Have you heard about textbook prices? National surveys indicate that students are now spending about $1200 each year if they purchase all of the textbooks required for their classes. This may be surprising to those of us who graduated from college some time ago, but the increase in textbook prices has far outpaced the increase in inflation, nearly doubling from 1998-2008 alone, and going up over 1,000% since 1977.
W&M Libraries Blog
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September 20, 2019Posted in: WM Libraries -
June 19, 2019Posted in: Special CollectionsDuring World War II, thousands of Italian prisoners of war were sent to the United States to help fill labor shortages created by the war. -
June 12, 2019Posted in: Special CollectionsIn early 1792, Thomas Dobson, a prominent Philadelphia printer in the middle of printing the first American edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, took a much smaller commission: William Currie’s An Historical Account of the Climates and Diseases of the United States of America. -
June 3, 2019Posted in: Special CollectionsRecent visitors to Swem Library will have noticed a change in the exhibit facing the front entrance. -
May 28, 2019Posted in: Special CollectionsA daguerreotype of a young Baltimore merchant, the first victim of a bitter, homicidal political era, resides in the Special Collections Research Center in Swem Library—a ghostly message from the past. -
May 14, 2019Posted in: Special CollectionsThe Reverend Curtis W. Harris is best known for his role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Civil Rights organization founded by Martin Luther King, Jr., though he has not been studied closely by historians. -
April 8, 2019Posted in: WM LibrariesOn a whiteboard in the lobby we asked, "Which book best captures your identity or culture?" Students gave us over 50 fantastic responses that highlighted the wonderful diversity in our community! -
April 3, 2019Posted in: WM LibrariesOn February 28, 2019, the University of California System announced the end of its relationship with publishing giant Elsevier, when a deal between the two could not be met despite months of negotiation. -
March 27, 2019Posted in: Special CollectionsA broadside for the performance of a traveling minstrel show, advertising “an evening of singing, dancing, music, and jokes,” caught the attention of a student in the Special Collections Reading Room this past week. -
March 14, 2019Posted in: WM LibrariesWith February officially behind us, we say good-bye to that infamous holiday of love--Valentine’s Day. This year the Libraries celebrated Valentine’s Day with an event universally known (among libraries anyway) as Blind Date with a Book.