Tag: periodicals

Reading Gay Sports Magazine in Honor of Pride Month

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

“Welcome to Gay Sports. As we all know—sports are an integral part of American society. This love of competition is as exciting to the Gay Community as it is to the Straight Community. In the months to come, this publication will bring you information about Gay men and women athletes competing in sporting events locally and nationally. Gay Sports is your publication. Keep us informed of what you are doing.”


—Gay Sports Nov. 1982 (vol. 1, no. 1), page 4.

Publisher Mark Brown’s introductory note in the inaugural 1982 issue of the San Francisco-based Gay Sports announced the purpose of the new publication to readers. The monthly publication—one of the earliest serials devoted to sports in the gay community—would cover national sports news, but the focus of the magazine was on publicizing and building community among gay and lesbian athletes and their allies. In honor of LGBTQ Pride Month, Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) highlights the recent acquisition of two issues (vol 1, no. 1 – November 1982; and vol 2, no. 7 – September 1983) of this scarce publication.

The cover story in the first issue of Gay Sports—then called Bay Area Gay Sports—was a feature by Duke Joyce (Nov. 1982, p. 5) about former major league baseball player Glenn Burke, who had recently publicly acknowledged that he was gay. Burke played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland A’s from 1976 to 1979, but he had struggled with his identity as a gay man while playing professional baseball. As the article explains, he “endured subtle, yet cruel innuendos” and discrimination from management. In the end, he wanted to be “truthful to himself” and not lead a “double life,” so he retired from baseball.

Joyce wrote that “being a homosexual in any homophobic environment is agonizing enough, but in the revered Major League, it is damn near sacreligious,” and he observed that there would likely be no room for “Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Queers” any time soon. He applauded Burke’s courage in going public and hoped that he had “managed to further erode the stereotypical image of gays.” In closing, Glenn Burke, himself, observed: “It’s your life, and nobody else is going to live it for you. You’ve got to have self respect.”

Pictures from the 1983 Gay World Series in Chicago.
(Gay Sports September 1983, pp. 12-13)

Glenn Burke’s coming out was a prominent national news story, but most of the articles in Gay Sports focused on local and community-based sports leagues or competitions for gay athletes. The annual Gay World Series softball tournament routinely received lots of attention, as did the quadrennial Gay Games. (For more information about the Gay Games, please see also the Gay Games Collection, MSSP 10070, in RBSC or the recent digital exhibit “Papers Alight: Contextualizing Mike Curato’s Flamer“).

Images from the 1983 Bay Area Women’s Softball League.
(Gay Sports September 1983, pp. 6-7)

Most articles focused on local leagues and organizations that helped build communities and networks of support for gay and lesbian athletes in the Bay Area or in other cities around the country. These two issues are replete with articles about local softball leagues, tennis tournaments, swimming competitions, hiking outings, bicycling groups, billiards leagues, bowling tournaments, flag football teams, and many other types of sports and athletics.

Members of the San Francisco Different Spokes Cycling Club pose on the cover of the September 1983 issue of Gay Sports.

These sporting activities served a variety of roles and were an important part of many people’s lives. The organizer of an overseas bicycling trip described, for example, “the ease and comfort of traveling with an all gay group” (Sept. 1983, p. 8). The leader of a San Francisco cycling club noted the value in “informally representing a portion of the gay community to the bicycling world” (Sept. 1983, p. 10). But, for the most part, the various sports leagues were about safe spaces for friendship and community. The author of an article about bowling leagues simply wrote that competitors “come together not only to enjoy the sport, but also more importantly, to enjoy each other . . . . for therein lies the magic!” (Sept. 1983, p. 18).

These issues of Gay Sports are available to researchers. RBSC welcomes new donations of Gay Sports magazine to expand our holdings of this important title.

Researching the Negro Leagues and African American Baseball in RBSC

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

Major League Baseball (MLB) recently announced that it has updated its official record book to include Negro Leagues statistics from the years 1920–1948. MLB has belatedly recognized that the highest levels of African American baseball during the era of segregation constituted “major league” competition. 

