New A&SC Widescreen Display

The Archives and Special Collections is pleased to announce the installation of a 37" LCD display in the Reading Room. The new display will assist with seminar-level instruction sessions, and can be used to illustrate web sites, conduct database searching, deliver PowerPoint presentations, and show archival video clips and digital collections. When not in use for classes and research appointments, the display will be used as digital signage emphasizing patron registration and Reading Room rules of use.

Tales of True Crime Exhibition

Now open on the main level of Shadek-Fackenthal Library is our latest exhibit: Tales of True Crime from the Special Collections. Featuring true crime books, pamphlets, and broadsides from the Special Collections, the exhibit follows the history of true-crime publishing in the United States from the late-18th to 20th centuries. Most items involve chapbook (inexpensively printed, paper-covered pamphlets) tales of murders that occurred in 19th-century Pennsylvania. Of particular interest are items printed in the German-language that became part of the German-American community's folklore, such as the case of Susanna Cox, executed in 1809 for murder. This exhibit runs through May 2008.