Collections

Imagine a place where every form of human communication and storytelling exist; where world-renowned women’s history collections make visible the historically marginalized; where a world of living diversity surrounds you; where art spanning from ancient times to the present, ranging from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe, cultivates inquiry and reflection; where your curiosity, discovery, and scholarship flourish. Welcome to Smith College Collections.

Beyond the Materials

When we talk about collections, we’re talking about not just the materials, we’re also referring to the spaces, events, and collaborations focused on them.

Botanic Garden

The Botanic Garden of Smith College spans the 127 acre campus, which includes the 12,000 square foot Lyman Conservatory, Church Exhibition Gallery, a historic arboretum, and six acres of maintained outdoor gardens. The garden was founded by Smith College’s first president, Laurenus Clarke Seelye, so that the entire campus could be of scientific, as well as aesthetic, value. Today, it continues to meet those goals.

Wooden sign amidst green ferns features botanical illustration and text on Osmunda regalis, royal fern. Includes a QR code for more info.

Museum of Art

The Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA) is dedicated to connecting people to art, ideas and each other by engaging with firsthand experiences of art, artists, and museum practice. SCMA aims to collect, research, present, and preserve an expansive collection of art in the service of learning, teaching, and critical dialogue.

Special Collections

The Smith College Special Collections (SCSC) are housed in the south wing of the transcendent Maya Lin-redesigned Neilson Library. SCSC holds nearly 40,000 linear ft of archives, rare books, and manuscripts. Few institutions in the world rival the depth and complexity of the rare materials, especially related to women’s history.

Collaborating Across Campus

Botanic Garden

Almost half of all Smith students this past year connected with our staff and collections through curriculum and research across nearly every discipline. Whether through capstone projects, conversations in new languages, or exploring the ties between plants, food, and culture, our spaces are vibrant sites of inquiry and connection. Immersive experiential learning opportunities range from collaborative conservation work at both regional and global scales, to restorative justice work with local indigenous leadership, to student-designed programming that highlights the stories and the value of our botanical collections with other Smithies.

Museum of Art

SCMA sees hundreds of facilitated and self-guided academic class visits by Smith College and the Five Colleges. SCMA welcomed courses from academic departments, including visual arts, performing arts, literature, history, social sciences, natural sciences, philosophy, foreign languages, government, humanities and gender studies. The museum supports academic activity expansively through utilizing teaching spaces like the Winslow Teaching Gallery.

Special Collections

SCSC supports an average of 120 classes per year, many with multiple sessions and collection-related assignments, across all three divisions at Smith plus the Five College community, in our dedicated instruction spaces at Neilson Library. Teaching staff work closely with faculty to meet learning objectives, design hands-on activities, and increase archival and rare book literacies. SCSC also hosts K-12 classes from regional schools. Putting world class collections into the hands of students of all ages is core to our practice!

In Practice

Botanic Garden

The botanic garden regularly hosts exhibits that explore how social and environmental justice, the arts, and more intersect with the botanical world. One such exhibition, A REIMAGINING: what is a label?, featured the work of Gretchen Hammell ’24, and was the result of her second practical experience for the Book Studies Concentration. Through a series of eight works installed throughout the greenhouses, Hammell asked, “what do labels do?” There is perhaps no better place to explore this question than in Lyman where labels are found in every pot.

Museum of Art

Investigating, analyzing and interpreting visual art encourages deep critical thinking, sparks curiosity and provides a focal point for lively dialogue and gallery experiences. Each academic year brings classes that visit the museum multiple times, some weekly. For example, the class CHM 100: Chemistry of Art Objects discusses chemistry in the context of art. The course focuses on materials used by artists and how the chemistry of these materials influences their longevity. Students work closely with SCMA’s Collection Manager/Registrar to learn preservation and conservation practices using works of art from the collection.

Special Collections

In response to the Radical Visions exhibition at Neilson Library in the fall of 2024, the public art element of the Amplify Competition was produced through a partnership between the Wurtele Center for Collaborative Leadership, Special Collections, and the Smith Office for the Arts.

Supporting Students

Botanic Garden

Smith students are invited to engage with all aspects of the botanic garden’s work. From support with coursework to long term partnerships as interns, work study, researchers, and educators, our student scholars can explore the botanical world as conservationists, artists, social justice advocates, Botanic Garden Student Educators, and much more.

As members of our student team, Smithies gain unique and transformative pre-professional experiences that deeply inform their future trajectories in both academic and professional spaces. Whether designing original exhibits, developing peer-to-peer programming, or taking the lead on conservation initiatives, students develop their leadership skills as they grapple with complex challenges.

Museum of Art

Student Museum Educators (SMEs) lead pre-K–12 students—and at times, fellow college students—in close looking and thinking about art through guided conversation, multisensory engagement, writing, drawing and other participatory activities in the galleries. In this challenging but rewarding position, SMEs experiment with new ideas and hone a creative teaching practice as they bring their unique interests, personalities and backgrounds to their work.

The museums concentration (MUX) has graduated over 100 students in the first 14 years. Students’ experience has confirmed the deep curiosity about museums that exists among students and the value of providing a structure for learning about the history, cultural role and methods of museums through a combination of academic and practical work.

Special Collections

To assist Smith student scholars with their primary source research projects, SCSC designs workshops for Posse Foundation scholars, STRIDE students, and Mellon Mays fellowships. 

SCSC also manages the Rosenthal Fellowship, supporting internships and capstone projects for Archives and Books Studies Concentration students. 

And, in an effort to keep the barriers to student research low, SCSC subsidizes the cost of digital reproductions for all students.