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.”
Five bikes are now available to students, faculty, and staff to borrow for the day at H-L Library.
A time capsule of imagination. This display explores how writers from the mid-20th century to today have dreamt of AI and the wonders and dangers it may engender. These books wrestle with power and labor, surveillance and climate. They probe what makes a person a person, and how care, consent, and accountability might stretch to include nonhuman minds.
Explore the collection across genres, from literary and speculative fiction to graphic narratives. Taken together, these works invite us to reflect on how technology entwines with ethics, inequality, and everyday life.
Written with assistance from LibreChat
Open Access Week is October 20th – 26th, 2025, this year themed “Who owns our knowledge?”. Read more in the Scholarly Communications LibGuide, or reach out to Kate Wing, Electronic Resources and Scholarly Communication Librarian.
Bowdoin Library has a number of resources available to support researchers and scholars at Bowdoin who are interested in publishing Open Access, making their research output freely available to researchers and scholars worldwide.
Authors can also avoid Article Processing Charges (APCs), a fee to have their articles published in journals. Bowdoin supports faculty publishing by negotiating transformative agreements with certain publishers. When faculty publish with Cambridge University Press, The Royal Society, Institute of Physics, De Gruyter Brill, AIP Publishing, and ACS Publications, the APC is waived.
“Who Owns Our Knowledge?” is the theme for this year’s International Open Access Week (October 20-26). The 2025 theme asks a pointed question about the present moment and how, in a time of disruption, communities can reassert control over the knowledge they produce. It also challenges us to reflect on not only who has access to education and research but on how knowledge is created and shared, where it has come from, and whose voices are recognized and valued.
Read more on openaccessweek.org