In block 2 of 2025, Lidia Chang’s “Music and Gender in Jane Austen’s England” class (with special guest Ofer Ben-Amots) visited Special Collections to look at the way music was copied and distributed in Europe from the medieval period through the 19th century.

They took a close look at this manuscript leaf showing part of a choral arrangement of Psalm 46, copied probably in the 14th century:

And then … THEY SANG IT! The words are “Omnes gentes plaudite manibus” (the fifth line from the top). Note that the staff has only four lines, rather than the now-standard five.

Last month, science fiction author and io9 founder Charlie Jane Anders visited Colorado College as part of our Visiting Writers series. Writers usually meet with students in CC fiction and poetry classes, and Anders was no exception. This time, though, we held the student session in Special Collections, so that we could look at rare and valuable science fiction publications with her.

It was a blast. I put out an 1869 edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a first edition of George Orwell’s 1984, an Arion Press edition of H.G. Wells’s Tono-Bungay, issues of SF zines such as Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Pandora, pulp paperbacks of Slaughterhouse-Five and Doctor Who, a 17th century history of monsters, and more. We spent a happy hour or so talking about reading and writing science fiction, and as I said goodbye and gathered up the books from the tables I realized it was the first time I’d ever had all my department’s science fiction stuff in front of me at the same time. Glorious!

(Anders is standing in front of a humongous painting by Sandy Kinnee, on loan to the library for one year while we renovate.)