WSU Retention List Stories

The orbits of Venus and Earth around the Sun cause Venus to pass across the face of the Sun (as seen from the Earth) periodically. The pattern is: two transits eight years apart, then a pause for 121.5 years, then repeat. In the 18^th century, astronomers were only just starting to apply Newton’s laws of physics to the solar system. Because they did not have an easy yardstick to measure, they used the transits of Venus in the later part of that century to establish a benchmark for their calculations of the distances between the planets and the Sun.

This book on the Krueger Library retention list discusses those adventurous astronomers who traveled the globe at that time to get measurements of the transit. The observations by David Rittenhouse in 1769 in Philadelphia made him famous within the American colonies. Because of that work, he was selected to be the first endowed Chair in Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Woolf, Harry. The Transits of Venus; a Study of Eighteenth-Century Science.Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1959.

Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection.

As students are moving into the residence halls, the Krueger Library’s retention list includes at least one book of advice for new-entering first-year students who are female. Granted, it is a bit dated … by one hundred years.

Jameson, Kate W. and Francis C. Lockwood. The Freshman Girl, a Guide to College Life. Boston: D.C. Heath, 1925.

Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection.

The late WSU Professor Jacob Steigerwald, who died in 2022, taught students how to teach languages other than English. One of the workbooks he authored was printed by the WSU Press and is on the Krueger Library retention list. 

Steigerwald would frequently return to his native Austria during the summer and would often purchase and donate to the library books in German, regardless of the subject. This is one reason why we have a wide variety of books in German scattered throughout our collection (such as the book on futurology which was featured in story number nineteen Back to the Future).

Exploring French, German, and Spanish / by Jacob Steigerwald. Winona, Minn: Translation & Interpretation Service, 1987.

Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection.

If you ever wondered (as I so often have) whether ancient Chinese proverbs about the weather were actually borne out by scientific data, look no further. This book on the Krueger Library retention list investigates that very question. While the authors are from China, the translator lived for many years in Minnesota and passed away in Woodbury in 2014.

Houghton, Barbara Coan, translator. Application of Weather Proverbs to Long-Range Weather Forecasting. Beijing, China: China Meteorological Press, 2012.

Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. This is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection.