What's New in Special Collections

"The Future is Here" Early tech adopters in gaming seen through the Christiansen Papers, by Lindsay Oden

The widespread use of computers and the internet made an indelible mark on the world of gaming, as it did on numerous other aspects of our lives. The Eugene Martin Christiansen Papers held in UNLV Libraries Special Collections document how gaming companies, gamblers, race tracks, and casinos began looking into the forerunners of internet gaming as early as the 1970s and had been using networked computers as a resource decades before most people were online.

Collection highlight: Gary Guy Wilson and the primitive hut, by Tyler Stanger and Jimmy Chang

As one of the oldest of architectural theories, the ‘primitive hut’ has influenced generations of architects. A primitive hut occurs when vertical tree trunks planted in the ground support a horizontal beam that bears a sloped roof to shed rainwater. In 1753 the French theorist Marc-Antoine (Abbe) Laugier argued that the Primitive Hut testifies of architecture’s natural origins and that it, the primitive hut, is the prototype of all built form.

Collection Highlight: Native American Comics from the Katherine A. Spilde Papers, by Hana Gutierrez

A young boy posed in a wide stance gazes into the distance. His arms hold a cape outstretched at his sides. The young boy’s name is Georgie and he is an Ojibwe of the Mille Lacs Band in Minnesota. Georgie is one of the many characters depicted in comic books produced by the Mille Lacs Band to educate their children, and also the non-Native American public, on Ojibwe culture.