Bryn Mawr College Special Collections

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Bryn Mawr College Special Collections

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Bryn Mawr College Library's Special Collections takes care of the rare books, manuscripts, artwork, artifacts, and anthropological collections that belong to the College. The Friends of the Bryn Mawr College Libraries support acquisitions, exhibitions, lectures, conservation, and other library projects overseen by Special Collections.

09/08/2026

Join us Wednesday September 9th to celebrate the opening the of Ruth Fine: In Search of the Place. Since the 1960s, Philadelphia-based artist Ruth Fine has been inspired by the natural world. Ruth Fine: In Search of the Place explores Fine's longstanding engagement with nature in terms of her "search for the place," an approach to artmaking that invites close looking and collaboration.

The exhibition is on view in Canaday Library's 1912 Gallery through December 18, 2026. The gallery is open from 10am-4pm, Monday through Friday. Please join us for an opening celebration on Wednesday, September 9th. All are welcome to join for part of the afternoon or the entire day!

Opening Celebration Schedule:
12:30–2pm: Gallery Talk, Ruth Fine in Conversation with curator Maggie North (1912 Gallery)
2 pm–6:30pm: Drop-in Artmaking Activity (The Nook)
4:30–6:30 pm: Opening Reception (1912 Gallery)

More info: https://www.brynmawr.edu/stories/ruth-fine-search-place

07/30/2026

Hi everyone! This week was our final week of the Friends of the Libraries Special Collections Internship. We spent this last week processing the Alice G. King collection here in the Archives. King was a foundational advocate for women’s rights in the workplace and is primarily remembered today as the founder of the Alumnae Advisory Center which aimed to help women with their professional goals —a groundbreaking organization in 1950. Many of the papers that we worked with were directly related to the foundation and running of the AAC, but we found a few interesting personal items as well, such as some copies of a publication she made with her parents when she was thirteen years old. It was amazing to work through this collection! We also spent time moving records from the GSSWSR into archival boxes for long-term storage.

This is our last week as interns and we are very sad to leave but honored to have been able to experience all the wonderful things that go on behind the scenes here in Special Collections. Thanks for following along with us!

07/21/2026

Bonjour! This week started our unit with the College Archives. After several readings and discussions on the complexities of the archival field, we got hands on experience working with various collections. We began by moving Bryn Mawr Athletics slides and photos from the 70’s- early 2000’s to safer long-term storage. Then we worked with the Hiler Costume Library collection, where we inventoried and rehoused various prints and original costume designs from late 19th/early 20th century opera productions in Europe. We closed out the week by surveying Helen Chapin’s papers in preparation to add an updated finding aid to our online archives database.

Next week is our final week as SpecCol interns as we conclude our work with Archives. See you then for one last post. Au revoir!

P.S.- Scroll to the end for fabulous evening attire inspo.

07/14/2026

Hi again everyone! This week we (the FOL interns) continued our work with digital collections. One of the most important elements of digitizing analog items is providing a transcription of the item for accessibility and searching purposes. Some of the handwriting, however, proves a challenge to actually read. Here we have included some examples of works we transcribed this week: a page of Embryology notes from 1893, and a page from the diary of Bryn Mawr alum Lucy Evans Chew! As you can see, their legibility spans a wide breadth, but every text item that BMC Special Collections adds to the TriCollege Libraries Digital Collections platform must have a transcript attached to it, so we do our best to make sense of it.
Next week we head to Archives for the final rotation of this internship. We’re excited to begin this last bit of the journey!

07/08/2026

Hello hello! This is the Friends of the Libraries interns, reporting live from Digital Collections. During this short week, we learned about some of the processes that go into creating and preserving our vast digital archives here at Bryn Mawr. One of the tools essential to the process of digitization is the Bookeye, which we learned how to use over the past few days!

The Bookeye is a machine that makes high-quality scans of textual items. While we used it primarily to fulfill reference requests – requests made by a researcher who wants a digital copy of a collection item - it is also used to take the majority of the photos of collection items housed on our Digital Collections website. One fun item that we scanned was some pages from an edition of Vogue from October 1954. Here it is in the process of scanning, and here is the final result!

Next week we continue our work with Digital Collections where we will be learning about metadata. Stay cool out there!

06/30/2026

Hello everyone! Happy soon-to-be July! This week, the Friends of the Libraries Interns are back working with the Circulating Art Loan Collection. One exciting part of the week was helping to hang new art in English House. Many of the pieces we added celebrated Bryn Mawr traditions and alums, as well as powerful literary inspirations like Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler. Swipe to the end of this post to see a before and after example of a refreshed wall! We also moved some pieces that already live in English House to different locations, so you might see some old friends in new places. Take a look next time you’re inside!

For the next two weeks we’re headed to help with Digital Collections. Don’t miss it!

06/23/2026

Hello again! It’s us, the Friends of the Library Interns, back with a rather short week working in the Rare Book Collection. We wanted to highlight an interesting item in Special Collections that we encountered during our work these past few days. This is a collection of playbills for the 1829 summer season of the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia that some collector in the past preserved by binding them together. Coincidentally, the dates and days of the week in 1829 match perfectly with 2026! What would you go see if these were showing this week? Alfred the Great? Raymond’s shenanigans in Bleeding Nun? Perhaps you would be intrigued to know the scenery of Gog’s Cottage? It’s only 12 1/2 cents for gallery seats, and prices don’t increase on Saturday night!

A work like this may not be what you think you’d find in a “book” collection, but such examples provide interesting glimpses into years past - in this case, almost two centuries ago.

06/16/2026

Hello again! It is us, the FOL interns, back with another week of hard work. This was our first week helping with Rare Books and Manuscripts alongside Marianne Hansen and Janelle Rebel. This week we worked with the Rare Books and Children’s Books Collections. We moved some of the smallest and biggest books in our collection, from the tiny History of the Bible to the mighty American Edition of Boydell’s Illustrations of Shakespeare. We spent most of our time cleaning and shifting hundreds of our largest books, moving them to more efficient storage to make space for other books. Here are some photos that show our process!

Throughout the week, we also helped protect damaged books by measuring them for custom archival boxes which will be ordered and come in over the summer. Next week we will continue our work with the Rare Books Collection. Stay tuned!

06/09/2026

Hi! We are Sam and Sophia, the Friends of the Libraries Interns for Summer ‘26. Over the next eight weeks, we will be working with different staff in Special Collections in two-week rotations to help with various projects. We’re excited to show you our work this summer, starting with our first week working with Carrie Robbins and Maya Frydman on the Art & Artifacts Collection!

We focused on the Campus Art Lending Program for faculty and staff, which facilitates requests from the Circulating Art Loan Collection for offices around campus. A lot of work goes into making that happen! We assisted with many parts of the process: we equipped a frame shop with new functional furniture (that we built!), inventoried a new art donation from an alum, streamlined metadata, and even helped hang some requested pieces. We’ll be back in a few weeks to continue with this project. Next week, we’re headed to work with the Rare Books team. See you there!

06/04/2026

This summer Bryn Mawr Special Collections is moving our archaeological collections with the help of Theo Mullen and his dedicated crew .fas. 📦 Here are some behind-the-scenes snapshots of week 1 from our Collections Manager of Art & Artifacts . 📸

1-2 Extra care and packing needed for this South-Italian red-figure krater (mixing bowl) and Attic red-figure pelike (storage vessel)

3-4 Textile box making and packing with Theo and Adam

5-6 A variety of small pots before padding is added to the boxes

Address

101 N Merion Avenue
Bryn Mawr, PA
19010

Website

http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/speccoll/index.html, http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/fol.html

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