2020 was a year like no other. It started normally enough, but on March 16, 2020, Columbia University closed its physical facilities as part of the New York State-mandated PAUSE that sought to control the spread of COVID. For months, staff were permitted onsite only for essential security and maintenance checks. As restrictions loosened over […]
Tag: Rare Book and Manuscript Library
2020: A Year Unlike Any Other
As we come to the end of what has been a topsy-turvy year, we wanted to take a moment to look back on how the University Archives (UA) responded to the various challenges that came our way and what we’ve managed to accomplish since the library closed and New York went on pause in March. […]
Some Illumination for All
Columbia’s collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts is rich and resplendent, for all that much of it has sat quietly and largely unseen in the stacks throughout most of this tumultuous year. But while opportunities to leaf through these manuscripts in person may still feel distant, it just got much easier to see a few […]
Columbia Football at 150!
On November 12, 1870 Columbia played its first football game, only the fourth intercollegiate contest in the history of the sport, losing to Rutgers by a score of 6-3. The game and Columbia’s program have come a long way since then. […]
Eleanor Roosevelt Speaks for Herself: Identifying 1,257 Married Women by their Full Names
It sounds like the setup for a magic trick: how can an archivist and a public services assistant, both working from home without access to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, identify 1,257 (!) women previously referred to in our finding aids by their husbands’ names? Yet it involved no sleight of hand. We used […]