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Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut

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Cookies, Comfort, and Campus Wellness: Reflections on “Snacks & Support”

November 20, 2024 /

Earlier this semester, our library hosted Snacks & Support, a new event designed to blend academic assistance with wellness for our student community. Students were invited to drop by for snacks, in-person research help, and wellness resources like stress busting tips, recipes, and health center giveaways. It was a blend of nourishment for the mind and body, and a way to show that seeking support doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. 

While we had carefully curated health-focused snacks and thoughtfully organized resources, it wasn’t the popcorn or the fruit that stole the show. It was the homemade cookies.

The Unexpected Power of a Cookie

I didn’t expect the level of joy a cookie could spark. But there it was… person after person, pausing mid-bite, their faces lighting up. Some lingered to chat, sharing fond memories of baking at home or thanking us for what felt like an unexpected treat. These weren’t just cookies. They were moments of comfort, reminders of care, and tiny invitations to slow down in the middle of a busy hour. 

The cookies in question? Chocolate chip oatmeal with toffee—chewy, sweet, and just the right amount of indulgent. But more than their flavor, it was the unexpectedness and the personal touch that resonated. They inspired me to think about the broader idea of wellness: how simple, intentional acts (or snacks!) can bring comfort and connection to our lives. 

A Recipe for Wellness

The success of Snacks & Support wasn’t just in the snacks, though. It was in the atmosphere we created: one of care, comfort, and community. Inspired by this experience, I wanted to share a “wellness recipe” for the end-of-semester season—a guide to finding joy, relaxation, and balance, with some inspiration drawn from the library. 

  • Start with a daily dose of mindfulness. Find a quiet place to sit and reflect—perhaps in the leisure reading area, surrounded by cozy chairs and great books. Or take a moment to gaze out a library window with a serene view of campus, letting yourself pause and breathe. 
  • Mix in movement. Take a walk through the library’s stacks, exploring new books and topics. A bit of wandering can clear your mind and spark curiosity.
  • Sprinkle in kindness. Leave a kind note in a shared space, recommend a book to a friend, or simply share a smile with someone you pass in the library. These small gestures can brighten everyone’s day.
  • Add balance. Reserve time for focused study in one of the library’s quiet spaces, then reward yourself with a warm drink from Peter B’s. Balance is about work and restoration.
  • Top with gratitude. Reflect on the small joys around you—a productive study session, a favorite chair by the window, or a comforting buzz of activity in the library. Gratitude helps shift our focus to the positive. 
The Joy of Sharing Wellness

As we wrap up the semester and look toward the holidays, I hope these reflections encourage you to find small ways to prioritize wellness… whether it’s baking a favorite treat, practicing mindfulness, or simply pausing to connect with others. Wellness isn’t just about what we do for ourselves—it’s about what we share with our communities. 

Here’s to finding joy in the small things and building a campus culture where everyone can thrive.

Popular magazines in Trinity’s database collections

November 6, 2024 /

For those who remember, and might miss, the shelves of popular magazines sold by the checkout counter at the grocery store, or rows upon rows at brick-and-mortar bookstores like Barnes and Noble, we can see many of them again through our popular magazine databases.

The magazines are all digitized and searchable, with downloadable PDFs that, while not the glossy paper of the printed originals, bring out the vibrant colors, images, and advertisements of a physical magazine.

Some of our magazine databases include:

  • EBSCO Magazine Archives with access to titles including Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, The Atlantic. Coverage for these titles usually begin at the first issue published.
  • Women’s Magazine Archive with access to titles like Cosmopolitan, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day and more. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to the early 21st century.
  • Vogue Magazine Archive with the full issues of the American version of Vogue from 1892 to the present.
  • Jet Magazine Archive with issues from 1951 to 2014.
  • Rolling Stone Archive with issues from 1967 to the present.

All of our magazine databases are listed on our Library Databases A-Z list.

Check out the list to start your research into social, cultural, economic and literary history as told through these popular magazines!

 

Color Our Collections 2024 – Calling all creators!

October 22, 2024 /

#ColorOurCollections is an initiative from the New York Academy of Medicine to transform library, museum, and archival collections into free coloring pages. Trinity College Library & Information Technology Services participates in this initiative by publishing an annual coloring book featuring a mix of scans of our archival material and student-submitted artwork. Our digital repository hosts PDF versions of our previous coloring books.