The expanded inclusive record book now counts player statistics from the Negro Leagues on an equal basis with those from the National League and the American League. In these years, organized white baseball leagues notoriously excluded Black players from the playing field until Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 (read a recent RBSC blog post about Jackie Robinson). 

MLB’s rewritten record book now officially recognizes the statistical accomplishments of legendary African American baseball players like power-hitting catcher Josh Gibson, MLB’s new all-time leader in batting average and slugging percentage, and pitcher Satchel Paige, who now boasts MLB’s the third-lowest single-season earned run average.

In recognition of this announcement and in honor of the upcoming Juneteenth holiday, Rare Books & Special Collections highlights material from its collections that document the history of African American baseball. These resources will allow researchers to better contextualize and understand the statistics and the history of the Negro Leagues.

The Birmingham Black Barons Records (MSSP 0001) is a unique and important collection that documents the financial operation of the Black Barons, an influential Negro National League team. The collection includes a thick financial ledger book that lists the debits and credits—including salaries, fines, advances, expenses, etc.—for players from the 1926 through the 1930 seasons, a span which includes Leroy “Satchel” Paige’s rookie year. The Black Barons ledger book allows a rare opportunity for researchers to see the day-to-day finances of a major Negro League team. The complete ledge book has been fully digitized and is available to view through Marble.

The Birmingham Black Barons ledger book pages for Leroy “Satchel” Paige in 1928 show monthly salary credits of $80.00 and include debits on April 7th for shoes from Gray’s Sporting Goods ($7.50); unidentified debits on June 21st and June 30th to “Dr. Bradford” ($10.00 and $15.00); and fines on July 30th for “Not appearing in uniform in St. Louis” ($5.00) and “Staying out all night at Chicago” ($10.00).

The Negro Leagues Pennant Collection (MSSP 10079) contains nine vintage (c. 1930s-1940s) felt pennants advertising African American baseball teams. These rare original souvenirs document the fan experience and the iconography of the Negro Leagues.

MSSP 10079-02 and 10079-03: The Negro League Pennant Collection includes two variants of pennants for the Homestead Grays, Josh Gibson’s primary Negro Leagues team.
The Negro League Pennant Collection includes pennants from numerous important teams, including the New York Black Yankees (MSSP 10079-05), the Baltimore Elite Giants (MSSP10079–01), the Newark Eagles (MSSP10079-04), and the Philadelphia Stars (MSSP10079-007).

RBSC holds a scarce original copy of Sol White’s History of Colored Base Ball [Special Coll.Vault • GV 863 .A1 W45 1907], an incredibly important 1908 book by manager and former player Sol White. One of the first comprehensive histories of African Americans in baseball, White’s research documented the early experiences of Black baseball players before the establishment of the formal Negro Leagues. Since it original publication, this book has been an essential source for the historiography of African American baseball. The profusely illustrated 120-page volume has been digitized and is available to be viewed via Marble.

Photograph and biography of Sol White, Baseball Hall of Famer and pioneering historian of African American baseball.
The champion 1902 Philadelphia Giants team picture is one more than 50 photographs printed and preserved in Sol White’s book.

A four-page 1926 advertising pamphlet for the Illinois Giants of Chicago [Rare Books Large • GV 875 .N35 I5 1926] documents the experiences of a lesser-known minor league African American baseball team.

The advertising pamphlet for the Illinois Giants of Chicago declared that “Our team attained almost unbeatable form at that period and bowled over the leading semi-pro teams of Michigan and Wisconsin in rapid succession.” As an indication of the complicated racial politics of the era, the flier emphasized that the Giants were “under WHITE MANAGEMENT” perhaps to make games against the team more palatable to white fans.

The Negro Baseball Yearbook [Rare Books Large • GV 875 .N34 N46], published annually in the mid-1940s, celebrated and recorded the yearly accomplishments of African American baseball players.

This collage of team pictures and individual photographs from the 1945 Negro Leagues season prominently features an image of Homestead Grays third baseman Howard Easterling in his military uniform. The publishers likely hoped to emphasize to readers the service and patriotism of African Americans.

