#brants

Feathursday: The Avian Avatars of Special Collections

Sarah the Brant

In the past two weeks we bid farewell to our two graduating graduate interns Katie Stollenwerk and Morgan Ellsworth with posts about them and their Avian Avatars, This week we highlight our continuing graduate intern Sarah Finn and her assigned bird, the exquisite Brant or Brent Goose (Branta bernicla).

Much like her namesake, Sarah is relatively quiet, maintains an elegant bearing, and often appears in shades of black, white, and shimmering golden browns. Sarah began her career here in Special Collections in the summer of 2017 after taking Max’s course in the History of Books and Printing. She started as an undergraduate assistant for a year, and after graduating with a degree in History, she enrolled as a graduate student in UWM’s coordinated Master’s programs in History and Information Studies. With her enrollment, her status in Special Collections transitioned into a graduate internship, and she is currently our Senior Graduate Intern and serves on our leadership team.

Besides her academic interests, Sarah maintains very strong interests in art (as both a researcher and a maker), science and scientific illustration, and the decorative arts. Her role here includes patron services, classroom instruction, catalog verification, LibGuides, and collection maintenance, but her most lasting contribution to the department has been in social media. Sarah founded and single-handedly maintains our Instagram account (which is currently the most popular of our social media platforms, with nearly 15,000 followers), and runs many of our most popular Tumblr series. She ably took over our Flora and Sylva and Fine Press Friday series, and founded Science Saturday and perhaps our most popular series, Decorative Sunday. 

As a testament to her dedication, despite all student employment being temporarily suspended during the coronavirus pandemic, Sarah continues to volunteer her time to maintain our Instagram account and produce weekly Tumblr posts. Thank you, Sarah!! Of her experience in Special Collections,Sarah writes:

This past May marks my third year working in UWM Special Collections and I cannot emphasize enough what a profound impact it has had on me as a person and the type of librarian I want to be in my career. I was introduced to Special Collections as an undergraduate student in a history research methods course, and was intrigued by the chalk board in the reading room with the words “INFOST 603 History of Books and Printing.” Even though it was a graduate level course I ended up signing up for it the next semester in Spring 2017 (and later took it again as a graduate student in Fall 2019). That class, taught by head of Special Collections Max Yela, taught me to think in “book history” and my life has not been the same since. 

Books and printed materials are an amazing source of historical evidence and their meaning goes far beyond their written contents. They are a physical representation of humanity’s relationship to itself. This thinking is fundamental to the way Special Collections approaches outreach and patron services, which is about making meaningful connections with people. Max has always stressed the importance of having fun with your work. This creates an incredibly dynamic work environment, where experimentation and trying new things is encouraged. I have been inspired by Max, department manager Alice, and all my fellow student staff. On a personal level, working in Special Collections has influenced my love for natural history and scientific illustration, as well as fine press printing. It opened me up to opportunities to go to the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum’s annual Wayzgoose celebration, to take a class at the California Rare Book School, and inspired me to pursue many classes in letterpress, bookbinding, and printmaking. My favorite part of working in Special Collections are the class visits and doing everything I can to share these amazing resources with the broader community.

And we are privileged to have you aboard, Sarah! The goose images are hand-painted prints of two subspecies of Brant, the Pale-bellied Brant (B. b. hrota) and the Black Brant (B. b. nigricans), from Rex Brasher’s massive, limited-edition, 12-volume set Birds and Trees of North America, self-published in Kent, Connecticut, between 1929 and 1932, containing thousands of hand-colored reproductions of Brasher’s paintings.

View more UWM Special Collections Avian Avatars!

View more hand-painted prints by Rex Brasher.

UGH...

Never been so frustrated over a ‘game’ in my life! I call myself being cheap and went to Target to get “C&D’s” for §20. Well, they were out so I paid for a digital download @ Gaming Dragons for  §32... 3 HOURS AGO!!! I’m still waiting for my CD-key. 

Isn’t that the sole purpose of paying for a digital download? I could have driven to 5 Targets by now. Sometimes, being cheap doesn’t pay off kids. =(

p.s. At least hubbs is enjoying a football ‘game’...ugh.