Students in “The History and Future of the Book” half block class January 2026 worked together to write, illustrate, design, set type, print, and bind 24 numbered copies of Sheep Are Rectangular, a bestiary of imaginary book-related creatures.

Steve Lawson (Access Service Librarian and co-instructor), Jillian Sico (Printer of the Press), and I (Curator of Special Collections and co-instructor) are CRAZY PROUD of this.

The title of the book comes from something Carol Neel, CC history professor, says to her medieval history students: that books are rectangular because sheep are rectangular. Although this may not seem to make sense at first, what she means is that a sheepskin, when removed from the sheep and trimmed for use as parchment, is rectangular. The efficient use of as much sheepskin as possible means that books, too, are rectangular.

The creatures are: incunababie, boustrophedon, dog ear, bookwyrm, common pica, illuminated lightning bug, and title tots.

Students in the half block: Paikea Kelley, Hope Lowden, Senaida Vigil, Kian Stone, Ethan Kirschner, Anna Crossley, Perry Davis.

CC Special Collections has three illustrated books about monsters published in the 17th century. The authors are Ambroise Paré (French, 1510-1590), Ulisse Aldrovandi (Italian, 1522-1605), and Fortunio Liceti (Italian, 1577-1657). We have a 1628 edition of Paré’s Oeuvres (first published in 1573), a 1642 edition of Aldrovandi’s Monstrorum Historia (the first edition, published posthumously) and a 1665 edition of Liceti’s De Monstris (first published in 1616 without illustrations).

The “monsters” in these books include people with genetic anomalies (such as conjoined twins), mythical creatures (such as centaurs), and … well … these:

and these:

and many other similar trios. I have searched in vain for an explanation of how these three books ended up with such similar illustrations.

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.

We are very proud to announce that Juanita Stroud Martin has donated a collection of Stroud Family Papers to Special Collections. The finding aid is here, and some material is transcribed here (scroll down to “manuscript materials”).

Effie Stroud’s sophomore yearbook photo (1929); Dolphus Stroud’s senior yearbook photo (1931). All CC yearbooks are in digitalCC.

The Stroud Family has numerous ties with Colorado College. You can read about Effie Stroud Frazier ’31 and Kelley Dolphus Stroud ’31 at CC’s “Untold Stories,” and you can hear an interview with Effie Stroud in digitalCC. Tandy Stroud’s newspaper, The Voice of Colorado (1936-37) is digitized here.

Stroud family, 1929, courtesy Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. Seated from left: James, Bobby, Rev. K.D., Rosa May, mother Lulu. Standing from left: Jack, Nina, Dolphus, and Effie.

Stroud Papers, Ms 0429, Box 1, Folder 1.

We are especially extra super wildly excited about Dolphus Stroud’s unpublished memoir in the Papers. It’s riveting, witty, and devastating. It covers his childhood in Colorado Springs, a stint as a busboy at the Fred Harvey Lunch Room in Chicago’s Union Station, a run (so to speak) at the Olympics, and a Colorado College education. You can read a transcription of it here.

In 1974, Rubén Cobos donated an amazing sound archive to Colorado College, and as of this week, after many years of effort from many people and institutions, the music is all online in digitalCC! So, if you’d like to hear “El tecolote,” a song about an owl who cannot attend a dance because she has no rouge, and cannot attend mass because she has no shirt, listen to the 12th recording here. Or perhaps you’re interested in “Don Gato,” in which Mr. Cat falls off a roof? Well, the Cobos Collection has six different versions you can compare.

More information, including a list of all performers, here.