Special Collections Department Information: 

News and Events

2007

Donation from the Memorial Union:  In 1976, the MU purchased a number of historical works for display during the country's Bicentennial.  These works have now been donated to the Special Collections Department, and they include the following titles:

An Astronomical Diary (1777)

Common Sense (1776)

Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty (1776)

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1791)

A Valedictory Address to the Young Gentlemen (1776)

"Treasures from the Archives: 150 Years of Iowa State University," is open to the public during the Department's open hours, 8-5, M-F.  The display includes the original 1858 legislative Act founding the university and other artifacts.

2006

The Iowa State University Campus and Buildings, 1859-1979 (by H. Summerfield Day), is now available online!

2005

Reading Room Renovation Update:

To see photographs of the renovation...

Grants  (2004):

Reading Room Renovation:
The Lennox Foundation is donating $75,000 to renovate the Department's Reading Room.  The project will include the updating of technical equipment, lighting, and wiring, the purchase of museum quality exhibit cases, new furniture and carpeting, and a pilot project to provide laptops for researchers.

WOI-TV:
$4,000 from the National Television and Video Preservation Foundation to create BetaSP video masters of selected episodes of WOI-TV's The Whole Town's Talking: An Experiment in Democracy, which are currently only available on 16mm film. The episodes were chosen due to their focus on the school consolidation issue in the community discussion as well as being directed by Academy Award winner, Charles Guggenheim.

Award (May, 2004):

The Special Collections Department at the Iowa State University Library, has won the National History Day in Iowa Kids Count! Award for Outstanding Service to Youth Researchers for providing access to primary documents for K-12 researchers in Iowa.  Two Iowa project participants (who used the department's collections on George Washington Carver and Roswell Garst) have proceeded to the national competition. 

Traveling Exhibit  (Spring-Summer, 2004):

The Archives of Women in Science and Engineering, Special Collections Department-Iowa State University Library, will be sponsoring the Chemical Heritage Foundation traveling exhibit, "Her Lab in Your Life: Women in Chemistry," from late May through mid-July.  The exhibit location will be in the main Library lobby area.  The exhibit will focus on the following three themes:  women chemists have improved our understanding of the physical world; they have helped shape the material circumstances and popular culture of our everyday lives; and they have broken new ground in the chemical professions and served as role models for young women.

New Collections  (2003):

During 2003, the Department received approximately 230 donations of archival material and books. Some new collections (which will be made available to the public in 2004), include:

Papers of Autumn Stanley, independent scholar and author of Mothers and daughters of invention : notes for a revised history of technology  (1993)

Papers of Lee Anne Willson, University Professor in Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University

Photograph collection of 76 master silver gelatin prints by Michael P. Harker, author of Harker's barns :visions of an American icon (2003)

Records of Common Threads, an Iowa sewing club, donated by Victoria Irons Walch of Iowa City

Selection of advertising prints donated by alumnus Frank Champion Murphy, a Chicago, Illinois, freelance artist specializing in illustrations of livestock.

Re-creation of Carrie Chapman Catt Library  (2003):

During the spring semester, the Special Collections Department will be coordinating the locating of the original library of Carrie Chapman Catt, which she donated to the ISU Library, 1938-1947.  The books will be transferred to the Special Collections Dept., and identified in the Library catalog.  This project is being funded by the College of Liberal Arts and Science as part of a proposal by Asst. Professor, Kevin Amidon (Foreign Languages and Literature) and Assoc. Professor, Tanya Zanish-Belcher (ISU Library). 

Society of Women Engineers Archives National Exhibit  (2003):

From February 17 through May (2003), a national exhibit focusing on women engineers and created by the Society of Women Engineers Archives (Wayne State University) will be hosted by the Iowa State University Library in its main lobby.  The exhibit and other events are being sponsored by the Archives of Women in Science and Engineering (Special Collections Dept., ISU Library), and ISU's Program for Women in Science and Engineering. 

American Archives of the Factual Film (AAFF):

Announcement:  As of June 30, 2002, the catalog of the American Archives of the Factual Film (AAFF) as well as films in the AAFF collection, will no longer be available to the public.  Due to budget constraints, the Library is refocusing collection priorities, and is consequently in the process of investigating the transfer of this valuable film collection to a repository of national prominence.

