The Children's and Young Adult Collection (CYAC) is a small teaching and browsing collection that support students in the School of Education, as well as children and young adults in the CU and wider Boulder communities.

"Are Parents People" from Paramount Pictures, old sheet music

Silent Film at CU

April 30, 2018

Silent Film is more popular now than it has been since before the invention of talkies, and the Front Range is one of the hottest parts of the country for celebrating the tremendous art and music of these treasured parts of cinematic history. We hope you had a chance to...

The 1914 Pi Beta Phi Chapter at CU Boulder.

From the Archives: Pi Beta Phi

April 29, 2018

Yesterday was the anniversary of the national Pi Beta Phi Fraternity for Women. Pi Beta Phi was founded on April 28, 1867, at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. The 12 founders had the vision to form the first secret society for women patterned after men’s groups at a time when...

A train on Georgetown Loop trestle near the turn of the century, photo taken on a large glass plate.

From the Archives: Glass Plate Photography

April 28, 2018

Over the years since photography was invented in 1839, the generally accepted date of "practical photography, photographer have used any number of materials to fix an image from salt paper printing to modern day pixels. Many of these experiments have proven to be exceptionally challenging to preserve. Lachlan McLean, for...

A photo of atomic testing from the 1970s

From the Archives: Rocky Flats

April 27, 2018

Through this Sunday, the 29th, the Rocky Flats Truth Force is hosting a Reunion weekend. The Rocky Flats Truth Force was a grass-roots non-violent anti-nuclear group formed during protests at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant near Golden, Colorado during the late 1970s. The Rocky Flats Truth Force occupied the...

Handwritten Italian in the days before the printing press

Il Decamerone: an Italian classic in Special Collections

April 26, 2018

Printed in 1555, this book was brought to the Preservation unit for a new enclosure, but, while here, we discovered a beautiful handwritten page in the middle of the binding. Talk about penmanship goals! It’s even more impressive when you consider that the book is only around 5” tall! Want...

1871 Ethiopian Magic Scroll is made of very tightly bound goat skin and handwritten in red and black ink

From the Archives and Preservation: 1547 Land Deed

April 25, 2018

This handwritten land deed from the 16th century came through the Preservation unit to have a new custom box created. The 1547 deed for parcels of land in England was sealed with a seal as big as our Conservator’s hand. Want a closer look? Materials like this are available to...

Librarian Adam Lisbon shows how a 1700s map of Kyoto can be aligned with Google Maps.

300 Year Old Books Illuminate Japan’s Relationship with the Environment

April 24, 2018

Japan’s relationship with the environment is not as harmonious as many may believe. For one, the island nation’s susceptibility to earthquakes and tsunamis has long set a backdrop for an adversarial relationship with nature. Simultaneously, man made disasters like Minamata disease (mercury poisoning) challenge the idea of a people living...

Closeup on Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln's signatures on a land dead from Special Collections

Abe Needed Mary's Signature, and the Deed Needed Preservation

April 24, 2018

The CU Boulder Archives are part of a larger department, which includes CU's Special Collections and Preservation units. We work very closely with our wonderful colleagues in the other units and, as part of our ode to Preservation Week, will be featuring a few stories of projects between the units...

A large negative that will be digitized after being cleaned and restored a bit by preservation.

The Role of Preservation

April 23, 2018

Throughout our series, 100 Stories for 100 Years from the CU Boulder Archives, you have seen a lot of photos from our collections, but not all of the photos in our collections are in such great condition. Due to chemical processes and variables outside of our control, some styles of...

Protesters with a sign that reads "Hell No, We Won't Glow"

Happy Earth Day from the Archives!

April 22, 2018

The 2018 Earth Day theme focuses on the end of plastic pollution. The CU Boulder Archives does not hold much about plastic pollution, but we do focus on collecting the environmental concerns of fallout from atomic projects in our Atomic West collecting area. These images from the Robert Godfrey Papers...

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