Seals and Shields Quiz

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3 shields

You've seen the shields over the Library doors and in the vestibule perhaps hundreds of times. You might even have been paying attention when the guide told you what they represented during your admissions tour. Or maybe you're an esteemed member of the faculty who knows all things about all things. But can you earn an A on this quiz? Are you too chicken to try? Too cool for schools? Come on, loosen up, give it a shot. You might even giggle at the extremely witty wrong answers. Or learn something or whatever...

The Architect’s Library

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Charles Garnier. Le Nouvelle Opera de Paris, 1878

There’s a new exhibition being shown in cases in the Main Library. The collection on display is remarkably beautiful and includes a variety of significant works. But The Architect’s Library is actually a cooperative effort being held in four locations on campus. The cases in the Main Library house a broad selection of books, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century; in the Art Library are books from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is a small exhibition devoted to the works of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, his followers and predecessors; and in Special Collections you can make an appointment to do your own research using some of the earliest books on architecture collected by the College.

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Bernard Forest De Belidor. Architecture Hydraulique, 1737-1753.

 

A catalogue of the collection entitled The Architect’s Library: A Collection of Notable Books on Architecture at Vassar College, edited by Nicholas Adams, is available from The Art Department or Special Collections. The catalogue has contributions by students in Art 370 (Spring 2013), professor Brian Lukacher, Art Librarian Thomas Hill, and Vassar graduates Sean Weiss (City University of New York) and Lindsay Cook (Columbia University).

 

Vidler

 

On Monday, February 24, there will be a lecture by Anthony Vidler entitled “What do Architects Read? Architectural Libraries from Vitruvius to Venturi.” The event will be held in Taylor 203 at 5 pm.The exhibit itself will be up through May. Be sure to stop in to see these stunning works, and in the meanwhile, pick up a copy of the catalogue, and don’t miss our own Nick Adams discussing the exhibition in more detail in an interview for the Library Cafe as well as the video below.

 

Ruminations on finals

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Ah, exam week. Worried? Unprepared? Rundown? Procrastinating? Can’t wait to find out what your grades are? You’re not alone. Despite not having Facebook, Twitter, blogs, or other social media, Vassar students from years past had their own outlets for recording their feelings about this most stressful time of the year. Lest you think venting about exams is something new, here are some excerpts from the Vassar Digital Library’s collection of student diaries and letters.

Library students studying ca 1901-1904

Library students studying ca 1901-1904

1865: Christine Ladd diary entry–

We have had private examinations this week, which have done a good deal to take down my self conceit.  They have been demonstrative proof that impressions made on my mind have no more durability than if a seal plunged into the water.  … I am so inconceivably illogical.  It is impossible for me to apprehend the relations of things.  Education of such mental imbecility is a gross mistake.

1870: Ellen Adee diary entry–

The revel of examinations is done and two days worry and cramming tell their tale in exhaustion mentily and bodily.  But that chapel essay could be postponed no longer, and what Nature could not do, green tea must.  It did help this morning I am sure, but this evening every muscle and nerve in my body seem about to give out.

ph.f 3.21 Main Building Library ca 1880

Main Building Library ca 1880

1871: Bertha Keffer diary entry–

I wish it were the June examination instead of February.  I wish the Faculty had to be examined before a lot of people twice a year when we are.  They would soon do away with all such botherations if they came home to themselves.

1872: Frances Bromley diary entry–

Examination days tire me more than almost any others. It’s a different kind of tired.

 

Student at desk in dorm, n.d.

Student at desk in dorm, n.d.

1872: Letter from Julia Pease to her mother–

The examinations come off this week, Thursday and Friday. I dread them a good deal for I am not nearly as good a scholar as I was last year. It sometimes seems that I have grown most miserably stupid, for It is with the greatest difficulty that I can learn my lessons at all, and when I have learned them I cannot remember them long. Then, I think my teachers are none of them very good.

1896: Letter from Adelaide Mansfield to her mother–

A hard week is over and a comparatively easy week is before as. Our exams, were harder than usual, and also harder to prepare for. Our exam, in Thucydides was the worst. Miss Leach gave us for the first question a passage to translate, which was the very hardest passage in the book. Some of the girls had just reviewed It, but a good many – including myself – had not looked at it since we had it about two months ago.

1915: Helen Hartley Pease Diary–

Rained all day. Horrid walking. No flunk notes. Passed all my exams. Slept two hours in P.M. Didn’t go to new presidents’ reception for the weather. Only 5 nuts went. Retired early.