Happy 200th Birthday Charles Darwin!

Today - February 12, 2009 - is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday. Wellesley College is holding several events in Darwin's honor.

• On Thursday February 12 at 4p.m., join selected Wellesley faculty for a symposium entitled Darwin's Impact. This event will be held in Tishman Commons in the Campus Center.
  
  
• Be sure to stop by Clapp Library this month to view the exhibit Before and Beyond Darwin, which showcases Wellesley College's Special Collections books by scientists who predated Darwin, Darwin's (scientist) ancestors, a first edition of On the Origin of Species, and special editions of works by scientists who followed in Darwin's footsteps.
  
  
• The capstone event of the College's Darwin Celebration is a lecture by Olivia Judson, a research fellow at Imperial College London and blogger for the New York Times. Judson will deliver Wellesley’s 2009 Wilson Lecture, Glad to Have Evolved, Tuesday, Feb. 17, at 8 pm in Jewett Auditorium.

More information on all these events is available from Public Affairs.

If you are interested in finding out more about the man and his works, check out the following resources from the Wellesley College Library and on the Internet:

• Books by and about Darwin in the libraries
• First editions of books by Darwin in the libraries' Special Collections (i.e. original works!)
• Biographical information about Darwin from AccessScience and Biography Resource Center
• Exhibition from the American Museum of Natural History
• The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online and the Darwin Correspondence Project
• Friends of Charles Darwin
• Make Darwin stickers and Darwin bookmarks

Image originally published by Colin Purrington on Flickr.com and used under a creative commons license.

Exhibit: Ingredients & Implements: The Raw Materials and Tools of Books

The Wellesley College Library is pleased to announce a new exhibition:

"Ingredients & Implements: The Raw Materials and Tools of Books"
A Joint Book Arts Lab and Conservation Facility Exhibition
Crozier Reference Room, Second Floor of Clapp Library, Wellesley, MA
Through December 20, 2007

This exhibit features the raw materials and tools used to make books by hand. Plant fibers, pigments, parchment, bone, type, ink, leather, cloth and gold leaf are displayed in conjunction with the tools used to make these materials into the information transmission device we call the book. The materials and tools were selected from the working resources of the Conservation Facility and the Book Arts Lab on the Fourth Floor of Clapp Library. Emily Bell, Senior Library Associate/Conservation, and Katherine McCanless Ruffin, Book Arts Program Director, collaborated on the exhibition.

Visitors may view the exhibit any time Clapp Library is open. Hours and directions can be found online at: http://www.wellesley.edu/Library/hours.html

Resonance & Response: Exhibition Catalogue and Web Exhibit

View an abridged version of the Resonance and Response exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with ABC: the Artists’ Books Conference, held at Wellesley College on June 15-18, 2005. The exhibition catalog and the web exhibit highlight some of the artist's books found in Wellesley College Library's Special Collections.

You may also purchase the full exhibition catalogue for $30.

The Architecture of Books: Construction and Reconstruction

Come see the latest exhibit in Clapp Library entitled, "The Architecture of Books: Construction and Reconstruction." This exhibit highlights structures built in the Conservation Facility and Book Arts Lab on the fourth floor of Clapp Library.

The exhibit was curated by Emily Bell, Conservation Specialist and Katherine McCanless Ruffin, Book Arts Program Director.

Location: Clapp Library, Crozier Reference Room, second floor.