Tag Archives: historic

Decalcomania: October 2026

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It’s time for more Decalcomania, this time with a spooky October twist, courtesy of Special Collections at Princeton University Library!

We’ll begin with the charming card-playing skeletons you see above. While these bony boys came from a later reproduction, the original artwork, created by out-of-work artist W.F.E. Liardet, was drawn on a Chiswick wall around 1830. This gang is one of 6 vignettes depicting revived recreational activities, including billiards, drafts, cards, dice, toss, and pitch. (GA 2011.00964, Graphic Arts).

This bat doodle, pulled from the journal of John Knowles Lund, surgeon of the British steamer S.S. Cametense, kept as he traveled from Liverpool, England, to Brazil and back in 1902. On December 4th, the bosun brought Lund a vampire bat he found, which he then exterminated with chloroform. (General Manuscripts Miscellaneous Collection, C0140).

Finally this demon, found by library staff member Fabi Garcia, from an 1803 caricature etching entitled “The Funeral Procession of Buonaparte!!” The procession is led by the devil and his fleet of demons, followed by monkey pallbearers, and the Death and the Commander of the Consular Guard as chief mourners. The merry mourners include Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and the Pope, among others. (GA 2011.01416, Graphic Arts).

Many thanks to Adrienne Rusinko, Casey Reca, and Fabi Garcia for selecting, researching, and sharing these images from special collections!

Special Stickers | Special Collections

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Today, I’m sharing a brilliant initiative in Special Collections at Princeton University Library. It’s beautiful, mysterious, interesting, unusual, intriguing, delightful, random, fantastical, unique, surprising, and it fits on laptop cover! I’m speaking, of course, of “Decalcomania,” the brain child of library staff Adrienne Rusinko, Library Collections Specialist, and Emma Sarconi, Reference and Outreach Specialist.

Collaborating with Princeton University Library’s Makerspace, the department releases original stickers every month based on items in its special collections, cuing a stampede of campus fans. The stickers vary from centuries-old illuminations to modern styles.

For today’s post, I’m not only sharing some personal sticker favorites, I’m chatting with one of the co-creators to learn how this amazing project came to be…

Hi Adrienne, tell us a little about yourself!

Hello! My name is Adrienne Rusinko, and I’ve been at Princeton University Library’s Special Collections for about 6 years. I’m a part of the Public Services team, and my responsibilities include working with researchers to find and access the materials in our collection. We work with folks both in person and through remote reference services, which introduces me to tons of exciting items in our holdings I would otherwise not have stumbled upon.

How did this awesome sticker initiative get started?

My colleague Emma Sarconi, our Reference and Outreach Specialist, reached out to me after seeing the idea at a Makerspace conference. She knew I had some experience with Photoshop, and suggested we find a few cool designs to turn into stickers and put out for free in the lobby as an outreach project, making the space a bit more fun and inviting. This sounded like a great idea, and we immediately got to work. The reaction was incredibly positive from both staff and researchers, and I ended up continuing it into a monthly sticker release.

Please walk us through your research and selection process…

The selection process is the hardest part of stickers, for sure. I spend my downtime at the desk searching through a plethora of digitized material in our online catalog, finding aids, and Digital PUL (DPUL) site, looking at the thumbnails of every page of every item. If I come across something I think is cool, I add it to an ever-growing spreadsheet of potential stickers (the current count is 331 designs, 101 of which have become actual stickers.)

Each month, I pick three designs to turn into stickers. It’s usually a random assortment, but every once in a while I can pull together a theme. I have some wonderful (and patient) colleagues whom I go to to vibe-check a potential design. I almost passed over the “Here is a picture of a Narwhal.” sticker but was otherwise convinced, and it ended up being one of the most popular designs we’ve put out.

What’s the reaction to the stickers been like? I imagine some sets produce a bit of a mad rush!

The stickers come out every second Friday of the month, and I’ll say, I think the staff here are more excited than anyone! That being said, it’s always a fun reaction to see a group of students walk out of a class and realize we have stickers they can take. The entire point of the stickers is to make Special Collections a little more welcoming, and I think that’s been pretty successful!

What’s your personal favorite sticker, and why?

This is an incredibly tough question. I think I’m pretty partial to what I call “Baby Dragon”, who comes from the margins of a 13th-century French bible (Princeton MS. 82, fol. 42r). I spotted him before I started making stickers, and he immediately reminded me of my dog whenever he would beg for food. When Emma first brought the idea of stickers to me, I knew he would be my first pick.

