Browse Exhibits (34 total)
The Rise of Hamilton: An American Musical
Hamilton is a musical about the life of American founding father Alexander Hamilton, with music, lyrics, and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It was inspired by the biography Alexander Hamilton written by historian Ron Chernow.
This collection documents the musical from its inception to its premiere on Broadway. It is important because it is unlike any musical created before. There is no uniform style to its music. It features rap, hip hop, and R&B.
The cast includes actors of diverse backgrounds to showcase America today while telling the story of its past.
The items in the collection include tweets, videos, audio, and articles.
Brexit and the People
This collection includes digital materials posted after the "Brexit" vote that took place in the United Kingdom, a referendum poised to British voters on June 23, 2016 whether to leave or remain in the European Union. This referendum came as a result of a campaign promise made by former Prime Minister David Cameron, that if the Conservative Party should win a general majority in the 2015 parliamentary elections, the government would negotiate better arrangements to continue British membership before holding a referendum whether or not to leave the EU, of which the UK had been a member since 1973. The vote was close, with those who voted "leave" at 51.9% and those who voted "remain" at 48.1%. The process of leaving the EU has already begun, with a tentative plan to officially leave by 2019.
The collection consists of news articles and blog posts, Twitter posts, and YouTube videos, focused on why people voted the way they did, whether they had regret for their vote afterwards, and how some are now being (or could potentially be) impacted by the "leave" vote.
The importance of this collection stems from the Brexit vote being one of the most important political events in recent British history. The ramifications of voting to leave the EU will be felt in the short and long term, with the future consequences to the UK, the EU, and even the world still left to be seen.
Data Curation in the Wild
This collection highlights researchers' experiences with data curation within their fields, and case studies where data curation, existent or non-existent, made a difference to scientific progress. Consisting of blog posts, online articles, and Tweets, this collection highlights the informal and often-overlooked channels through which data curation is discussed.
The Howard El Project-1985
This is a photographic collection by Elizabeth Morris, drawn from her student work at Columbia College Chicago, 1982-1987. During these years, Ms. Morris worked in black & white, and used multiple silver gelatin, negative formats; 35mm, 2.25 x 2.25, and 4 x 5.
The Howard El Project photographs depict a fascination with portraiture and, social documentary photography. This small collection is of educational interest to researchers studying clothing, identity, and ethnicity in Chicago during the 1980's. Details of clothing, hair, and even manner expressed in these portraits are of interest to photographers, social scientists, historians, and costumers. This digitization project makes available a snapshot of Chicago culture, for institutions focused on Chicago cultural heritage.
Ms. Morris took photographs over a five-week period, in April and May of 1985, on the CTA Howard St. elevated train platform in Rogers Park, and produced a collection of 35 images for her View Camera class final. The Howard St. station is a transfer point for people going to and from Chicago. The project was conceived to be an opportunity to approach a wide variety of people in a real-life setting, during Friday afternoon rush hours, using a 4 x 5 view camera as a starting point for conversions, that would lead to strangers posing for a portrait.
Ms. Morris secured permission from CTA staff to set up her camera on a platform facing South, and put down a piece of masking tape for subjects to stand on. After getting a subject to stand, she went under a black cloth to focus the lens, emerged to engage the subject, pulled the flap on the film holder, and then used a long cable to depress the shutter. After the image was taken, the flap was re-inserted to protect the exposure. The challenge was to approach total strangers, gain their trust within a few moments, as well as carry out the technical work of working with a view camera.
Working with a view camera involves many steps done by hand. The photographer must load and remove the film into holders in total darkness. Developing the negatives is done in hand held processing tanks, filled with various chemicals, in specific time frames. If there is too little developer, the temperature is too warm or cold, or the tank is shaken too hard, the film can receive permanent damage that is visible when printing the images, some of Ms. Morris’s prints reflect these types of technical struggles. All negatives were printed as contact prints, reflective of their true film size, on a tinted silver gelatin coated Agfa paper. There was no formal agreement of rights with the subjects, other than a verbal agreement not to sell their image for commercial purpose. The final project was presented on five mats cut with seven windows each, mimicking train cars and their windows.
DeWitt Wallace Library Level 2 Renovation
Macalester College is a small coed liberal arts institution located in St. Paul, Minnesota. It teaches about 2,100 students from all over the nation and the world on its 53 acre campus.
The school was founded in 1874 by Rev. Edward Duffield Neill. Although a reverand fuoonded the school he wanted to ensure that his new school would be Presbyterian-affiliated but nonsectarian, so that it was more inclusive. The school offiially opened in 1885 after the help and large donation from Charles Macalester a Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist.
Macalester has always been very demanding yet open about the values of both facutly and students. These values were formed by the constant advancement of the strengths and goals held by the school. Today the school focuses primarily on Global Citizenship and Local Engagement and requires all students to focus on these values as well. According to President Brian Rosenberg, "Global citizenship begins with responsible and reflective local engagement that transcends parochial concerns and regards all human beings as fellow citizens."
The DeWitt Wallace Library was named after DeWitt Wallace, the son to James Wallace, Macalester alumni and president back in the early 20th century. DeWitt himself was also an alumni and went on to co-found Reader's Digest with his wife Lila Bell Wallace in 1922. Both Wallaces donated a fair amount to the college. DeWitt specifically offered help to the library, earning the title of the completed building.