These and other sources are all open to the public and available to researchers who would like to learn more about and to better understand the Negro Leagues and the experiences of African American baseball players during the age of segregation.

Women’s History Month 2024

We join the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history by celebrating Women’s History Month.

Second-Wave Feminist Articles from an Underground Newspaper

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

So What Are We Complaining About? is a 48-page booklet of feminist articles collected and reprinted from the pages of an underground newspaper, the Old Mole, published in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The booklet’s publication was a joint venture of the Old Mole and Bread and Roses, a socialist women’s liberation collective, in 1970. The booklet was created by the women’s caucus, a group within Bread and Roses. The Old Mole, which appeared bi-weekly from 1968 to 1970, was the publication of the Harvard chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

It’s not surprising that Bread and Roses women wished to collect and recirculate this content. Among the collective’s founders were activists and a historians Meredith Tax and Linda Gordon. Both women contributed significantly to the feminist movement in the United States from the 1970s and wrote much of its history. Reprinting was one of the best and only ways to publicize content that had already appeared in print, often in small, locally-circulated and ephemeral papers like the Old Mole.

Tax and Gordon founded Bread and Roses in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1969 as a women’s liberation organization. They chose “Bread and Roses” because it both references an historic labor strike by women (Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912) and it captures what the collective wanted to attain for women—economic opportunity (“bread”) and quality of life (“roses”). Over the nearly two years the collective was active, it attracted hundreds of members, many of whom were clerical workers who faced poor wages and working conditions. A number of reprinted articles address these problems. The collective took action by forming a union, 9to5, for local clerical workers. Another legacy project became the women’s health resource, Our Bodies, Ourselves, which developed out of the collective’s 1970 initiative, “Women and Their Bodies: A Course.”

Other features included in this short volume are Bread and Roses’ declaration of women’s rights (March 1970); a satirical, “liberated,” comic strip; and a short history about the establishment of International Women’s Day.

So What Are We Complaining About? is a new acquisition in Rare Books and Special Collections and is part of a growing collection of second-wave, feminist periodicals and newspapers. 

Happy Holidays from Special Collections!

Rare Books and Special Collections is open Monday through Thursday this week (December 18-21, 2023) — appointments are recommended. After that, we will be closed from Friday, December 22, 2023, through Monday, January 1, 2024, in participation with the campus-wide holiday break for all faculty, staff, and students.

Special Collections will reopen on Tuesday, January 2, 2024.

This is the last blog post for 2023.
Happy Holidays to you and yours from
Notre Dame’s Rare Books and Special Collections!

The Christmas Number of the Lake Michigan Yachting News,
December 1925, published by the Chicago Yacht Club.
Special Collections, Rare Books In Process

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

This post features images—including this colorful jack-in-the-box Christmas cover—from the Lake Michigan Yachting News, the official publication of the Chicago Yacht Club. The Yachting News covered all aspects of yachting and boating on Lake Michigan, reporting about sailing races, popular excursion routes, environmental conditions, sailing technology and equipment, and the social activities of the Midwestern yachting set.

The Yachting News also frequently relied on humor and satire in its columns as shown by the “Just a Few Merry Christmas Hints” column below. The journal’s tongue-in-cheek holiday gift suggestions included this advice:

If you have a friend who is a racing skipper you may give him a bunch of your old safety razor blades for splitting hairs on questions of rules. If you have a friend on the Race Committee, give him a drink—he will need it.

Hesburgh Libraries recently acquired a bound volume with 18 issues of the Lake Michigan Yachting News for the years 1925 and 1926. Worldcat lists only three other libraries with scattered holdings of this scarce publication.

National Hispanic Heritage Month 2023

We join the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month.

An Hispanic Superhero in Southwest Texas

by Erika Hosselkus, Curator, Latin American Collections

This year we share two issues of the comic book, El Gato Negro (The Black Cat), created by American artist Richard Dominguez. The popular series debuted in 1993 and narrates the adventures the Hispanic superhero, El Gato Negro, a vigilante crime fighter in Southwest Texas. Special Collections holds single copies of issues 3 and 4. 

