One way a person at the University of Rochester earns consideration for the Martin E. Messinger Libraries Recognition Award is through cumulative contributions to the educational mission of the library and service to students and faculty that goes above and beyond what is expected of all library staff.

Five days after the Battle of Antietam—considered a turning point in favor of the Union during the American Civil War—United States President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It states that as of January 1, 1863, “all persons held as slaves” in states that seceded from the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

As of 2021, only 146 universities in the United States—three percent—are designated as R1, meeting the Carnegie Foundation’s definition for the highest level of research activity. The University of Rochester is an R1 university.

Valentine cards represent love, affection, and friendship, but they can also tell us a great deal more. As part of River Campus Libraries’ “Pop-Up” exhibit and event for Valentine’s Day 2017, we displayed a small selection of valentine images from the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP), which is located on the second floor of Rush Rhees Library. 

Driving down Mobile Street in the historic district of downtown Hattiesburg, Mississippi—or cruising it via “street view” in Google Maps—you can see buildings wearing the vestiges of a bygone era.

Hattiesburg Grocery.

Hawkins Hardware.

Bausch & Lomb Hall, home solely to the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester, sees few students who aren’t studying physics and astronomy. There’s a good chance some students in the arts and humanities will spend four years at Rochester without ever stepping foot in the building.

Even though I was originally skeptical of how engaging VR was, as I was hitting the virtual tether ball on the VR starter application “First Steps” for 5 minutes straight, I was entranced and fully enjoying myself. Even with the headset feeling a little too tight around my head, the controllers being tied a little too loosely around my wrists, and a little too much outside noise around me, I was immersed in a separate reality, momentarily overlooking my prior knowledge that none of what I was experiencing was real.

Is virtual reality the next step to improving our classrooms?

Inside the Trolley Problem–a VR-based research study that immerses participants in one of moral philosophy’s most famous hypothetical scenarios–I stood in a control room, surrounded by a dark, dismal industrial landscape. Between that and the robotic computer commands, flashing emergency lights, and alarming signals that a train was coming, I found myself a little tense (even with the volume set so low I could barely hear anything over the ambient noise of Studio X).

20 years ago from today, Oxford Philosopher Nick Bostrum first proposed the argument that “we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation”(Bostrum, 1), introducing several topics of intellectual debates, many of which are still ongoing to this day. From technicians in the natural sciences to philosophers and ethicists, multidisciplinary perspectives from esteemed intellectuals can be seen from just a few clicks away from your search bar, thanks to the universalized distribution of the internet.