The renovation of the second level of the DeWitt Wallace Library, the sole library on campus, was insprired by the school's values of global citizenship and local engagement. Renovations encourage students to explore their creativity, work collaboratively, and expand their curiosities. All of which are becoming more commonplace in public libraries, for a good reason. The new space is encouraging students to learn more on their own terms which supports global citizenship and local engagement by allowing students to explore those terms.
The old floor included standard library stacks, with tables for studying, a few group study rooms, the Rare Books and Archives collection, and offices for the academic librarians and similar school staff/faculty. The new space offerrs:
- Content Creation Labs
- More Comfortable Quiet Reading Spaces
- More Comfortable Collaborative Working Spaces
- Classroom 2020 Learning Lab
- Special Collections – Expanding access and space
- Media Collections Consolidated
- Expanded Hours Study Space
It is incredibly exciting to see the old and new values of Macalester College being integrated so actively into the 21st century and intto a space that allow free thinking, collaboration, and curiosity. The renovation began in May 2017 and was completed by the time school started up again on September 1, 2017. Although the semester is still just beginning the newly renovated second floor is receiving rave reviews and visits from excited students.
History of the Butler Lecture Series
The annual Butler Lecture series is hosted by the Butler Children’s Literature Center in Dominican University’s School of Information Studies, and is generously supported by the Butler Family Foundation. This collection represents an archive of documents, images, and web pages related to the Butler Lecture since its inception in 2013, including Lecturer head shots, biographies, and book jackets; and promotional items, social media posts, and publicity about the Lecturers. We hope to augment this collection beginning in 2018 with the actual texts, and perhaps audio or video recordings, of the Lectures.
Potterheads: Telling Their Own Story
Discover how fans of the Harry Potter series grow their imaginations and love beyond the original books creating a living movement.
Fandoms are a world wide phenomenon that stretches to every corner of the Earth. Any series of books, TV shows, movies, graphic novels, anima, manga, or creative word that catches in the imaginations of fans can evolve into a fandom.
These fandoms develop as special communities where most of the interactions and art, inspired by the original work, is contained online or born digital. Each fandom generally has a specific name derived from the original work, the focus of this collection is on one of the largest fandoms in the world, Potterheads, the Harry Potter Fandom.
The Harry Potter fandom is unique because it was originally a series of books which were then created into movies. Recently, the author, JK Rowling has expanded the universe via movies and a play. As a result of the different mediums used to tell the story the range of Potterheads are quite wide, but tend to be focused in these main areas:
Book Series Fans
Movie Series Fans
Fantastic Beast & Where to Find Them Fans
Fans of the different areas have slightly differing opinions on the outcomes and enjoy discussing their theories and creating their own version of the story online.
Fan Art: which depicts personalized interpretations of the characters created by JK Rowling.
Fanfiction: where fans use the characters created by JK Rowling, to expand the original stories. These are often set in everyday life, with the characters exploring feelings and friendships that are not explicit in Rowling's work.
Social Media Posts: fans sharing their imagined interactions between characters. These are often conversations or quotes that were never in the original series. Many posts shared are also applying elements of the series to everyday life interactions.
Fan Discussion Boards: fan created communities where any topic is discussed in minute detail. No theory or question is too obscure to be dissected.
Fan Articles: fans create news articles for various sites which discuss and interpret the books and movies in the series. These are written in a professional manner like entertainment or news outlet articles, yet are focused only on the Harry Potter world.
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all Harry Potter Characters. Any fan creations are made for their own enjoyment without the intention of selling or profiting from the work.
Anxiety in the Age of Trump
The United States 2016 presidential election has brought the country an extreme case of Trump anxiety. Therapist offices are overflowing with clients trying to make sense of the myriad of issues, offensive language, and presidential orders that generate division, hate, and hopelessness. This is a time unlike any other, and there is a daily desire to end the nightmare called Trump. Anyone that suffered from anxiety and depression before the 2016 campaign, has an added burden but many more friends to share the pain with. Now is a great time to address the stigma of mental illness, as so many others now deal with daily anxiety.
This collection is important because it provides primary resources on the symptoms of anxiety and depression, a host of articles and blog posts for young and old, self-care tips, audio resources for inspiration and thought, and an image gallery for experiencing the power of images to disturb our well-being, or provide comic relief. The curation of this collection involved choosing views from the middle or left political spectrum, focusing on serious, entertainment, and blog media, with minimal focus on social media. The collection also was designed to take the viewer through a complete experience, most importantly providing some positive messages in the In-Being audio collection. The Anxiety in the Age of Trump collection is a survival guide, meant to bring people together and assist in the understanding of mental illness.
History of DIY –– from Punk to Everyday Culture
DIY (Do It Yourself) is a cultural phenomenon flourishing in many countries all over the world. This collection will focus on DIY culture in the West from the U.K. to the United States. The collection answers the question; where did the term DIY come from? It encompasses many ideas and practice of self-made-culture from home improvement, the alternative music scene, to arts and craft revolution we see spreading everywhere.
From the home-improvement scene to the punk scene, DIY culture has a long and varied tradition. It has often inspired counterculture movements. Today people are shunning mainstream consumerism for self-made goods from DIY websites like Etsy. Individuals are building their furniture and making clothing, jewelry, and ceramic ware. The collection is for researchers of the DIY movement and artists alike looking for inspiration for their next project.
Women who run and the violence they face
A walk through two murders and how the running community reacted verses the political community.