Special Collections and University Archives: News and Events  

Entrance to Special Collections

Reading Room

Exhibit Area

Special Collections acquired two exciting American Revolutionary War-era letters authored by George Washington that document spy activities in Setauket, NY during 1779 and 1780. The letters were gifts of Dr. Henry Laufer and laid the foundation for the establishment of a Long Island Historic Documents Collection. It includes primary and secondary source material on the history of Long Island from the earliest settlers through the present, with a strong emphasis on the period of the American Revolution through the War of 1812 (1764-1812).

Special Collections at Stony Brook University is the recipient of the 2009 New York Board of Regents and New York State Archives "Annual Archives Award for Program Excellence in a Historical Records Repository."

PAST EVENTS

Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 4 p.m.
Center for Italian Studies Conference: "The Italian Literary Canon in Nineteenth-Century England"

Organized by Giuseppe Gazzola, Stony Brook University, with presentations by Professors Anthony Oldcorn, Brown University, Giuseppe Gazzola and Robert Viscusi, CUNY/Brooklyn. 

The event includes a rare books exhibit from the Special Collections of the University Libraries. A Victorian high tea will follow, with commemorative "Foscolo" cupcakes. Free and open to all.

Location:
Center for Italian Studies Meeting Hall, E-4340, Melville Library
Nicolls Road 
Main Entrance
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Phone: (631) 632-7444

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 12:45 p.m.
"Chinese Food and Herbs: Available, Fresh, Healthy, Natural, and Sustainable"

A lecture by Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman, with a food tasting to follow. This talk will explore the terms Available, Fresh, Healthy, Natural, and Sustainable and compare them to the health benefits of Chinese food, Chinese dishes, and Chinese herbs.

Dr. Newman founded, and for nineteen years, has edited the award-winning magazine Flavor and Fortune. It is the first and the only American English-language quarterly about Chinese food and Chinese dietary culture. Her devotion to research and promotion of this dietary culture is well-known world-wide and is the pursuit of a lifetime of efforts, Her collection of over 3,000 books and complementary research materials is a special collection at Stony Brook University Libraries. Free and open to all.

Co-sponsored by Special Collections of the University Libraries and the Charles B. Wang Center.

Location:
Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1
Nicolls Road 
Main Entrance
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Phone: (631) 632-4400

Friday, March 1, 2013 at 11 a.m.
Presentation and Open House in Special Collections for the Faculty Emeritus Association.|

Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at  3 p.m.

Presentation by Richard Vetere: playwright, novelist, poet; film and TV writer, producer/director, actor
Center for Italian Studies, Melville Library, E-4340

Richard Vetere will  speak about being an Italian American writer, the influences, subconscious and conscious ones, of being Italian American as well as  writing about subjects outside of being Italian American.  He will comment on how he believes those not Italian American see him; especially, in his words, "What I have learned from reviews of my work concerning the idea of critics easily identifying  me as Italian American artist or not.  I have been reviewed by the Times to Variety and the critics perceptions are very interesting."

In light of the many projects and papers he donated to the University Libraries'  Special Collections, he will talk about what it means to be a writer and pursue that artistic vision as a life's pursuit.  All are invited.  Free and open to the public.

September 20, 2012

Please join us at a Bicentennial Celebration for poet and playwright Robert Browning on
Thursday, September 20 at 4 p.m.

Featured speakers:

Mark Samuels Lasner, Senior Research Fellow, University of Delaware Library
Edward Giuliano, President, New York Institute of Technology
Rosanna Warren, poet and scholar, University of Chicago.

Victorian High Tea to Follow. Items from the personal collection of Mark Samuels Lasner and Special Collections, SBU Libraries, will be exhibited. FREE and open to all.

Poetry Center, Second Floor, Humanities Building
Stony Brook University

Sponsored by the Department of English, Special Collections of the University Libraries, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

August 24, 2012

August 2, 2012

The university’s James Jay letter (1808) is featured in the August 2, 2012 edition of The Village Times Herald. James Jay (1732 -1815), American physician and politician, and elder brother of John Jay, supplied medicines to George Washington during the American Revolutionary War and developed an invisible ink used by Washington, Thomas Jefferson, his younger brother, John Jay, and members of the Culper Spy Ring.

