University of Arizona

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Sun, Moon, Planets, and Stars – and Selfies: Astronomical Texts

Sun, Moon, Planets, and Stars – and Selfies: Astronomical Texts

On Thursday, December 4, and Friday, December 5, 2014, some 30 students from Professor Don McCarthy’s ASTR 196, Astronomical Problem Solving – a course intended for freshman astronomy majors – met to view early modern astronomy works, including books by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. The ideas, discoveries, and lives were familiar, but now students met, handled, and explored texts published centuries before and considered their relationship to this legacy.

Roger Myers, Associate Librarian, introduced the students to fifteen works selected by Professor McCarthy. Roger explained the use of book supports, procedures for proper handling, and the business of early modern European publishing behind these scientific works.

And, then, students, librarians, and faculty together examined the works for more than an hour.

We were delighted when students photographed pages with their smartphones.* But what followed was remarkable: spontaneously, students began to take selfies with the books. It made so much sense. Who wouldn’t want a picture with Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, or Newton? The books – purchased, owned, and cared for centuries – embodied each scientist. No longer abstractions, they could be encountered, touched, and consulted.

As the library theorist Kalyani Fernando writes, rare and iconic books serve us as “tangible touchstones” of our history. And as a scientist familiar with our session observed, “Real people wrote those books and the ideas in them are a record of our intellectual growth. What you have done is allow these students to see those intellectual greats on a human scale. Not everyone can be Newton, but thanks to you, most of us can ‘meet’ him and understand his ideas.”

All in a day’s work for Special Collections at the University of Arizona Libraries.

Early astronomical texts and much more embodying the history of science are available in the Special Collections Reading Room during regular hours, Monday-Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM, save for holidays and closures. Explore collections related to the history of science via the Special Collections website.

*Photography is permitted in the Reading Room after completion of a brief agreement to our terms. Just ask. We’re happy to help you make a memory or capture sources for research.

-Wendel Cox

Student Taking a Selfie with an Astronomical Text, December 5, 2014