Learn about research done by Dor Nadler BA ’24, winner of the James L. Kopp Library Research Award

A new Special Collections exhibition, Artistic Networks of the Centaur Press, is on display near the elevator on the third floor of Watzek Library. 

Curated by Orion Whitcher (’24) and Juliana Wullenjohn (’24), this exhibition examines the Centaur Press, a small printing press active in San Francisco during the 1940s and 50s, which facilitated freedom of expression and the capacity for self-representation, particularly women and queer individuals. Drawing from the Kermit Sheets Collection, archival materials reveal the Press’s Oregon roots, prominent female authors, and its focus on sexual and queer themes. 

Watzek invites graduating seniors to share their favorite books.

For this semester’s vinyl mix, Watzek Spins brings you some punky classics and not-so-classics from across the globe, plus krautrock and disco beats. It’s the best thing since microfilm. Check out Punky Highschool Love, digitized and compiled by Center for Cassette Studies.  See you in the stacks! 

Grab a free, custom copy of this year’s Everybody Reads title at Watzek Library and Boley Law Library!  In support of Multnomah County Library’s community reading project, copies of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin are available on campus. Read, reflect, and learn together in online and in-person activities outlined in the accompanying project guide.  Everybody Reads is a community-wide project that promotes shared reading and discussion around a single book. Watzek and Boley will facilitate book discussions in March.

Wellness Kits are now available at the Library Service Desk!  Each kit contains a light therapy lamp, a push pop sensory toy, and two hourglass timers. Kits are available for four hour check out.

Looking for extra quiet?  There are ear plugs and noise canceling headphones available at the Service Desk too!      

One of two winners of last year’s library research award offers this encouragement: “Everyone is required to take a Bibliographic Research in Writing class at L&C, and the Kopp Award provides a little extra push to polish that final product and make it something you’re proud of!”

The Himes & Duniway Society, a rare and antiquarian bibliographic society in Portland, is bringing their book collection competition to Lewis & Clark again this year! Current undergraduate and graduate students are invited to apply for the $500 prize, to be awarded to two students with the most compelling personal book collections and accompanying essays.

Need in-depth help with your research? Schedule a research consultation–a personalized session with a librarian on how to approach the research process for your project.

https://library.lclark.edu/help/consultation

Fortune and Glory, a collaborative faculty-student history exhibition, is on display in Watzek Library from now until June 2024.

This fall we’ve been delighted to feature the art of Alex Nash ’25 on the library’s lamp posts. Alex, a psychology major and art/art history minor from Pasadena, California, created Watzek’s first set of welcome banners, meant to welcome students to the library and campus at the start of the academic year. Alex’s design was inspired by their own experiences as a new student on campus…

In celebration of Queer History Month, a selection of books brought to you by Inclusion & Multicultural Engagement (IME) and Watzek Library are on display in the library atrium. All titles are available to check out.

Head of Watzek Library Special Collections and College Archivist Hannah Crummé has secured a $150K National Historical Publications and Records (NHPRC) grant from the National Archives and Records Administration. Beginning in September 2023, this competitive grant will provide two years of support for Special Collections’ Vietnamese Portland: History, Memory, Community Project.

Check out most library materials for at least 12 weeks! Visit our Borrowing Information page for a complete list of available items and loan periods. 

Celebrate the wonder of poetry with a book from Watzek’s new display, just inside the gates! All titles may be borrowed for a normal amount of time.

Students enrolled in CHEM 330 during Fall 2022 present their research in the poster exhibit “We are all the same, but we are all different”.  In collaboration with Dr. Jean-Philippe Gourdine, Mia Hernandez ’23 discusses the Diversity of Human Hair & Methods of Categorization, and Lara Koyshman ’23 and Maryam Al-Ghezi ’23 present on Tracing Human Migrations with the Microbiome, in and out of Africa.  The posters will be on display in the Watzek Library atrium through March 3.

Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being is the Multnomah County Library Everybody Reads 2023 title. In support of this community reading project, free custom copies are available for pick up at Watzek Library and Boley Law Library. Read, reflect, and participate in online and in-person activities outlined in Multnomah County Library’s accompanying project guide.  Explore the power of books to create a stronger community!

Watzek Library now has four pairs of noise canceling headphones that can be checked out for 4-hour loan.  They have cords so you can use them to listen to a device, or you can just turn the power button on to have silence. They are located at the library service desk.  

In recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Heritage Month, a selection of titles by and about Indigenous peoples are on display in the Watzek Library Atrium.  All titles are available to check out.

Katherine Dunn died in 2016, leaving behind the unpublished manuscript of her novel, Toad, in the Special Collections of Lewis & Clark College.  The digital exhibit The Goldfish Won’t Complain explores Naomi Huffman’s editorial process as she worked to bring Dunn’s novel to life and to print.

