-
Celebrating Halloween with Rare Books
Mary Moore, PhD Student in Literary History, 2026-27 Rare Book Graduate Assistant Long before I arrived at Ohio University, Halloween had secured its place as my absolute favorite holiday. Perhaps because my birthday falls just three days before, perhaps because I grew up in a Halloween loving family and in a city with its own…
-
Meet the Fall 2026 Rare Books Students!
By Miriam Intrator, Head of Archives & Special Collections and Rare Book Librarian Every fall and spring semester we welcome a new cohort of undergraduate interns to the Mahn Center. The internship is for-credit and open to any undergraduate student, from any department, who has completed their first year at Ohio University while maintaining at…
-
Persian and Arabic Manuscripts in the Digital Archives
By Mina Sadeghzadeh, ’24 Master of Art History, Rare Books Graduate Assistant, Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections This semester, I had the great opportunity to be a graduate assistant at the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections under the guidance of Dr. Miriam Intrator. I specifically worked with the Special Collection in…
-
From Satire to Advertisement: A Literary Record of the 1893 World’s Fair
By Jessica Licker, Master’s in Literary History, ’24, Rare Books Graduate Assistant When I first started conceptualizing this exhibit, I was spoiled for choice of topics. I was quickly taken with the Juvenile Literature Collection, and the whimsy of some of the 19th and 20th century children’s book bindings…
-
Dissecting Anatomical Structures: Curating an Exhibit on Books & Bodies
By Alex Rienerth, ’25, MA in Literary History, 2024-2025 Graduate Assistant in Rare Books At the beginning of my graduate assistantship in the rare books department, part of my training included watching “The Anatomy of a Book,” a wonderful instructional video captured from an early 1990s VHS tape. Though the video is a bit peculiar,…
-
Making 20th Century Patterns with 21st Century Materials: A Semester of Following Patterns Designed by Maud Churchill Nicoll
By Jessica Licker, Digital Literacy Librarian, Athens County Public Libraries, Master’s in Literary History, ’24, Rare Books Graduate Assistant, 2023-2024 At the end of the fall 2023 semester I began searching the Mahn Center rare book collection for anything related to fiber crafting. I was interested in experimenting with historic knitting or sewing patterns through…
-
Americana in Manuscript and Type: Piecing Together the Edward C. Fales Collection
By Alex Rienerth, ’25, MA in Literary History, 2024-2025 Graduate Assistant in Rare Books The Edward C. Fales collection was a bit of a mystery to me when I started working with it last semester. Many of the collections in rare books are extensively documented, including records from collectors that express their motivations and intentions…