Packed with action and defined by dynamic imagery, this graphic title fits solidly within the comic book genre. It also takes on current events, issues in Mexican, Mexican American, and American history, and popular culture in a whole variety of ways. 

Francisco Guerrero, the man behind the El Gato Negro mask, is a social worker in Southwest Texas whose friend, Mario, a border patrol officer, was murdered by drug traffickers. Guerrero takes on the El Gato Negro identity at night to fight against drug-related violence, even while being targeted by local law enforcement. His name combines the first name of Francisco Madero, a hero of the Mexican Revolution, with “guerrero,” or “warrior.” Across its 4 issues, the comic book series references Hispanic soldiers who fought in the Korean War, the Zapatista movement in Mexico, and lucha libre (Mexican professional wrestling). As such, this title speaks to parts of the Mexican American experience in late twentieth-century America in fun and fascinating ways.

Enjoy this selection of images from the comic book and keep an eye out for a possible television adaptation of El Gato Negro in coming months!     

Inside of front cover
Inside of back cover
Issue No. 3 (Fall 1995)
Detail from Issue No. 3
Sample page
Inside of back cover
Issue No. 4 (Summer 1997)

Previous Hispanic Heritage Month Blog Posts:

Upcoming Events: August 2023

There are no public events currently scheduled for August. Please check back for events being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections during September.

The exhibition Making and Unmaking Emancipation in Cuba and the United States will open mid-August and run through the fall semester.

The August spotlight exhibits are Football and Community at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (August – December 2023) and Centering African American Writing in American Literature (August – September 2023).

RBSC will be closed Monday, September 4th,
for Labor Day.

Welcome to the Land of Freedom

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

On July 2, 1887, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper marked the upcoming Fourth of July holiday with a cover illustration that graphically depicted the expansion of the United States. The serial was a popular weekly American publication of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to highlight here a significant recent acquisition of the first 73 bound volumes from 1855 through 1891. 

The image, titled “Independence Day—A Case of Vigorous Growth,” features a giant Uncle Sam wearing a top hat labeled “1887” standing astride the continental United States from New York to San Francisco. He extends his hand to greet a much smaller man standing on the Atlantic seaboard wearing a tri-corner hat labeled “1776.” “1887” Uncle Sam asks, “How are you, old man?”; and “1776” responds, “Bless my soul, boy, how you have grown!”

Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, For the week ending July 2, 1887.
(vol. 64, no. 1659, p. 317)

During the last half of the nineteenth century, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper catered to the reading interests of middle class Americans, and its content routinely reflected and depicted the conventional mainstream sensibilities of middle America. In 1888, Leslie’s claimed a robust weekly circulation of 45,000 and declared that its issues “reach[ed] the better class—those that have taste and the means to gratify it.”

The 1887 Fourth of July issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper followed up its striking cover image with a centerfold, titled “New York—Welcome to the Land of Freedom,” emphasizing the common contemporary belief that the growth of the United States had been fueled by the constant arrival of new Americans. The two-page spread shows immigrants huddled together on the deck of an ocean liner enthusiastically watching and pointing at the Statue of Liberty as the ship sails past.

New York. — Welcome to the Land of Freedom — An Ocean Steamer
Passing the Statue of Liberty : Scene on the Steerage Deck. (pp. 324–25)

The image references a short accompanying article, also titled “Welcome to the Land of Freedom” (p. 327). The text explains that the scene shows the arrival of the ocean steamer Germanic carrying immigrants from several European countries motivated, according to the the article, “by the belief that here they will escape the burdens and limitations which in the Old World abridge individual freedom and the exercise of rights which are felt to be inherent.” 

“The first glimpse of this Land of Promise,” Frank Leslie’s elaborates, “must indeed be inspiriting and joyful … as they sail up our beautiful bay and for the first time see the majestic statue of Liberty, standing, so to speak, at the very gateway of the Republic.” The article concludes stirringly: “May all who sail past it to these hospitable shores find every just expectation realized, and prove in all things worthy of the citizenship which the land of freedom confers upon them.”

This week Special Collections is open Monday (July 3),
CLOSED on Tuesday (July 4),
and open Wednesday through Friday (July 5-7).

