Our latest exhibition, “Researching Diversity at Drexel,” opened August 10. This week we’ll be hosting an opening reception with coffee and conversation about researching and documenting diversity. The reception will take place in the atrium of the W.W. Hagerty Library (33rd and Market Streets) on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 5 p.m. We hope to see you there!

Drexel opened its doors in 1891 as a technical school dedicated to educating men and women students of all races, religions, and backgrounds. However, the history of diversity at Drexel, as at any institution, is complex. This exhibition contains documents from the University Archives and essays written by students in Dr. Sharon Brubaker’s English 103 classes that explore issues of race, gender and cultural diversity at Drexel.

A guide for international students, Drexel University

Stay tuned for more info!

Update: the workshop is full.  Please e-mail us if you’d like to be on the list for our summer workshop.

Ready to go beyond reading books and articles about archives? Eager to get your hands dirty with genuine historical dust? Want to see how Archivists’ Toolkit works? Join the Drexel University Archives and DU College of Medicine Archives for a hands-on archives processing workshop at Hagerty Library on Friday, April 23, 2010, from 9-5. (more…)

Celestial Space and Eternal Darkness: The Piccards’ Engineering Feats

By Martha Cornog

When your father twice beats the record for the highest balloon flight, what can you do but explore the eternal darkness of the ocean’s depths? At first, Jacques Piccard was just helping out with dad’s bathyscaphe—his real career was teaching economics at the University of Geneva. Father Auguste was internationally recognized for his adventures in the upper atmosphere, having made twenty-seven balloon flights and setting a final record of over 72,000 feet. Auguste had even designed a spherical, pressurized aluminum gondola that would allow ascent to great altitude without requiring a personal pressure suit. Now for his bathyscaphes, he was applying the buoyancy technique used for his balloons to assist in submersion.

But after their third bathyscaphe reached a record depth of 10,000 feet, the Trieste as it was now called found a buyer in the U.S. Navy, which hired Jacques as a consultant. In early 1960, Jacques’ team successfully touched bottom of the North Pacific’s Mariana Trench, a record depth of over 35,700 feet—deeper than Mt. Everest is tall.

Auguste was the inspiration for the amusingly absent-minded Professor Calculus in Belgian cartoonist Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin. For 1940s readers, scientists and engineers must have seemed marvelous creatures, probably half mad with their tinkerings and experiments. But the younger Jacques received no such distinction. By the 1960s, record-shattering explorations had become much more commonplace, and scientists depicted in comics were likely to be serious heroes or villains.

The Piccard family has the unique distinction even today of having made both the highest flight and the deepest dive of all time. In 1960, Drexel honored Jacques and Auguste Piccard with its Science and Engineering Award as part of the eleventh annual Drexel Engineer’s Day.

Want to read more? Jacques’ memoir, Seven Miles Down: The Story of the Bathyscaph Trieste, is part of the Drexel library collection.

Update: the workshop is currently full. Please email archives@drexel.edu to sign up for the waitlist.

Ready to go beyond reading books and articles about archives? Eager to get your hands dirty with genuine historical dust? Want to see how Archivists’ Toolkit works? Join the Drexel University Archives for a hands-on archives processing workshop on Friday, February 5th, 2010, from 10-4. (more…)

You have one hour left to enjoy the food, prizes and eResources at Hagerty Library’s 1st ever eResources Fair until 2 p.m. today

We’re offering food, prizes, and giveaways as you learn more about the terrific resources Drexel Libraries provide. There are wonderful opportunities for knowledge and fun found online through e-journals, e-books and databases licensed by Drexel University Libraries, and the Hagerty eResources Fair will help you make your way though these invaluable learning tools.

Hurry!  We won’t be here much longer!

Please stop by the lobby of the Creese Student Center to see an exhibition titled:

The Enriched Collegiate Experience: Historical Photographs of Student Clubs, Teams, Organizations, and Events.

The photographs range from the early 1900′s through the late 1980′s, showcasing the rich tradition of student life and demonstrating its vital role in the Drexel experience.

In addition to the physical exhibition, an online version is also available.

For more information about this exhibition, future exhibitions, or to see more photographs or student artifacts, contact the archives.

Great Court c. 1922