Our theme this year is Touch Grass: Experience the Natural World. In honor of the library’s new seed library and our status as an arboretum, we’re celebrating the natural world at Trinity and beyond. This can include depictions of flora, fauna, landscapes, or any other part of nature.

Feeling inspired? All Trinity students are invited to participate by submitting their original artwork for inclusion in this year’s coloring books. See the guidelines below for details. If you have any questions, please direct them to trinitywellness@trincoll.edu.

Submit your artwork to trinitywellness@trincoll.edu under the following guidelines: Black & White, PNG or TIFF image, 300-400 ppi, 8.5 x 11 inches. Traditional or digital art is welcome, if it meets the requirements and correct file format. Images larger than 30 cannot be sent via email but can be shared via OneDrive.

We’re also hosting an event called Pumpkins and Pencils tomorrow, October 23, from 4:15-5:15pm in room 182 of the library. Drop by for a chance to work on your coloring book submissions and enjoy some sweet treats!

Pumpkins & Pencils, October 23, 4:15-5:15, LITS 182. Enjoy pumpkin treats while you work on coloring book submissions!

To enter the contest, be sure to submit your artwork in coloring book style to trinitywellness@trincoll.edu by NOVEMBER 15, 2024.

Bantam Research Roost

September 30, 2024 /

Our research & instruction librarians are flying the coop and setting up temporary roosts around campus to bring research support right to you!

Our Bantam Research Roost program, which debuted during the spring 2024 semester and has returned this fall, is a traveling librarian initiative designed to increase the library’s visibility and accessibility on campus, fostering a more inclusive environment and supporting student academic success. Whether you’re a student working on an assignment or a faculty member seeking new resources, the Bantam Research Roost brings the library’s expertise directly to you, making it easier than ever to tap into our wealth of resources and expertise, wherever you are on campus.

Once a week, throughout the semester, our research librarians and peer research assistants will visit a different campus location between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.  Stop by our table to get answers to research questions and learn about exciting resources, services, and events in the library.

Our friendly librarians can help you at any stage in your research, whether that’s brainstorming or focusing research topics or questions, finding relevant sources, evaluating sources, or citing and managing your sources.  Faculty are also invited to begin a conversation about how we can support your courses through instruction sessions or assist with your own research needs.

As an added incentive the first student to speak with us each week will receive a $5 Peter B’s gift card (while supplies last)!  We will have additional goodies including stickers and (usually) candy for everyone to enjoy when you visit our roost.

The Research Roost schedule can be found on the Campus Calendar and our location will be posted as a story on our Instagram account (@trincoll_library) each week.

Lastly, remember our friendly and knowledgeable librarians and peer research assistants are available to help you with your research beyond the roost.  You can make an appointment to meet with us at a time that is convenient for you or send us an email.  We are always happy to chat and help you find the answers you need.

Image of first Bantam Research Roost table.

Research & Instruction Librarians, Rosie (left) and Susan (right) sit at the Bantam Research Roost table in Mather during its launch in the spring 2024 semester.

Image of outdoor Bantam Research Roost table

Peer Research Assistant, Alex Golz sits at the Bantam Research Roost table on the Long Walk during the second roost of the fall 2024 semester.

New E-Resource Selection: What Makes the Cut?

September 12, 2024 /

The bulk of the library’s collection budget goes towards purchasing perpetual access or maintaining subscription to e-resources of many varieties.  But how do librarians decide which new resources to add?  There are three main factors that drive our electronic resource acquisition: enhancing the existing collection, proactive selection of resources that relate to Trinity’s unique scholarship needs, and responses to requests of students and faculty for research support.

Streaming video resources are in high demand and when librarians learned that a new set of videos was being offered as an add on to the PBS Video Collection the library already owned we jumped at the opportunity.  Experience told us these videos would be well used and a preview of the title list showed they were logical compliments to the videos already in the collection.  In addition, this collection is often the only place where PBS releases some videos for streaming, so we knew there would be exclusive content unavailable anywhere else.  All these factors told us that the purchase would be a direct enhancement to the library’s existing streaming video offerings.

