I am writing this on New Year’s Eve 2024. It is that great time of year when everyone pauses to take stock of their lives. What is going well? What has been left undone? What priorities will be important in the new year?
It is a very exciting thing that, when I went back to see what my former priorities were, they are still the same and interchangeable from personal, family, and post-retirement librarian perspectives. Hooray!!!!
Several years ago, on March 3, 2018, I wrote a blog entry about this very topic. It is called, Purposes – Or, What Are You Doing? Having been retired for 3 quarters of a year by then, it was a question I was often asked – and often asked of myself. It is all still true and relevant. Now 7 ½ years into retirement, I am making pretty great progress on those goals. In all of these areas, I am Collecting-Organizing-Preserving-and Sharing the stories of those who have come before.
Here are some of those projects:
- Annotated Index: Seminary Herald (1893-1896)
- Annotated Index: Seminary Collegiate (1900-1904)
- *Working on the Annotated Index of the Pharos, especially from 1976-current. These papers have not been digitized, and there is 50 years worth of history in them!
- Annotated Index of Alumni Publications Extremely incomplete at present.
- Alumni Adventures
- Faculty Adventures
- This Day in Wesleyan History: General (pulled from Pharos, Sundials, etc. as I come across them. There are plans for more specialized versions of this as well, such as This Day in Wesleyan Athletics, This Day in Wesleyan Theater, etc.)
- The Building section on DreamersAndGiants has been updated to include links to articles about their construction and other things……This is in preparation for an online course which is being developed.
- Debate Topics in the Early 1900s (These are insane)
- Lists – lots and lots of lists.
- This year we have some student interns involved, and hoping to increase the student participation further. It is THEIR heritage as well!! And they are regularly making history themselves during their time here.
So here is to another year of finding treasures in college publications – and organizing them – and sharing them. Happy New Year, Bobcats!