Vassar Quarterly - Fall 2017 - 6

Vassar News

Schwarz Honored for
Excellence in Teaching

A Map to Vassar Treasures
Six-Year Special Collections Cataloguing Project Nears End
Only 73 libraries in the world can claim to have a copy of John James Audubon's rare
volume Birds of America. Vassar is one of them. It's the "crown jewel of our collection,"
says Ron Patkus, Associate Director of the Libraries for Special Collections. The
problem? Not many know we have it.
Vassar's Archives and Special Collections contains more than 50,000 rare items.
All are listed in the library's card catalogue, but only about half were listed in the
library's online directory. That means people searching the online catalogue for,
say, one of the college's 17th century William Shakespeare folios might not have
found it.
Special Collections is nearing the end of a six-year project to catalogue 25,000
books, folios, and other items. As a result, online records of the rare books in the
Archives and Special Collections Library will now be available to faculty, students,
and researchers around the world.
Completing the project has been a top priority for the library. The task was
finally made possible by the generosity of Vassar Trustee Debra Fagel Treyz '74 and
her husband, Jim. Alumnae/i have always been significant supporters of the library-
providing gifts, purchases, and bequests-Patkus says; it's no surprise that an
alumna stepped up to support one of the library's most important projects.
To get the project started, another graduate, Mark Seidl '87, Technical Services
Librarian in Special Collections, enlisted the aid of students, who culled through
the card catalogue looking for Special Collections items that were not included in
the online catalogue. Those cards were then sent out to a contractor, which used the
information on the cards to create online records. Seidl's most arduous task was to
edit each record, physically examining every item in order to properly describe it.
Along the way, he also reorganized some areas of Special Collections making them
easier to access.
The project, which began in 2011, is now coming to a close, Patkus says-it should
be fully up and running by this fall. To celebrate, the library is proudly displaying
Audubon's Birds of America in the Archives and Special Collections Library (ground
floor, Ingram Library addition), providing visitors a prime example of the wonders
ensconced in the library's domain.
"We have some world-class treasures," Patkus says.
-Debbie Swartz

FA l l 2 0 1 7

Karl Rabe / Evan Abramson '00

Professor of Physics Cindy Schwarz received the
David Halliday and Robert Resnick Award for
Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching at
the meeting of the American Association of Physics
Teachers this summer.
Her contributions have gone far beyond
traditional physics teaching. Schwarz was an early
adopter of interactive teaching methods and is
recognized for her work in bringing a modern,
evidence-based pedagogy to physics instruction
at Vassar. She instituted Vassar College's Physics
Teacher Certification program, working closely
with the Education Department to craft a New
York State-approved curriculum.
An advocate for science literacy, she has found
new and exciting ways to bring physics to undergraduate non-physicists as well as K-12 students.
Her book, A Tour of the Subatomic Zoo-which won
the American Library Association Outstanding
Academic Book Award in 1992-was the basis of
the course The Subatomic Zoo, in which Schwarz
teaches the standard model of particle physics and
accelerator science to Vassar's non-physics majors.
She also co-authored the book Adventures in
Atomville: The Macroscope for 7-11 year olds; it is
available in both English and Spanish.
In her course Physics in Motion, Vassar
students create instructional physics videos and
take them into the local community where they
are presented to students ranging from third
graders up to high school students.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vassar Quarterly - Fall 2017