Image References From Top to Bottom, Left to Right:
Peacock: Book of Hours, ca.1500 (Garrett MS. 59)
Reading Improves: The looking-glass for the mind (Cotsen Eng 18 / Newbery 7161)
Dog with Horn: Bible, ca. 1260 (Garrett MS. 27)
Bright Flowers: Primavera: New Designs and Colors (Graphic Arts 2004-0031E)
Ostrich DJ: Радио-Жираф [Radio Giraffe] (Cotsen 58164 Pams)
Moon Terrace: The Blessed Damozel (C0199 no. 923)
Curious Cat: Des chats (Cotsen, 21217 Folios)
Umbrella Fish: Putanitsa [A Muddle] (Cotsen, 91282 Pams)
Kirin: 神風倭国功 / 十返舎一九著 ; 歌川貞房画, (PL797 .J56 1829, East Asian Library) Snowy Scene: Snow at Kameyama, Station 47 (GA 2009.00719, Graphic Arts)
Block People: Russkiĭ plakat (Cotsen 153779 NR CyrillicQ)
Hand & Heart: Journal to Pikes Peak (C0199 no. 141, Manuscripts)
Three-headed creature: German report, 1791 (Ex 2012-0315N)
Narwhal: Stories About Whale Catching (GA Hamilton 298s)
Football Tiger: 1956 (Athletic Programs Collection (AC042), University Archives)
Bear with Heart: A Piano in the Children’s Room (Cotsen 103359 NR CyrillicQ)
Little Owl: American Ornithology (Graphic Arts, 2007.00515)
Adrienne’s Baby Dragon: French bible, 13th century (Princeton MS. 82)

Gingerbread Architecture

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Recently, we coordinated a very special program celebrating the opening of our new exhibit,  “Once Upon New Times: Reimagining Children’s Classics.” The exhibit brings fresh takes to old tales in Cotsen’s special collections, and we decided to bring the story of Hansel and Gretel to life with “Gingerbread Architecture,” a creative construction extravaganza!

At community family events, we try to offer activities for all ages, so for the youngest set we had a gingerbread neighborhood (the cardboard houses are from Target, you can find them in the art section this holiday season):

All four houses included plenty of markers for decorating, a task many artists took very seriously, spending at least an hour concentrating mightily…

Inside the houses were cute paper gingerbread plates and cups (set of 24 pieces for $15 on Amazon), as well as a couple plastic cookie sets (65 piece set $15 on Amazon):

Elsewhere in the gallery was a mini exhibit on “Gingerbread Geography.” We pinpointed different locations on a world map that highlighted the origin of various ingredients, some fun facts (example: Shakespeare mentioned gingerbread in Love’s Labour’s Lost!), and a take-home copy of Mary Ball Washington’s 1784 recipe – yes, the President’s mom was a gingerbread enthusiast!

Nearby the map was a “Meet the Spices!” station where kids could see actual ginger root, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon sticks.

Our final display was a gallery of various gingerbread kits – from DUPLO to paper punch outs. The goal was to inspire the builders with different variations of houses.

Finally…the main event! Decorating! Out of respect to visitors with food allergies (and future dental bills) our houses were made exclusively with art supplies. We purchased several varieties of gingerbread houses for different age ranges. Here are the more sophisticated templates, which we acquired from Amazon (32 houses for $95 on Amazon. which came to about $3 a house) :

Since the sets arrived with a tiny photo label and no instructions, we built one of each to display. Kids picked the one they wanted, and we handed them the set to build from scratch! For those who wanted a more basic build, we offered three options, also purchased from Amazon (left house was 15 for $12; middle house was 50 for $12; right house was 50 for $25):

Once the house was assembled, families headed to our craft section to load up on decorations! We offered white self-adhesive foam sheets, tons of candy stickers, mini pom-poms, cotton balls in various colors, heart erasers, sparkle stems, striped straws, plastic peppermints, ric rac ribbon, foam beads, and mini plastic candy canes.

The workshop area was stocked with scissors, markers, tape, and glue, but we also had a hot glue station running for trickier pieces. The results were full of variety and creativity, as you can see from the gallery below!

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As always, Katie and I wore something to identify us as staff on the event floor. This time, it was these awesome “Gingerbread Running Team: You Can’t Catch Me” t-shirts.

team gingerbread 3 What’s really cool is that the shirts are a literary nod to “The Gingerbread Man,” which was originally printed as “The Gin-Ger-Bread Boy” in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1875. And yes, we did have a copy in our special collections, so here’s the original printing!

St. Nicholas : an illustrated magazine for young folks. Conducted by Mary Mapes Dodge. Volume II Nov 1874-Nov 1875 (New York : Scribner & Co.). Cotsen Children’s Library, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

This was a big event so we’d like to extend our extreme gratitude to Princeton University students Anna, Cathleen and Shruti for volunteering their time for the build! Thank you!