Challenging assumptions through outreach
Among other goals, Call is focused on breaking down the exclusionary stigma often attached to the phrase "special collections." To counter the perception of the library as an untouchable vault of dusty old tomes, Call said she is aggressively expanding outreach to student-led organizations. The library recently acquired specific collection items to support a student tea ceremony club, which culminated in a pop-up exhibit in collaboration with the Japanese Tea Club and the Teaparker Tea House. Call also expressed a long-term goal of installing an induction-oven kitchen within the department to explore historical recipes and cooking styles safely.
“We’ve hosted some very successful initiatives related to historical cooking and baking, and I don't think anybody's ever going to lose interest in historic cookbooks,” said Call. “People still reminisce about the 'Great Bake-Off' series that we hosted for a number of years.”
Ideas for alternative student programming is already extending to the library's permanent physical installations, such as the John O'Hara study, which memorializes the 20th-century Pennsylvania author and contemporary of Ernest Hemingway. To make the wood-paneled space more dynamic and interactive, Call said she plans to co-teach a museum studies course in the near future, to help students design an interactive touchscreen for the room. Additionally, following a suggestion from a library colleague, Call said she'd like to host NPR "Tiny Desk Concert"-style events featuring live musical performances.
Slowing down to strengthen understanding and inspire
Call said she believes that interacting with physical archives acts as an antidote to the ever-decreasing modern attention span. She stresses that slowing down to examine original source materials helps train young minds to navigate a crowded information landscape.
“My hope is to try to create experiences for students that allow them to slow down a little bit,” Call said. “Because critical thinking is like a muscle, and I think it’s becoming increasingly important to develop that muscle.”
Far from asking students to reject modern technological advancements, Call wants them to develop an internal analytical toolkit — what she described as a personal “self-practice”— to identify concepts like “fake news” and to ask deeper questions about their world. Whenever students interact with library artifacts or archival materials, they are encouraged to slow down and consider the historical context.
“That’s essentially what all librarians do, right?” Call noted. “In Special Collections, we ask people to interact with our materials and ask, ‘When was this produced? How do we know who the creator is?’ We ask visitors to take that a step further — so they’re moving beyond simply interacting with the materials — to create something new.”
To realize this vision, the Special Collections Library recently purchased a RISO printer, a specialized machine Call said is popular among graphic designers. The library also plans to acquire tabletop letterpresses to support instruction in the history of printing and bookmaking. According to Call, these physical, manual tools are designed to serve as a deliberate counterweight to today's accelerated digital landscape.
“I want to encourage students to visit and look at the materials in Special Collections, but then to create something from that, inspirationally,” Call said. “It doesn’t have to be artistic, necessarily, but to serve as another step in the process of engagement.”
Next steps
Call said she plans to build robust instructional workshops and collaborative learning environments that draw undergraduate students into direct and active contact with the University Libraries’ special collections.
When asked how she wants to shape the future of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Call she said she wants visitors to feel like each visit holds new potential, an ever-evolving work-in-progress.
“This is a space for everyone and their ideas, a ‘yes, and’ environment where visitors can interact with the collections in unexpected ways,” Call said. “A place where people can see delight in the mundane and learn about what people valued or value — though it might look different from their own perspective — and inspire them to ask different questions and build that curiosity muscle.”
“This is a living space,” she added, “and we want students to see Special Collections as a place of possibility.”
About the Eberly Family Special Collections Library
Located on the first floor of the Paterno Library on Penn State’s University Park campus, the Eberly Family Special Collections Library houses more than 200,000 rare books, 25,000 linear feet of archival materials and a diverse range of collections specializing in literature, labor history, political movements and visual culture. The collections are open for public use.