Historian and author Beverly C. Tyler writes, “With the acquisition of an 1808 letter…Special Collections and University Archives at Stony Brook University has again acquired a valuable Revolutionary-War era document.”

Please click here to access the entire article (page A9) and visit the website of Special Collections and University Archives for more information about this letter.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012  at 1 p.m.

CHINESE CUISINE: HISTORY, ART, AESTHETICS & CULINARY APPEAL

with Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman

Charles B. Wang Center,  Room 201, Stony Brook University
followed by food tasting

Dr. Jacqueline M. Newman founded, and for nineteen years, has edited the award-winning magazine Flavor and Fortune. It is the first and the only American English-language quarterly about Chinese food and Chinese dietary culture. Her devotion to research and promotion of this dietary culture is well-known world-wide and is the pursuit of a lifetime of efforts, Her collection of over 3,000 books and complementary research materials is a  special collection at Stony Brook University Libraries.

Free and open to all!

View the event flyer here.

Sponsored by Wang Center's Asian and Asian American Programs, University Libraries and the Confucius Institute.

February 1, 2012

The William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection is the recipient of the 2012 "Douglas A. Noverr Grant for Collection Enhancement for Institutions to Build Popular Culture and American Culture Research Collections." The $5,000 award is sponsored by the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association. The grant was prepared by Kristen Nyitray, Head, Special Collections and University Archives/University Archivist; Laine Nooney, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Cultural Analysis and Theory; and Raiford Guins, Associate Professor of Digital Cultural Studies, Department of Cultural Analysis and Theory.

Funding will support the archive of Tennis for Two, the world’s first interactive, screen-based computer game developed by William A. Higinbotham in 1958, and expand the William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection (WHGSC), a larger collection development initiative at Stony Brook University that focuses on the history of video games.

October 19, 2011

Special Collections to co-sponsor "Rebels, Resistors, and Rioters," a public program of lectures on the American Revolution and the Civil War on Saturday, November 12.

Special Collections and the Three Village Historical Society collaborated on a private grant sponsored by the New York Council for the Humanities. The project was awarded full funding ($3,000) and will support "Rebels, Resistors, and Rioters," a public program of lectures on the American Revolution and the Civil War.

Confirmed presenters are Natalie S. Bober, an award-winning author of nine biographies, including Thomas Jefferson: Draftsman of a Nation (2007); Countdown to Independence: A Revolution of Ideas in England and Her American Colonies, 1760-1776 (2001); and Abigail Adams: Witness to A Revolution (1995); independent historian Barnet Schecter, author of George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps (2011); The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (2005); and The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (2002); Charles Backfish, Editor of the Long Island History Journal; and Kristen Nyitray, Head of Special Collections and University Archives/University Archivist.

The event will take place on Saturday, November 12 in the Charles B. Wang Asian American Center at Stony Brook University. Registration information will soon be posted on the website of the Three Village Historical Society.

September 15, 2011

"The Beginnings of Video Games": Special Event at the Museum of the Moving Image to be held on October 1, 2011.

June 17, 2011

Professor Raiford Guins of the Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies (SBU), Kristen J. Nyitray, Head of Special Collections and University Archives/University Archivist (SBU), and Peter Takacs of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have been awarded a $9,000 joint seed grant from SBU and BNL to produce a documentary film on the history of the world's first interactive computer game "Tennis for Two" and the current efforts to reconstruct the game. William A. Higinbotham designed "Tennis for Two" in 1958 at BNL.