PolicyMap was a statistical database the library considered in the past, but declined due to content overlap with similar resources like Social Explorer.  But when a representative reached out with exciting updates on unique new datasets relevant to urban studies, climate studies, and environmental justice studies, among others, librarians thought it prudent to request a trial to take another look.  This new data clearly supported the research needs of several disciplines and this combined with PolicyMap’s more user-friendly interface compared to our other statistical databases convinced the librarians this would be a worthwhile subscription.

It can be said that the most valuable resource helping librarians identify new electronic resources to purchase is the Trinity community itself.  This is how librarians learn about some truly unique specialty resources like Human Relations Area Files: World Cultures, an ethnographic database with information on all aspects of cultural and social life for a wide variety of cultures and ethnic groups.  Similarly, it was due to a faculty member’s report that librarians learned a previously open access journal incredibly important to ethnographic theory in anthropology, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, was placed behind a paywall and a subscription was duly purchased.  Just as librarians are an irreplaceable resource for students and faculty research projects, students and faculty are also invaluable partners in helping librarians identify relevant and useful resources that fulfill our collection development goal of supporting current scholarship.

Students Studying

All things news and newspapers from Trinity’s library databases

September 4, 2024 /

Would you like free access to the daily online version of the New York Times and Washington Post, or perhaps the Los Angeles Times from 1900 or Japan Times from 1875?

Check out all of our news content from around the United States and the world.

We have access to early newspapers from the 17th and 18th centuries up to, and including, the present day!

Current Trinity students, faculty and staff may also activate a free subscription, or access, current content from these major newspapers via the following links:

  • Financial Times. Click the “Join now” button to set up your access through Trinity’s group subscription.
  • New York Times.  Create an account using your institutional email and then login with your new nytimes.com credentials. Faculty and staff must re-register every four years. Students have access until graduation. Once an account is created, access is via https://www.nytimes.com/.
  • Wall Street Journal (WSJ.com). Site license to the website WSJ.com. Individual registration is required. Once you’ve has activated a WSJ account, you may sign into the account from anywhere by visiting WSJ.com directly or downloading the WSJ app. Faculty & staff must refresh activation yearly; students must provide year of graduation.
  • Washington Post. No registration is required. Provides last 5 years of content.  

 

Feeding Bodies and Minds

September 3, 2024 /

For the past year, LITS—the intellectual hub of Trinity’s campus—has been holding food drives to support the Hands on Hartford Backpack Nutrition Program, in hopes of feeding bodies, as well as minds. With assistance from the CHER office, LITS has successfully held four food drives throughout the academic year—in September, Thanksgiving, February, and April. Over the course of these food drives, LITS raised around $1000!! And that doesn’t include the food donations, as well!! 

Everyone’s generosity has been incredible and greatly appreciated. Since students are no longer able to donate meals at the end of a semester, LITS has really stepped up to help fill the void of those donations. And since there are always people in need of meals, let’s keep our generosity flowing into the next year! 

Starting on September 3rd, LITS will be holding our second annual September Food Drive! Whether you choose to donate individually-packed food items (see below) at any of the collection points at the main entrances of the library or provide monetary support (at the QR code below), your involvement will make a significant impact. Thank you for your attention and commitment to this initiative!

Digital Asset Management News

August 23, 2024 /

Formerly Visual Resources until 2022, the Digital Asset Management team is comprised of Amanda Matava, Digital Archivist/Department Head, who joined Trinity in 2017, and Benny Bauer, the Digital Media Librarian, who joined Trinity in 2022.

JSTOR

Trinity’s institutional landing page in JSTOR (launched 2020).

Over the past year, Amanda and Benny have been adding to and restructuring our content in JSTOR, which serves as an institutional repository, image library, and digital archive. As the admin for JSTOR, Amanda also works behind the scenes with developers to improve usability and pilot initiatives. Please reach out to Amanda with any questions about JSTOR!

Among its highlights are the Art Collection, curated by Art Collection Manager Barbara Sternal; the Trinity Archival Image and Video Collection, which now contains over 2,300 items; and the Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean Archive, which contains digitized photographs, newspapers, and cultural heritage materials from the Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean in Trinidad and Tobago, a collection Trinity is assisting to digitize and process with the support of a Modern Endangered Archives Program grant.

