University of Arizona alumnus Raúl Héctor Castro, who overcame hardship and discrimination to become Arizona's only Mexican-American governor and a U.S. ambassador, died Friday, April 10 in San Diego at the age of 98.

Castro had many ties to the UA, including his graduation from the James E. Rogers College of Law, his support of a scholarship fund in the Center for Latin American Studies in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and his donation of his manuscript collection to Special Collections at the University of Arizona.

If you were among the standing room only crowds in Special Collections at the recent Tucson Festival of Books you may have noticed Steve Hussman, the new director of Special Collections at the University of Arizona. A sign of his all-hands-on-deck philosophy, Hussman was busy chatting with guests, answering questions about the archives, directing people to exhibitor tents – even scouring his new office for the last few chairs to bring into the Reading Room.

We place ourselves and others. Here. There. Across a divide. Happy together. Those who love cats – those who abhor them. Those who find wonder in puppets – and those who recoil from them.

Maps mark another division: those who use maps – and those who delight in them.

Maps in Special Collections are distinct from those in other campus libraries because of their age or significance. Like our interests, Special Collections maps are diverse, but most deal with the Southwest, Arizona, or Mexico, and range from the early sixteenth century to the early twenty-first century.

The University of Arizona briefly became Adams College for only a few weeks in 1984 for the filming of the comedy Revenge of the Nerds.  The movie was filmed at the University of Arizona and the surrounding area but the school is only identified in the film as “Adams College,” a fictional school in the Midwest.

Trade publications are windows on history. Associated with individual industries, they cater to specific interests and reflect particular times. One Cold War-era joke held Soviet spying on American aircraft and rocket programs was accomplished largely with an Aviation Week and Space Technology subscription. In time, trade publications depict change and the fortunes of an industry and its owners, managers, and employees.

President’s Day officially began in 1800 as a celebration of the birthday of George Washington who was born on February 22nd. When the holiday was moved to the third Monday of February in 1971, it became known more as a day to recognize the lives and work of all American presidents. In honor of this day, we wish to highlight the many presidential materials we have in Special Collections.

This Tuesday marked the 259th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  Mozart was born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg.  His pieces are models of the Classical style with compositions in all major Classical styles, including symphony, opera, solo concerto, chamber music, and sonata.

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, Keple

December is Spiritual Literacy Month! This event was founded by authors Frederic and Mary Brussat in 1996 to promote respect for the world's religions and spiritual traditions by encouraging people to read sacred texts from all religions.

One of the newest celebrations, International Monkey Day, began as a whimsy in 2002. Now commemorated annually, International Monkey Day invites us to reflect on our fellow member of the primate, their lives and plights, and the ways we draw upon monkeys for inspiration, insight, or analogy.