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Browse Concordiensis issues going back to 1877!
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View and read the 2003 Encyclopedia of Union College History through the New York Heritage digital collections.
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This is a collection of Union College architectural plans which includes Schaffer Library and the Nott Memorial, drawn by Joseph Jacques Ramée in 1813. In January 1813, Nott came into contact with Joseph Ramée, as the architect traveled south through New York State on his way to Philadelphia. Nott had a unique vision for higher education, coupling a modern and practical focus in the curriculum with the ideal of a college community as an extended family. To embody this vision, the campus itself had to be more than just a functional space. Nott apparently found a practical match for his ideas in Ramée, whom he contracted to draw plans for the Union campus.
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Learn about Notable Union Personages, and view our current feature on the Women of Union College, from the recent Schaffer Library Exhibit, Faces of Change.
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The James Joyce collection at Union College is housed in Schaffer Library's Special Collections and Archives. A small, yet rich collection of rare materials, the collection offers researchers access to unique items related to international Bloomsday events, first and rare book editions, ephemera, and pamphlets from American and European libraries.
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Union was the first liberal arts college to offer engineering in the United States. To celebrate 175 years of engineering education, the Special Collections and Archives Department of Schaffer Library has put together a digital exhibition which explores how the discipline of engineering influenced and shaped the College’s reputation as a partner in modern science and technology - from the 19th century to the present day. In addition, engineering alumni will be able to share their personal experiences to be kept for posterity.
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The goal of the exhibit is to recognize the sisterhood of students whose accomplishments have helped shaped Union’s success. With courage and commitment, these women and others, alongside students of color, helped build the foundation for a more diverse student body, faculty and leadership at Union College. Today, women represent 47 percent of enrolled students.
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The Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies (AJES) is a peer-reviewed academic journal that exists to foster a dialogue about the broad range of issues that concern the Adirondacks and Northern Forest. AJES serves to bridge the gaps among academic disciplines and among researchers and practitioners devoted to understanding and promoting the development of sustainable communities, both human and wild. The journal purposefully avoids serving as a vehicle for any single or special point of view. To the contrary, in searching for common ground AJES welcomes variety and a broad spectrum of research and opinion from its contributors.
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Postcards of mostly of Adirondack scenes. Most of the postcards are the work of photographer Harold Ross.
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View exhibitions on the history of environmental activism in the Adirondacks Mountains.
This website showcases themes and material available for further exploration in the John S. Apperson Jr. Papers and the Paul Schaefer Collection held at the Adirondack Research Library of the Kelly Adirondack Center at Union College in Schenectady, New York. The materials in these collections provide unique insights into 20th century citizen activism, grassroots environmental campaigns, daily life, and outdoor recreation in the Adirondack region of New York State. The materials were organized, selected for digitization, and cataloged during a two-year project at Union College, Grass Roots Activism and the American Wilderness: Pioneers in the Twentieth Century Adirondack Park Conservation Movement, which was funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Cataloging Hidden Collections program.
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Newspaper clippings, ephemera, correspondence, publications, and other materials on Union College alumni compiled by the Alumni Office. Also includes files on nineteenth century faculty.
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We celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage month by selecting relative items from our catalog that fit this theme. Click on each book to find out more and to find it in our catalog!
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Learn about 12 Banned Books and the sometimes surprising reasons that they've been censored. Click on each book to learn more and to find it in our catalog!
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This website is an interactive version of a card-based index to over 20,000 letters in the John Bigelow Collection housed in the Special Collections Department of Schaffer Library, Union College.
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We're celebrating Black History Month this February with a great selection of books, graphic novels, and videos. Click on each of these books for more information and to find them in our catalog!
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This website is an enhanced catalog of Schaffer Library’s collection of rare works related to author, artist, and printmaker William Blake. Utilizing research by Union College undergraduates, it also showcases student creativity and engagement with the collection. Selected images and links are included to inspire additional research.
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Learn about the Earth on our place on it with Schaffer Library's 14 most impactful environmental book picks. Click on each book to find out more and to find it in our catalog!
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This website presents a timeline that contains a combination of important events relating to the development of the current understanding of climate change, as well as an assortment of newspaper clippings about climate change throughout this period to provide insight into what the public was aware of at each point in history.
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This collection contains recordings and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted by students in the class titled Gender and Society taught by Professor Sharon Gmelch. The interviews were conducted in 1995, and interviewees consist of faculty members, wives of faculty members, staff and students in the Union College community regarding experiences before, during and after coeducation was adopted at Union College.
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This collection contains letters written by Hiram S. Wilson to his wife, Elizabeth, from 1861 to 1864 with the majority of the letters dating between 1862 and 1863. While most letters were addressed to his wife, there are a few letters written to other family members including his daughter, Stella. Most of the letters were written while he was stationed at various army camps in Virginia and Maryland. He writes about family and home issues but also talks about military activities. Wilson expresses confidence about the army’s abilities and writes about his trust in General McClellan and other Generals. He includes discussions about camp life, troop movement, and general war news. For instance, several letters discuss the passage by Congress of the Militia Act of 1862 and the Confiscation Act of 1862 that allowed the enlistment of African Americans.
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Celebrate Indigenous People's Day by discovering some of our books in the catalog about Indigenous People. Click on each of these books to find out more, and to find them in our catalog!
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The diaries of Jane Tunis Poultney Bigelow (1829-1889) are found in the John Bigelow papers (SCA 0022) in the department of Special Collections and Archives in Union College's Schaffer Library. Even though Jane was a dedicated wife and mother, she was fiercely independent and was just as respected and loved as her husband in literary and social circles in the United States and Europe. She was a gracious and energetic hostess to Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde during their visits to New York, and her visits with Walt Whitman, Wilkie Collins, and William Thackeray were wildly successful as she charmed and entertained her guests with her high intelligence, wit, and unconventional language. A gifted writer and speaker, she published prose under the pen name of Jenny P. Bigelow and spoke several languages fluently. Part of the Diaries and Journals (1850 - 1911) series, Jane's diaries detail her life and travels from 1850 to 1873 and make up the majority of the Diaries and Journals series.
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The John Bigelow Papers consist of the extensive correspondence of Bigelow and his family, his scrapbooks and his writings, records and correspondence detailing his professional activities, diaries and journals belonging to Bigelow and other family members, genealogical documents and records of the Bigelow family, and a variety of photographs. The Correspondence series includes around 24,000 letters from prominent cultural and political titans, including Andrew Carnegie, Charles Dickens, John Jay, J.P. Morgan, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and Thurlow Weed. The letters detail Bigelow’s activities such as the U.S. Consul to France during the Civil War, his position on the boards of the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the founding of the Panama Canal, and Lincoln’s assassination. Letters are also from family members and friends. The diaries of his wife, Jane Tunis Poultney Bigelow, make up the majority of the Diaries and Journals series. Just as respected and loved as her husband, Jane was an important figure in the New York literary and social scene. Her diaries details their life and travels. Some especially delightful tidbits are her entries wherein she writes about Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde when they stayed with the family during their trips to New York City.
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This exhibit features selections from John James Audubon’s Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size watercolors reproduced from hand-engraved plates and printed between 1827 and 1838. Eliphalet Nott acquired Union College’s copy of Birds of America directly from Audubon himself in 1844.
