program "University in Exile: Refugee Scholars, the New School for Social Research, and the German and Jewish Intellectual Émigré Collection" sponsored by the University Libraries, Center for Jewish Studies, and the College of Arts and Sciences will be presented on Thursday, October 12, 2006, in the Standish Room of the Science Library. The program will include: Dr. Claus-Dieter Krohn's discussion of this unique period of immigration; Dr. Johannes Evelein's discussion of the role of émigré writers in American intellectual history; and Dr. John M. Spalek's discussion of the founding and growth of the German and Jewish Intellectual Émigré Collection at the University at Albany Libraries. Additional information about the program is available at http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/EmigreProgram_flyer2.pdf. The German and Jewish Intellectual Émigré Collection in the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives presently consists of more than 1,500 cubic feet of personal papers, organizational records, political pamphlets, tape recordings, photographs,...

The Sciences at the University at Albany, 1845-2006 is currently on exhibit in the lobby of the Science Library. The exhibit contains items from the University Archives as well as contributions from current faculty members. A small number of items and information from the exhibit are made available online at http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/sciences/ as an introduction to the physical exhibit. The exhibit examines the growth of and changes in science education and research at the University at Albany over its long history through publications, photographs, class notes, memorabilia, and other records documenting University students, faculty, departments, and research centers.

The Capital Punishment Clemency Petitions Collection has been digitized and links to PDF files of the petitions are available from the finding aid for the collection at http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/findaids/apap214.htm. Unlike judicial proceedings, claims raised in clemency petitions are free of procedural defaults that can mask error, unfairness, or irrationality in a given death sentence. Petitions thus can reveal what the sentencing authority may not have known because of attorney error, prosecutorial misconduct, newly discovered evidence, or other reasons. As part of his work with The Constitution Project, William J. Bowers established the Capital Punishment Clemency Petitions Collection Collection at the National Death Penalty Archive in the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives. This collection comprises approximately 150 clemency petitions in death penalty cases, from almost two dozens jurisdictions. It is the initial installment in a collection that attempts to gather all death penalty clemency petitions filed in the United...