25 Faculty members at Bowdoin currently use Open Education resources across 31 Spring ’26 courses.
Email Kate Wing to learn more about accessing or sharing Open Education resources within your courses, or check out some of the currently used resources below.
From OpenStax:
Principles of Microeconomics | Organic Chemistry
Other Sources:
We invite you to browse a collection by the Bowdoin Environmental Action Team (BEAT), a student club focused on environmental action and advocacy on campus. Kylie Binder (’29), a representative from the club, shares that the “crippling anxiety, fear, and altogether feeling of helplessness surrounding the climate crisis has the power to paralyze us. For the sake of ourselves and each other, for all of humanity and the natural world, we must not let that happen. The only way to truly conquer this fear is to “ecocate” ourselves as much as possible, to learn about the solutions, to seek out the truth, to shine a flashlight into this dark corner of our minds. This collection features forward-facing, solution-focused books and documentaries that aren’t only enlightening and educational, but entertaining reads and films. Don’t walk in these turbulent times alone, and most especially don’t walk blind and unaware. Open your eyes, open a book.” We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with BEAT! Their display will be up through early March—come take a look!
Libraries are like a second home to me. As an undergraduate at Oberlin College, the library was my preferred place of study. I spent long and often late hours there consulting the collections, browsing the bookshelves, and furiously typing out assignments on one of the few publicly available computers. When I wasn’t working at the library, I was working at the library—my student job was in the acquisitions department, slipping tattle-tape in the spines of newly cataloged books, and more rewardingly making friends with the staff. I didn’t realize at the time how these experiences would foretell the long arc of my career path, which now finds me the interim director of a very similar library.
Like Oberlin, Bowdoin has a strong sense of community, and the library is a nexus, bringing together students, faculty, staff, and visitors. There is a warmth to this library, fueled by the enthusiasms of our remarkable staff and the shared sense of wonder, discovery and curiosity that permeates Bowdoin. I cannot imagine a more wonderful library than ours, and I am deeply humbled and thankful to have this short window in which to lead it. While I have been at Bowdoin for a decade, everything suddenly feels new again.
The next few months will surely be a time of extraordinary transition for all of us. In addition to continuing to adapt to near daily changes in teaching, learning, and research wrought by AI, the library’s facilities are a point of primary discussion as the College considers its next campus master plan and envisions its future. I’m excited to learn and grow with the entire library staff as we move forward with our work of advancing the pursuit of knowledge and encouraging opportunities for meaningful connection while embracing the opportunities for change and growth afforded by this particular moment in Bowdoin’s history.
We are launching The Biblio File newsletter to keep you more closely informed about the work of the Library, from our future plans to new collections available right now. My hope is for all of you to feel as comfortable and welcome in this library as I do—it is, after all, your library, too.
All the best,
Kat Stefko
Interim Director of the Bowdoin College Library
In celebration of the 2026 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecturer, Tressie McMillan Cottom, we have assembled a collection of her publications on the first floor of the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library. We invite you to come browse!
Cottom’s lecture will take place in Studzinski Recital Hall, Kanbar Auditorium on Saturday, January 31, 2026 from 5:00pm to 6:00pm EST. The event is open to the public.
Please join us in celebrating International Day for Persons with Disabilities at Bowdoin by visiting our book display on the first floor of H-L and reading books recommended by Bowdoin students!
This collection is deeply personal as it highlights what matters to Bowdoin students, especially those who identify as disabled themselves. It centers books that focus on the lived experiences of disabled people rather than on textbooks that, while informative, portray an academic perspective that may come across as incomplete. In short, these books go beyond explaining a diagnosis.
Additionally, this display serves as a means for disabled authors to share their first-hand perspectives, and as a reminder that providing space to learn about each other’s experiences is a crucial step in becoming a more aware, empathetic, and accepting community. It also exemplifies how each person’s journey with disability is unique, serving as both recognition of challenges and celebration of diverse identities.
The display results from a collaboration between the Disabled Students Association, the Student Accessibility Office, and the Library and will be on view through the first week of December.
Rob Caldwell, of News Center Maine, recently sat down with Strout Family Photographic Archivist, Katie Perry, and Leon B. Strout’s great-granddaughter, Kristin Strout, to talk about the ambitious digitization effort currently underway at Bowdoin College Library’s Special Collections & Archives. The project will bring more than 5,000 images of life in midcoast Maine, taken by Brunswick photographer Leon B. Strout between the 1890s and the 1930s, out of storage and onto the web.
Kristin and her father, Ben Strout, live on the West Coast and knew little about Leon Strout’s work. That changed when she became a Bowdoin parent several years ago. During a family weekend visit to Special Collections & Archives, Kristin and Ben encountered their ancestors’ work firsthand. Inspired to ensure that Strout’s photographs are available to all to see and enjoy, the Strout family is funding a nearly two-year project to digitize some 5,000 glass and film negatives as well as approximately 1,000 photographic prints that were deposited with the College in 1938 upon Strout’s death.
Caldwell’s coverage of the Strout collection and project aired on 207 on November 19, 2025. The segment, which includes close ups of many of Strout’s images, is available to watch online by following the link below.
We invite you to browse the Politics, Protest, Propaganda, Posters! collection display on the first floor of Hawthorne-Longfellow Library.
With this display, curator Neiman Mocombe (‘26.5) intends to help contemporary audiences “identify the blatant and subliminal political messages surrounding us today.” His display looks at how visual design has shaped public life, from Soviet and World War I propaganda to Peace Press activism, Shanghai calendar art, and election campaigns. The display will be on view through the end of December—stop by and check it out!
Ingrid Nelson, Professor of Sociology, was joined by moderator Professor Brian Purnell this past Thursday, November 13th to discuss her recent book, “Yet Another Costume Party Debacle: Why Racial Ignorance Persists on Elite College Campuses”.
Her work examines the fallout from three racially-themed costume parties that occurred at Bowdoin between 2014 and 2016 and places them into greater organizational sociological context, using interviews and surveys with students who attended and organized the parties, as well as Bowdoin Orient articles and Yik Yak posts preserved by Special Collections and Archives.
H-L Library’s Faculty New Book Collection highlights the latest in Bowdoin faculty book publications.
Among the titles published this year are two by Shuqin Cui (Shu-chin Tsui), Bowdoin Professor of Asian Studies and Cinema Studies. Her titles can be found along with other scholarship located in the Collections Highlights area, across from the Circulation Desk in H-L Library. Click the links below to view them in the catalog.
For more information about the Faculty Display, contact Carmen Greenlee.
For the month of November, we invite you to browse the Native American Heritage Month collection display on the first floor of Hawthorne-Longfellow Library.
Neiman Mocombe (’26.5) has curated a collection of biographies, coffee-table books, and personal essays that illuminate the stories of contemporary indigenous people. With this collection, Neiman intends to address that “too often, Native Americans are portrayed as static, undeveloped, and frozen in time. This exhibition shares how Indigenous communities have persevered with strength and resilience, maintaining their sovereignty despite immense historical and ongoing adversity. Their courage is evident in the works selected here.”