Special Collections update

The Special Collections Department welcomes visits from ISU classes for tours and presentations. Such visits can be tailored to the needs and interests of the group. In addition to a general introduction to Special Collections and a behind-the-scenes tour of the department, visits may include a presentation focusing on a particular area of the department's collections such as rare books, agricultural collections, photographs, or artifacts. Department staff is also happy to work with professors to develop class projects using Special Collections resources.

Recent class visits have included an English 375 class which looked at numerous seventeenth and eighteenth century books, including Diderot's Encyclopédie. Students from Greek 102 were given a presentation on incunabula. English 105/Horticulture 221 students recently visited several times to look at nineteenth century seed catalogs for a project comparing them to modern seed catalogs.

Class visits must be arranged in advance. For more information, or to set up a tour or presentation, please contact Tanya Zanish-Belcher, Head of Special Collections, at tzanish@iastate.edu or (515) 294-6648.