Early Positive Portrayals of African Americans in Graphic Novels

Jackie Robinson and Comic Book Baseball Heroes, 1949-1952

by Greg Bond, Sports Archivist and Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection

“And now…. Jackie Robinson’s life in a comics magazine!!!” 

The Atlanta Daily World, a leading national African American newspaper, excitedly informed readers of its September 23, 1949, issue about a new Jackie Robinson comic book. “So great is the aura of stardom surrounding this greatest of Negro athletes,” the World explained, “that a special magazine bearing his name is being released.”  Published by Fawcett Publications, the 32-page comic book titled, Jackie Robinson: Baseball Hero, related the life story of the Brooklyn Dodgers star.

Fawcett, best known for creating the character Captain Marvel in the 1930s, published popular comic books for a national audience and teamed on the project with Robinson, the first acknowledged African American to play major league baseball in the twentieth century. Jackie Robinson: Baseball Hero proved to be a hit, and Fawcett followed up with five more titles about Robinson over the next three years and also collaborated with other early African American major leaguers like Larry Doby, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe on comic books about their lives.

These Fawcett publications, recently acquired by the Joyce Sports Research Collection, are among the earliest American comic books to feature positive, non-stereotypical, and non-demeaning portrayals of African American characters. They were also some of the earliest comic books from a mainstream publisher targeted to a national audience that featured African Americans as main characters.

Jackie Robinson: Baseball Hero told Robinson’s biography from his youth in Pasadena to his career as a multi-sport athlete at UCLA to his early years in organized baseball—first at Triple A Montreal and then with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In its opening pages, the comic book proclaimed that “Jackie has overcome all handicaps to become a symbol of the fighting spirit of the American boy!”

The comic book did not shy away from depicting the troubles Robinson faced in breaking major league baseball’s color line. The book illustrated, for example, the threats he received from the Klu Klux Klan, the opposition to integration from some major league owners, and the harassment he experienced on the field from other teams.

The book graphically detailed Robinson’s many successes on the ballfield, but it also highlighted Robinson’s awareness of his importance as a role model, particularly for African American children.

In one scene, for example, after he was scouted by the Dodgers, Robinson witnessed a group of African American boys playing in an alley and thought  to himself, “If I ever play in the Majors, I’ll give kids like this some hope of making good.” The book also illustrated his work coaching children at a gym in Harlem. 

Jackie Robinson: Baseball Hero was such as success that Robinson—who was seeking ways to capitalize on his fame and to earn money outside of baseball—collaborated with Fawcett on a recurring series of five more editions through 1952. The subsequent issues continued to tell stories about Robinson’s baseball and athletic career and also featured fictional vignettes that showed Robinson mentoring children and rescuing them from a life of crime or disreputable behavior.

Jackie Robinson #4, for example, included a seven-page story titled, “Jackie Robinson and the Human Cat,” in which Robinson worked to redeem a star white teenage baseball player who had turned to criminal activities. The story’s tagline read, “Jackie has always claimed that youthful errors do not necessarily mean a boy has criminal tendencies. Yet he found his creed put to the acid test when he sought to reclaim Mickey Ryan from society’s scrap heap!”

In addition to the Jackie Robinson series, Fawcett also took advantage of major league baseball’s fading color line by publishing similar single issue comic books in 1950 about other African American stars: Larry Doby: Baseball Hero (Cleveland Indians), Roy Campanella: Baseball Hero (Brooklyn Dodgers), and Don Newcombe: Baseball Hero (Brooklyn Dodgers).

The Lary Doby, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe comic books broadly followed the same model as the earlier Jackie Robinson: Baseball Hero issue, telling the inspirational stories of the players’ rise to the major league. The graphics illustrated their early years as athletes, the difficulties they faced due to their race, and their successful ascent to the big leagues. 

The comics also tended to emphasize the good community work the players did, and the books continued to hold up these accomplished athletes as role models for children. The Fawcett “Baseball Hero” comic books provided all young readers—both Black and white—with otherwise hard to find positive and largely realistic portrayals of talented African American men.