Funding from the grant will also support:

• the acquisition of the analog and electronic components required to rebuild "Tennis for Two";
• publishing in digital format the documentary on the WHGSC website for public access;
• the distribution of archival quality copies of the documentary to: SBU’s Library; BNL’s archive; the Lemelson Center for Invention
• and Innovation at the Smithsonian Museum of American History; The Library of Congress; the Computer History Museum; The Strong National Museum of Play; and to public libraries in the vicinity of BNL;
• a series of public screenings of the documentary coupled with lectures at SBU and BNL.

June 2011

Kristen J. Nyitray's (Head of Special Collections and University Archives/University Archivist) article “William Alfred Higinbotham: Scientist, Activist, and Computer Game Pioneer,” was published recently in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 96-101, Apr.-June 2011.

May 2011

Librarians Kristen Nyitray and Hélène Volat and Professor Raiford Guins of the Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies (CLCS) have been awarded a $6,000 FAHSS Interdisciplinary Initiatives Grant.

FAHSS is a research and interdisciplinary initiatives fund supported by the Offices of the Provost, Vice President for Research, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University. The initiative encourages interdisciplinary dialogue, research, and teaching in the Fine Arts, Humanities, and lettered Social Sciences. Funding from the grant will support a workshop and a public program that focus on documenting and preserving videogame history and culture. The events will be held at the Museum of the Moving Image later this year.

In Fall 2011, after two years of teamwork between the University Libraries and CLCS, the William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection (WHGSC) will be launched. The collection will invest in and be dedicated to the scholarly study and material preservation of electronic screen-based game media, related texts, ephemera, and artifacts. SBU’s prominent location near NYC makes the collection a desirable research location for academic, journalistic, amateur and independent scholars nationwide. Specific project outcomes include the development of:

• a research center for the history and work of early game innovator and Brookhaven National Laboratory scientist William A. Higinbotham, who invented the analog computer game, Tennis for Two in 1958, as well as for the material culture of games, including consoles, handhelds, peripherals, cartridges and box art, magazines, popular press and scholarly books, etc. SBU will be active in the larger community of preservation and will make a considerable contribution to the general study of game history via its documentation of Higinbotham’s invention.

• a fully functioning laboratory where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates can access vintage consoles for research purposes, many of which are largely inaccessible to individuals due to cost, rarity and obsolescence.

FALL 2010 - PAST EVENTS

Monday, November 1st to Wednesday, November 3rd

Exhibition: "Raising the Bar(code): 100 Years of Innovation and Inspiration"
Location: AIM Expo, Hyatt Regency O'Hare, Rosemont, IL
Sponsored by the AIDC 100 Archives at Special Collections,
Stony Brook University Libraries

Monday, October 4th from 8:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.  (registration closed)

"The American Revolution on Long Island and in New York"
Student Activities Center, Room 305
Sponsored by the Three Village Historical Society in cooperation with Special Collections of the University Libraries and the Center for Global and Local History.

Guest speakers:
Edward G. Lengel, Professor of History, University of Virginia and Editor-in-Chief of The George Washington Papers Project, will present George Washington: Unconventional Soldier.

Edwin G. Burrows, Professor of History, Brooklyn College, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, will present The Prisoners of War of Occupied New York City, 1776-1783.

Wednesday, September 29th from 12:30 to 2 p.m.

Melville Library Author Series: An Afternoon of Poetry featuring Alexandra van de Kamp, Julie Sheehan, and
Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Javits Room, Melville Library (level 2)
Free and open to all. Refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by the University Libraries.

One of the University's  George Washington letters (1779) made a special trip off-campus and was viewed by over 500 children and their parents at Setauket Elementary School on Monday, September 13. The event was covered by News 12 Long Island,  The Village Times Herald, and the Three Village Patch.

The following collections are now available for research use.

• William A. Higinbotham Game Studies Collection
  
  
• James Jay letter
  
  
• Long Island Historical Journal
  
  
• Turmoil Punk Radio Collection
  
  
• Ruth Brandwein Collection (social welfare)

Special Collections and University Archives rely on financial support from private sources to acquire new collections, fund preservation activities, sponsor programs, and support graduate student assistants. Please contact Kristen Nyitray to learn more about giving opportunities.