Grant Award:  Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation  (2001)

The Iowa State University Library is pleased to announce that the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation has awarded the Archives of Women in Science and Engineering a $25,000 grant to conduct an oral history project focused on women who have devoted their careers to the study of chemistry in the post-World War II era.

The University Library's project will document the careers and experiences of women in chemistry and chemical engineering to illustrate the critical role of women in science.  The Archives of Women in Science and Engineering will partner with National Public Radio station WOI to create a broadcast series.  Further, it will provide K-12 and professional outreach in collaboration with national chemistry organizations and national academic programs for women.

Grant Award:  National Film Preservation Foundation  (2001)

The NFPF awarded $6,500 to the American Archives of the Factual Film, located in the Special Collections Department at the Iowa State University Library.  The grant will fund a film laboratory transfer of six nitrate-based film (to safety film) in the Rath Packing Company Collection.

History Day Visit:  9-2, February 22, 2001

The Special Collections staff will be hosting 8th grade students participating in History Day from the central Iowa area who will be visiting the Iowa State University Library.  There will be presentations on using primary sources, working in the Library and conducting research for primary materials on the World Wide Web, and behind-the-scenes tours of the Special Collections Department.

History Day Workshop: Using the web

Open House: October 1, 2000--Sunday, 1-4 p.m.

To celebrate Brunnier Museum's Christian Petersen exhibit, there were a community-wide open houses for the public.  The Special Collections Department was open on Sunday from 1-4, and the public viewed its exhibit, Christian Petersen: Artist and Teacher.  Also on display on the ISU Library's 2nd Floor President's Rotunda, were reproductions of Petersen sketches.

New exhibit on the history of campus buildings at Iowa State University

Including pictures and historical information, this exhibit is a good starting point for your research on the history of campus buildings at ISU.  The exhibit is titled, "From Prairie Sod to Campus Cornerstones: Building Our Campus History."

Iowa State University unveiled new portrait of Dr. and Mrs. Parks  (April, 2000)

Former Iowa State University President W. Robert Parks and his late wife, Ellen Sorge Parks, were honored on Friday, April 14th when a portrait of them was unveiled. Iowa State's main library was named in honor of Dr. and Mrs. Parks in 1984.

Special Collections in "Inside Iowa State," January 21, 2000
Special Collections job: part sleuth, part historian, by Linda Charles

Iowa Award honors Atanasoff

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack presented the family of John V. Atanasoff with the Iowa Award in a ceremony in the Howe Hall auditorium Tuesday, Nov. 2. Atanasoff invented the first electronic digital computer, doing his pioneering work while a professor at Iowa State in the 1930s and early 1940s.  Accepting the award was Atanasoff's son John V. Atanasoff II, Boulder, Colo. The Iowa Award is the state's highest citizen award. Presented every four or five years, it recognizes the outstanding service of Iowans in numerous fields including science.

Donation of J.V Atanasoff papers  (June 1999)

Books, papers, and memorabilia from the estate of John V. Atanasoff were turned over to Iowa State during a ceremony on Friday, June 4, 1999 in the Memorial Union Sun Room. The presentation was made by Atanasoff's widow, Alice Atanasoff; and his son, John V. Atanasoff II.

The collection includes books from Atanasoff's library, court papers from the trial that proved Atanasoff was the inventor of the first electronic digital computer, and notes and papers on the designs of several of his other inventions. The collection will be housed in the Special Collections Department of the Iowa State University Library.

Inauguration of the WISE Archives--Library's two-millionth volume  (April 1994)

Instituzioni Analitiche Libro Primo
Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799)

In October 1974, the Iowa State University Library celebrated a milestone in its history, the acquisition of its one-millionth volume. That volume, a first edition of Leonardo da Vinci's Trattato della Pittura (1651), was chosen because Leonardo 's work symbolized the ties among science, the arts, and the humanities -- ties essential to the mission of Iowa State University. Now, twenty years later, Iowa State University's Library celebrates another milestone in its history, one equally significant: the acquisition of its two-millionth volume. The two-volume set chosen for this honor is a first edition of Maria Gaetana Agnesi's Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventu italiana -- or Analytical Institutions for the Use of the Youth of Italy -- published in Milan, Italy in 1748.

Last update: 10 December 2003

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