Are you writing a research paper this term? You may be eligible to apply for the James J. Kopp Library Research Award! Students in classes with a Bibliographic Research in Writing designation are invited to apply for the award between April 28 and May 8.

During April there is nationwide recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). Demonstrate your commitment to supporting survivors and creating a safer campus by contributing to the Paper Chain Project in the Watzek Library atrium.  This initiative collects anonymous responses to prompts related to support for survivors and community safety.  These will be linked together to create a paper chain at the end of the month in a visual display for reflection, community building, and contemplation.  

Fans of former Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford can get a never-before-seen look at early drafts of his poetry—and the folk art and Americana that informed them—at an exhibition devoted to the Kim Stafford Archive. The exhibition, located in Watzek Library, will be on view through the fall semester.

Join Inclusion & Multicultural Engagement, ONE L&C, and L&C Libraries in reading Multnomah County Library’s Everybody Reads 2022 selection by Mira Jacob, Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations.

On campus book discussions will be held in early March, including:

Thursday, March 3 at 12:00 in Akin Lounge (LC ID needed to access Residence Hall)
Thursday, March 3 at 3:30 in Watzek Classroom 245 (RSVP for headcount)

Are you writing a research paper this term? If so, you may be eligible to apply for the James J. Kopp Library Research Award! Students doing research in classes with a Bibliographic Research in Writing (BRW) designation are invited to apply for the award between December 8 and December 19.

This exhibit explores joy and community as forms of resilience for Vietnamese Portlanders by showcasing photographs, writings, and quotes from a diverse range of Vietnamese voices.Curated by L&C students Ben Warner ’22 and Mei Bailey ’22, it is on display on the top floor of Watzek Library through the end of the fall semester and is available to view online.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded Lewis & Clark $331K in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds for Building Humanities Collections for the Community. Under the leadership of Project Director and Head of Watzek Library Special Collections and College Archivist Dr. Hannah Crummé, this project will rebuild the Special Collections program of Watzek Library and help reinvigorate related curriculum post pandemic shutdown.

Two exhibitions in Watzek Library are celebrating the 40-year anniversary of the gender studies symposia. One, located online and on the top floor of the library, examines “Lack and Absence”. The other, found near the writing center and online, examines the history of the symposia.

Please take a moment to swing by the Watzek Library Atrium to view the winning photos of the LC Overseas and Off-Campus Programs 5th Annual International Photo Contest!

Explore the publication, “Visionaire: Fashion, Capital & Art,” in the Aubrey R. Watzek Library atrium.

Albina was the center of Black life in Portland through most of the twentieth century. City-led urban renewal efforts and systematic disinvestment by financial institutions have led to displacement of the neighborhood’s Black residents. Yet through all this runs a thread of resistance by Albina’s Black community.

This digital exhibit, created by Watzek’s Special Collections and Archives in support of the 17th Annual Ray Warren Symposium at Lewis & Clark, seeks to depict ninety years of Albina’s history with a special focus on acts of resistance by Albina’s Black residents.

On the night of October 10th, 1974, political activist, Angela Davis spoke to a packed audience at the Portland State University auditorium. As reported for the Lewis & Clark College Pioneer Log newspaper by managing editor Rob Rowe ’77, in attendance was a mix of “Old grey radicals, middle-aged revoltationaries, and dissent college students.” Davis, a well known activist, author, and academic, has spoken and taught on the subjects of class, feminism, and the U.S. prison system and was actively engaged with lefitis causes including the Black Panther Party, the Communist Party, and Marxist Feminism.
 

Katherine Dunn (1945-2016), an award-winning author, poet, and journalist, is best known for her critically acclaimed novel Geek Love, first published in 1989. A National Book Award finalist, Geek Lovepropelled Dunn to cult-figure status and amassed a fan base for its unusual characters and imaginative story of the Binewski family carnival. Lewis & Clark College is home to the Katherine Dunn Literary Collection and Archive, which celebrates Dunn as writer, and her novel Geek Loveas a landmark text.

  

The workes of Beniamin Ionsonappeared in the fall of 1616 in a large, imposing folio volume. Running nearly 575 leaves, Ben Jonson’s Workesis a testament to his skills, popularity, but most primarily his determination to have his writings published together in a single volume, demonstrating his flexibility and progression as an English writer. At Lewis & Clark we use our copy of the folio - one of only two held at a liberal arts - to teach lessons about print culture in the sixteenth century.

