Robert Seydel Reading Room
The Hampshire College library is working with architects, faculty, alumni, students, and staff to create a new space devoted to the book collection of late faculty member Robert Seydel who died in 2011. The Robert Seydel Reading Room will be housed in the 2nd floor space outside of the Bradford Room. In order create space for the Seydel Reading Room, the Pauline Kael collection will move across the hall, to the open area that formerly held our Journals collection. This latter has now been relocated to the 1st floor. The timeline for this project is to have all three collections moved and the new Seydel Reading Room in place by the end of the summer of 2014, in time for a major exhibition of his art planned at Smith College.
Robert Seydel, associate professor of visual art, had a tremendous private library collection that included thousands of volumes of poetry and literature, books on prehistoric art and rock art, history of science, alechemy and occult, art books, photography books & artist books. This collection of more than 3,500 books was donated to the College by Seydel’s family following his death in 2011. Creating a space for this collection in – a public space in the library will serve as a paradigm of the kind of wide-ranging interdisciplinary reading that nourished Robert’s mind, his creative work, and his teaching; all hallmarks of the Hampshire curriculum.
For more information about artist Robert Seydel, please see http://siglioblog.com/tag/robert-seydel/.
Sincerest thanks to the Robert Seydel Memorial Library Committee:
Gail Robin Seydel
Rachel Beckwith, Arts Librarian
Jackie Hayden, Professor of Film & Photography
Baba Hillman, Five College Associate Professor of Film and Video
Sura Levine, Professor of Art History
Thom Long, Architecture
Bonnie Vigeland, Humanities Librarian