For faculty and students seeking images for courses or research, visit the institutional teaching collection or browse JSTOR Images, which now includes the Artstor Digital Library.

Finally, visit the JSTOR workspace to save, describe, and organize materials for your research or courses. Collect images and text materials into folders, which can be exported as a .zip file or power point presentation.

Web Archives

Amanda has been developing Trinity College’s web archive in Archive-It, a product of the Internet Archive, since 2022 in order to capture Trinity’s web presence with a primary focus on blogs, online-only publications, and scholarship. If you don’t see something, it may already be found in the Wayback Machine (such as the library’s website, which has been captured many times since the 1990s).

For those looking to archive their own web pages or projects, Conifer is free and easy to use!

Collaboration

This summer, students participated in hands-on digitization and learned about cataloging cultural heritage materials as part the second iteration of RELG-321, taught by Professor Susanne Kerekes. Under the guidance of Amanda Matava, students utilized the department’s overhead camera to photograph their amulets and then uploaded them to the JSTOR Forum cataloging platform, where they learned how to enter metadata for their objects. Amanda also assisted Public Humanities Collaborative students this summer in photographing cultural heritage materials from China and Puerto Rico which included textiles and pottery/stoneware. The students used the department’s overhead camera in order to capture high-resolution overall views of the materials.

Students research and practice cataloging in JSTOR Forum

Students photograph amulets. One student (left) assisted with positioning the object and raising/lowering the camera while a second (right) operated the camera shutter.

Professional Development

Amanda and Benny have been working on various professional development opportunities. Benny recently attended the IDEAL Conference in Toronto and NEA (New England Archivists), of which they are actively engaged in interest circles and the organization’s newsletter. Benny is also active in organizing library food drives throughout the academic year.

This past year, Amanda has spoken at several conferences with Christina Bleyer including the Visual Resource Association (Fall 2023) and Boston Library Consortium (Spring 2024) on The Watkinson’s post-custodial archiving project with the Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean. Amanda and Christina also spoke in Trinidad and Tobago at the opening of the digital archive.  Our article for the VRA Bulletin on the project describes our work in greater depth and detail. Amanda also began pursuing the Digital Archives Specialist Certification (DAS) from the Society of American Archivists and has completed about half the requirements.

Library students studying

Library Collections, Research, & Instruction News

August 23, 2024 /

Welcome to Fall 2024! Here are some resources and information to help you succeed this semester:

New! Bantam Book Swap.  Trinity’s Little Free Library! This new resource is located on level A of the Library. Drop off books you don’t want; take the books you can use. The Book Swap shelves facilitate the trading of books among the Trinity community, while keeping waste out of landfills.

For Students

Student Library & Technology Essentials. An information guide for new Trinity students about library services, research skills, technical support and more.

Peer Research Center. Struggling with your research? Don’t go it alone. In-person support from your peers is available Sunday through Thursday evenings in LITC Room A35.

Make an appointment with a librarian. Our experienced librarians are ready to assist you with finding sources, navigating the library, building a bibliography, and more.

Textbook reserves program.  Are your course books too expensive? We may have a copy in the library. Come to the Library & IT Desk and ask about the titles you need. Books can be borrowed for a short-term, 3-hr period.

For Faculty

Library Instruction menu. (new!) This site outlines different possibilities from essential research skills to specialized workshops that faculty may incorporate into their courses. We also have a set of examples of real-life collaborations and workshops at Trinity so that you may see what has been done in the past and is possible for the future.

Tips on accessing our collections. (new!) A brief refresher for faculty on how to access books, ebooks, media, journals, and materials from other libraries.

Submit your publications to the Library. The Library collects publications as a means of preserving and showcasing the exceptional legacy of research, scholarship, and creative work at Trinity. We collect journal articles, monographs (including chapters and edited editions), and other digital projects (podcast, media, music, visual arts). Journal articles will be added to the Digital Repository; monographs will be added to the collections. If we have not archived your publications, please submit them here.

Get in touch. Our experienced, interdisciplinary team of librarians is ready to assist with all of your research and instruction needs. Contact us or make an appointment.

 

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