  

Dr. Alan L. Hart’s life and career was devoted to medical science, including groundbreaking research in radiology and tuberculosis treatment. As a fiction novelist, Hart wrote five books on the subject of medical practice, opening the door of socialized medicine and medical research to the public. He traveled, taught, and spoke on the medical profession for over 40 years. Beyond his medical career, Hart was also a social pioneer as he underwent one of the first female-to-male gender transitions in the United States in 1917.

Watzek Library’s Special Collections contain a number of stories that seem to parallel aspects of life during quarantine. A ship’s log, detailing in manuscript the exciting voyage of an English ship, the Duke of Grafton, seems to offer a perspective on isolation, exhaustion, and the threat of illness, while meanwhile offering a lens on contemporary politics and British colonialism.

  

Twenty-five years before he relocated to Portland, Oregon to become the first president (1942-1960) of the newly renamed Lewis & Clark College, Morgan S. Odell, a strict Methodists and pacifist, enlisted into the U.S. Army. Only 23 when he enlisted, he drove with the ambulance service in Italy through the end of the Great War. Stationed in Oné di Fonte thirty miles northwest of Venice, Odell participated in the Battle of Vittorio-Veneto. Serving on the front lines, he saw the ramifications of poison gas, but also illness as the “Spanish flu” pandemic began to take hold both in Europe and on the homefront.

Our Research Librarians are available to help you via chat and email during the following times*:

• Monday through Friday 9am - 5pm
• Monday through Thursday 7pm - 10 pm
• Sunday 1pm - 5pm

Watzek Library’s Special Collections and Archives has recently added another rare book, an Italian book of hours, to its growing collection of archival materials. The book was acquired thanks to a highly competitive grant from the B.H. Breslauer Foundation. Starting next spring, students will have the opportunity to examine the text in depth in Professor Karen Gross’s manuscript analysis course.

Watzek Library is proud to host the exhibit But we’ll have our rights: Black Suffragists and Their Push for the Vote from February 1 through April 15, 2020.

Be sure to swing by Watzek Library to see our latest Special Collections display.  

Watzek Librarian Parvaneh Abbaspour recently presented new alumna Cyan Cowap BA ’19 with an intriguing opportunity to illustrate the biomedical imaging textbook that Professor of Physics Bethe Scalettar and Lewis & Clark law school alumnus James Abney are writing.

The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) has awarded Lewis & Clark a $10,000 grant to produce a series of podcasts using material from Watzek Library’s Vietnamese Portland: History, Memory, Community archive.

Since the Reformation, editors, printers, and scholars have experimented with the text, creating volumes that are more appealing, easy to understand, and readily accessible than they had been before. Our current exhibit can be found in the Atrium of Aubrey R. Watzek Library through July 2019.

This exhibit, located above the water fountain on the main floor of Watzek Library, will provide both hydration and knowledge! 

Waterfacts was developed by Ian Douglas, Computer Science, ’18 and supported by Watzek’s Digital Initiatives.  Special thanks to Alan Younis for technical advising.

This project is a result of the Microcomputing Workshops hosted by Watzek in February 2017 with funding from the Library Ed-Tech Committee. 

1.  Check out a 20-page sketchbook for the semester.

2.  Fill it up and bring it back before the end of finals.

3.  We will make it part of the library’s permanent collection to be housed in the Pioneers Balcony.

Are you interested in learning how to draw different types of plants, bugs, and mammals? Do you have an interest in exploring how to tie together the arts and sciences? Then a Scientific Illustration workshop is for you! A Scientific Illustrator will be visiting campus the weekend of April 7-9 to lead three Workshops. If you are interested and want to sign up for one of these sessions, or want to learn more, click here!

Thank you to SAAB, the Biology Department & the Watzek Library for supporting this event.

This exhibit was curated by Angela Mele, Sophia Horigan ’16, Cora Layman ’19, & Kellsy Nava-Lopez ’19 and populates wooden cases in the library atrium. 

Roses are red, violets are blue,
Watzek’s rad robot prints poems just for you.
They are better than this one.

PoemBot brought to you by Watzek Digital Initiatives and Sophia Horigan, ’16. New poems daily April 1-30.

Poetry Foundation audio program Poetry Off the Shelf explores poet William Stafford and his actions on walking and writing for peace. Produced by Curtis Fox the program includes remarks by Kim Stafford, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Philip Metres.

Caleb Dahl (LC ’17) caught up with Watzek’s Assistant Archivist, Zach Selley, about the library’s most remarkable resources. Selley routinely points both seasoned writers and Lewis & Clark first-years to the countless historical photographs, journals, and illustrations in Watzek’s special collections and archives.

Volunteer to be paired with (an) international student(s) and meet with them bi-weekly to help improve their english while bonding with people from all over the world!