Larry Doby: Baseball Hero, for example ended with a scene highlighting this message. The final page of the comic recounted Doby’s triumphant return to his hometown of Paterson, New Jersey, after his first season in the major leagues. Although he was greeted by the Mayor, Doby was most excited to return to his alma mater of Eastside High School. 

The comic’s final panel pictured Doby counseling and providing advice to the Black and white members of the Eastside High School basketball team. The eight players all listened intently to the major league star, and the final caption read: “Larry Doby… is loved by all, not only for his prowess on the field of play, but for his character and warm human understanding!”

For further reading:

“Jackie Robinson’s Life in Comics on Newstands Today [sic],” Atlanta Daily World 23 September 1949, p. 3.

Tom Hawthorn, “Jackie Robinson: Comic Book Superhero,” in Not An Easy Tale to Tell: Jackie Robinson on the Page, Stage, and Screen ed. Ralph Carhart (Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 2022).

Brian Cremins, “‘This Business of White and Black’: Captain Marvel’s Steamboat, the Youthbuilders, and Fawcett’s Roy Campanella, Baseball Hero,” in Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of American Comics ed. Qiana Whitted (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2023).

Summer Exhibition Spotlights 1940s Periodicals

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator

Rare Books and Special Collections recently acquired limited runs of two American periodicals from the 1940s, New York’s View and The Texas Spectator. Each captures part of the zeitgeist of the 1940s, war-time to peace-time.

View, a quarterly magazine published in New York City, covered the avant-garde and surrealist art scene from 1940 through 1947. The publication drew American artists—like Georgia O’Keeffe, Man Ray, and Alexander Calder—and also featured European artists, many of whom were wartime refugees. These included Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, André Masson, and Marc Chagall, and writer André Breton.

As shaped by the editorial hands of artist and writer Charles Henri Ford and author and film critic Parker Tyler, View unabashedly popularized surrealism in the US while also challenging the European movement’s sexual conventionalism.

The Texas Spectator newspaper, published weekly in Austin, maintained a progressive, sardonic eye on Texas politics between 1945 and 1948. The paper featured reporting by liberal journalist and novelist Hart Stilwell, and western writer J. Frank Dobie.

The newspaper’s motto—from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline—conveyed its raison d’etre: “Fear no more the frown o’ the great . . . Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.” It championed civil rights, education, and labor, and scrutinized the state’s powerful oil and gas companies and their political surrogates.

At first glance View and The Texas Spectator’s differences seem obvious. The former promoted a cultural movement propelled by elements of surprise and spontaneity, while the former engaged in a David vs. Goliath struggle over political power. Yet they share an optimism about the possibility of social and political change for a better future.

Upcoming Events: April 2023

Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, April 6 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: “Democracy and Defeat: Morante, Moravia, and Malaparte in Capri, 1946” by Franco Baldasso (Bard College).

Monday, April 17 at 4:00pm | Special Collections Lecture: “Heinrich Jöst’s Warsaw Ghetto Photographs and the Challenges of Interpreting Holocaust Images” by Daniel H. Magilow (University of Tennessee, Knoxville). This lecture is co-sponsored by Hesburgh Libraries, Florence & Richard C. McBrien and Richard C. McBrien Endowment and by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.

Thursday, April 27 at 5:00pm | Ravarino Lecture: “Pandemic and Wages in Boccaccio’s Florence” by William Caferro (Vanderbilt).

RBSC will be closed for Easter weekend, April 7-9, 2023.

The spring exhibit, Printing the Nation: A Century of Irish Book Arts, features selected books from the Hesburgh Libraries’ Special Collections that demonstrate the art and craft of the Irish book since 1900. The exhibit, curated by Aedín Ní Bhróithe Clements, will run through the semester.

Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups, and additional curator-led tours are available at 12 noon on the following upcoming Friday: April 21.

The April spotlight exhibits are Language and Materiality in Late Medieval England (February – April 2023) and Hagadah shel Pesaḥ le-zekher ha-Sho’ah – Pessach Haggadah in memory of the Holocaust (April – May 2023).

Although ongoing library renovations will continue through 2023, Special Collections is no longer behind a construction tunnel!