A small, limited batch - and a few lines that stayed with me

"Meaningful work is the sort where we place our entire selves, squarely and resolutely, and thereby find ourselves."

View this email in your browser Recently, I came across these lines: "Picking meaningful work involves seeing one's work as self-expressive. Meaningful work is the sort where we place our entire selves, squarely and resolutely, and thereby find ourselves. Work at its best holds a transcendent power. It is the ability to leave something of note behind, to elevate us and make us better people, to force us to 'be in the moment' in ways that leisure typically does not, to evaluate the meaning of our lives with unprecedented clarity." - Thoreau on Making a Living There is something steady and comforting in that thought — that the very act of work is how we cultivate and express ourselves.  For me, Zen Scribbles began as a small act of choosing to do fulfilling work — making something by hand, slowly, thoughtfully. Choosing reclaimed materials that age well. Choosing to do something analog in a digital world. This month, I've made a small batch of journals by hand, using new materials. One is covered with reclaimed Italian nubuck leather, super soft to touch and feel. The other is covered in reclaimed denim, complete with frayed edges. I found these materials, thought I'd experiment with how they'd look, and like the results! I won't be restocking these though as I don't have much of these materials . They are simple. Made to hold whatever meaningful work you're called to do next. If one feels right for you, you can view them below. And if not, perhaps take a moment today to write down a single sentence: What would it look like to place your whole self into your work? Warmly, Sonali Founder, Zen Scribbles Copyright © 2026 Zen Scribbles, All rights reserved. *|IF NOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

The Consecrated Eminence: Side Effects

The Consecrated Eminence

Side Effects When I was thinking about what I wanted to write for this post, it occurred to me to talk about my interaction with the collections we have here, outside of my official role as a software developer.  In my role here, I'm responsible for the images and metadata getting ingested into our digital asset management system and also keeping that website going day to day.   Thinking about this work made me ask myself the question: how has working here changed me? Or, better yet, what are the side effects of this position on my interests? Generally side effects are unwanted […] by admin on January 28, 2019

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The Consecrated Eminence: On Gleaning the College’s History Through Documents

The Consecrated Eminence

On Gleaning the College's History Through Documents Guest post by Zehra Madhavan '20 When I started working at Digital Collections as a Student Assistant during the spring semester of my freshman year, my understanding of Amherst College's history was limited to facts I had read about in pamphlets and bits and pieces of information I had picked up in various lectures and speeches; little did I know that I would soon be encountering countless documents and archival items that would shape not only the way I see the college but also the way I see my place in this community. The project I have been working on […] by Sarah Walden McGowan on December 5, 2018

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The Consecrated Eminence: No college is an island: Amherst College chooses Islandora

The Consecrated Eminence

No college is an island: Amherst College chooses Islandora Behind the letters, images, photographs, and other treasures on display in Amherst College Digital Collections is software. To the public, this software is largely invisible, with our user interface showcasing the discovery and display of the digital objects from Archives and Special Collections. Our underlying software infrastructure requires ongoing maintenance, upkeep, and upgrade as technology changes and our needs change. I'm here today to share a choice we've made for the future of our digital collections software, which is that we are going to start using Islandora in our software stack. This month we are beginning the process to migrate […] by admin on October 12, 2018

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The Consecrated Eminence: Charting the Divine Plan: Orra White Hitchcock in the World

The Consecrated Eminence

Charting the Divine Plan: Orra White Hitchcock in the World One of the things we often say about the archival materials we are digitizing and adding to ACDC is that we never know what researchers will do with our materials once we release them into the world wide web. The Papers of Edward and Orra White Hitchcock and Orra White Hitchcock's Classroom Drawings were among the earliest collections we made available through ACDC in late 2012/early 2013. It is amazing to see just how far Orra White Hitchcock's works have traveled since then, both digitally and physically. The news of the moment is that the largest exhibition ever mounted of […] by Mike Kelly on July 12, 2018

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The Consecrated Eminence: A Millennial in the Archives

The Consecrated Eminence

A Millennial in the Archives Guest post by Avery Farmer '20 When I visited the British Royal Observatory in Greenwich during a vacation in London this year, I was captivated by a series of rooms dedicated to a history of time. Not time, the grand spiritual and scientific setting of our own existence, but humans' attempts in the last 500 years to measure that constant force. On display were indecipherable jumbles of pendulums, springs, and gears, exposed or half-concealed by elegant metal dials, each new model claiming some slight advantage over the last. The placards described innovations like a redesigned spring that made an early […] by Sarah Walden McGowan on May 23, 2018

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The Consecrated Eminence: Building Collections and Connections

The Consecrated Eminence

Building Collections and Connections The work of digitizing archival and special collections material is not a "traditional" library activity. Times have changed in libraries. Change is a constant in our work - perhaps that is what hasn't changed. Change is in the evolving materials that cross the desk of our archivists and metadata librarians as they organize and describe what is before them. Change is represented in the digital files with endless strings of names and numbers that fill the hard drives in our digital studio and compose the content of our digital repository servers. Change is new, too, in that we no longer […] by admin on March 27, 2018

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