Menu
Tools
Locked away in refrigerated vaults, sanitized by gas chambers, and secured within bombproof caverns deep under mountains are America's most prized materials: the ever-expanding collection of records that now accompany each of us from birth to death. The data complex backs up and protects our most vital information against decay and destruction, and yet it binds us to corporate and government institutions whose power is also preserved in its bunkers, infrastructures, and sterilized spaces.
Dr. Brian Michael Murphy will present his work on the history of the data complex, bringing us into conversation around the ways in which the data complex increasingly blurs the lines between human and machine, biological body and data body, life and digital afterlife.
Co-sponsored by the CHI and the Library
Join us on Thursday, November 10 at 4PM in our Archives & Special Collections for a Native American comics & zines open house! Explore some of our Native comic books and zines, and meet with Dr. Lee Francis 4, the Executive Director of Native Realities, an Indigenous Imagination organization that seeks to engage and inspire Indigenous youth and communities through pop culture media, innovative experiences, and culturally dynamic programming. Through Native Realities, Dr. Francis also founded the Indigenous Comic Con in 2016 (Now Indigipop Expo), and in 2017 opened Red Planet Books and Comics, the only Native comic shop in the world. He received his PhD in Education from Texas State University and his scholarship has appeared in multiple academic journals over the past decade. He lives in North Carolina with his family.
The Library is interested in hearing from students, faculty, and staff about how they utilize the Periodicals Reading Room and the workspace in front of the reference collection on the 1st floor of Frost. Your input on these surveys will help us better understand how you’re currently using these spaces and what you’d like to see for changes. It’s important to us that we ground our plans in what you say you need, instead of only what we think you need!
Complete either survey before 11/5 and enter to win a $25 gift card to Amazon or a local business! Learn more about the project and take the survey(s):
The Library is co-sponsoring a digital accessibility keynote and series of workshops this fall! On November 2 at 2:30 in Stirn Auditorium, Dr. Cyndi Rowland will address how each of us in our campus community can keep digital accessibility in mind and contribute to an inclusive and equitable campus.
Register for the keynote today!
Looking for research support? Meet with the Peer Research Assistants, students trained to provide drop-in research support to other students. Peer Research Assistants can help students with getting started on a research paper, navigating library databases, finding books, formatting citations, and more! Find them in Frost Cafe on Sundays from 3-5 and Mondays & Wednesdays from 8-10PM; or in the Science Center cafe area on Sundays from 3-5 or Tuesdays from 8-10PM.
Amherst College students are invited to apply for a research fellowship with the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. The Lane Fellowship provides up to five fellows with financial and research support while using historical and rare source materials for arts projects.
Following a cohort-support model, Fellows will work with library staff and support one another in the process of growing creative research skills and critically engaging with archival structures and processes. Students are encouraged to follow their curiosity, and identify manuscript material or items of interest in our collections to use as inspiration or to draw directly from in produced works. Projects may make use of additional materials as well.
The Amherst College Library is happy to welcome everyone back for the 2022-23 academic year. Please come visit!