Watkinson Library – Discoveries in the Watkinson

New Exhibit Opens in Library: “Student Experiences at Trinity, 1820s-1970s”

August 28, 2026 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

Happy Birthday, Odell Shepard!

July 21, 2026 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Alden R. Gordon ’69 donates his faculty papers and alumni memorabilia to the Trinity College Archives

June 1, 2026 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

Alden Rand Gordon was the coxswain of the Trinity College freshman crew team in the spring of 1966.

Trinity’s FIRST Microcomputer: New Exhibit in Lobby of MECC

March 27, 2026 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

Earlier this month, on March 10, 2026, a new exhibit was installed in the ground-floor lobby at the eastern end of the Mathematics, Engineering, and Computer Science (MECC) building on Trinity College’s campus. Professors August Sapega and David (Dave) Ahlgren purchased Intel’s first 8-bit microprocessor chip (8008) in 1974. The kit included the 8008 processor, 1024 bytes …

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Watkinson Library Acquires Five New Artists’ Books, Courtesy of Booklyn

March 20, 2026 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

by Casey Machenheimer, Special Collections and Archives Librarian for Public Services, Research, and Outreach The Watkinson Library has acquired five new artists’ books, courtesy of the artist-run non-profit, Booklyn. Siempre Junto, 2026, by Raoul Deal (Milwaukee, WI) and Marshall Weber (Brooklyn, NY), with Kurt Allerslev (Hopewell, NJ) Siempre Junto is a unique copy. It is …

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Making the Box: Trinity Students Design Building Models

March 17, 2026 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

The Scheuch Atrium in the Raether Library currently features a new exhibit comprised largely of models built by students taking courses on architecture. With the architectural minor program flourishing at Trinity, Dr. Willie Granston ’13 answered a few questions about what the students learn through the construction of architectural models. Here is what he had …

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On the Anniversary of the Great Blizzard: March 12-14, 1888

March 12, 2026 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

By Amanda M.B. Matava, Digital Archivist The Great Blizzard of 1888 (sometimes called the “Great White Hurricane”) was one of the deadliest and most unusual snowstorms in American history. It also has the curious distinction of being the first widely photographed natural disaster in the United States. Between March 12 and 14, the storm buried …

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Preserving/Conserving the Past

February 11, 2026 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

By Eric Johnson-DeBaufre, Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian Visitors to Watkinson Library occasionally ask us what we do to keep our materials in good condition. Our usual answer is that we generally focus on factors that help preserve materials in their current condition, whatever that happens to be. This normally amounts to storing our …

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Breaking the Box: Trinity Students Design an Addition to the Raether Library

July 28, 2025 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

What does the library of the future look like? In spring 2025, Visiting Professor of Practice Rob Rothblatt, known for his lead role in designing the Sacramento Kings’ arena Golden1, taught the “Elements of Architectural Design” course at Trinity College. For their final project, students were tasked with building models for an addition to the …

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“For the love of postage – write”: I Found it at the Watkinson!

May 9, 2025 / Watkinson / 0 Comments

by Emma Markowski ’25, student assistant at the Watkinson Library The Watkinson recently received a new accession that contained the letters of a young World War I soldier, Edward Bulkeley Van Zile, writing to his family back home in the States. Amongst this soldier’s letters (about 200 in total) were documents pertaining to his father, …

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