Library Oversees Wesleyan’s Archaeological Collections, Visual Resource Center

In 2017, the Wesleyan Library began overseeing two programs.

The Wesleyan Museum, which houses the university’s archaeology and anthropology collection, has moved under the library’s oversight. These materials, located in the Exley Science Center, contain a broad variety of unique items, including Middle Eastern artifacts, historical materials from 18th- and 19th- century Middletown, missionary-collected objects from South America and Native American pieces including pottery and jewelry. Jessie Cohen is the manager of the collection.

The collection will eventually be discoverable through the library’s online catalog (OneSearch) so students and faculty will have the opportunity to find and physically work with historical objects alongside library materials that relate or speak to those objects.

The library also acquired the Visual Resource Center (VRC), which was formerly called the slide library. The collection is now significantly digital and is used by many faculty to teach across all disciplines. The VRC is managed by Susan Passman and Digital Media Specialist Nara Giannella.

“Bringing together these separate collections will allow students and faculty to work actively and synergistically with artifacts, visual materials, and related texts at the same time,” said Diane Klare, the interim Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian. “This will enrich the student learning process at Wesleyan as well as create enhanced research opportunities for outside scholars.”

(Adapted from an article by Diane Klare in the library’s newsletter Check It Out.)