Color Our Collections

The 2023 Color Our Collections coloring book is giving the Trinity College community a way to explore the Raether Library and Information Technology Center’s archival treasures through interactive art. The coloring book was inspired by #ColorOurCollections, a national movement started by the New York Academy of Medicine to connect people with library collections through coloring.

Amanda Matava, head of digital asset management, explained that at Trinity, a coloring book committee selected archival images that were then converted using Photoshop, with the book’s cover, pages, graphics, and text designed using Adobe InDesign.

The library also held a contest for students to submit their own art to be featured alongside archival images. The student contest winner, Saisha Uttamchandani ’26, said, “This contest was a way for me to get involved with art at Trinity as a first-year. I picked a design that involved feminism and women because that is important to me but also something that was wholesome for the Trinity community.” The artworks of runners-up Reese San Diego ’25, Charlie Taing ’25, and Tiana Sharpe ’23 also are featured in the coloring book.

LITS staff members first introduced #ColorOurCollections to Trinity in March 2020, just before the pandemic. The library held an in-person launch event before COVID-19 prompted a campus shutdown, with students quarantining in their rooms. Staff then created kits for people to do on their own. “We wanted to give students who were limited to what they could do socially a helpful distraction or stress relief,” said Mary Mahoney ’09, digital scholarship strategist. “It ended up reaching a lot of students.”

The project, said Mahoney, influenced the creation of more engagement opportunities for students in the library, including the art-supply library and a knitting and crocheting group. Mahoney worked on the coloring book project with Matava; Rosie Beranis, wellness librarian and experiential learning coordinator; Kim Rinaldo, systems and collections librarian; and Joelle Thomas, digital learning and discovery librarian.

A launch event for the 2023 edition, hosted by Trinity’s Library and Information Technology Services and the Bantams in Balance student wellness program, was held in December in the library’s Digital Scholarship Lab.

Mahoney said that the project gives all students the opportunity to explore the College archives outside of their classes. “The coloring book raises awareness of archival treasures among students,” she said, “even if they aren’t in a class that brings them into the Watkinson Library.”

To print a copy of this year’s coloring book from the Trinity College Digital Repository, please visit https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/coloringbook/2/