Collections

One Run: Resilience in the Wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing

At 2:49 p.m. on April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs were detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, just over four hours after the start of the race. The aftermath of this disaster, on what should have been a joyful occasion, was devastating. Three spectators were killed, and 281 other people were injured. Many people in Boston and surrounding communities were affected and sought to find ways of healing from this trauma.

Among those seeking to make sense of this event were Northeastern English professors Dr. Ryan Cordell and Dr. Elizabeth Maddock Dillon. They noted the strong reactions in their students, including those not directly impacted by the bombing, and decided to collect public stories of the larger Boston community. They hired a team of graduate students to gather and organize contributions, with the goal of creating an online community archive reflecting on this event. Two graduate students from this original team, Dr. Jim McGrath and Dr. Alicia Peaker, later became co-directors of this project. Along the way, collaborations were established with the NPR radio station, WBUR, the Boston Globe, and the Boston Public Library. The goal of this collection, later entitled Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive, was to construct a public memory to foster a better sense of community in the wake of this tragedy.

The Our Marathon collection includes nearly 8,000 items, with materials ranging from letters to collages to oral histories and other first-person accounts collected by those who founded the project. This archive bears some resemblance to other projects that used crowdsourced materials in response to a public trauma, such as the September 11 Digital Archive (created in 2001) and the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (created in 2005 following hurricanes Katrina and Rita). All three of these projects also focus on the places where traumatic events have occurred. There is a strong emphasis in this collection on showing the implications of this attack for the local community, although materials also include letters sent to people in Boston from students around the world.

In this past year I have become familiar with these materials while adding to and editing some of the metadata for these items in the DRS to clarify the copyright status, associated names and subjects of these materials, as well as the languages used in certain items, for researchers. In surveying this collection, I was particularly intrigued by how the marathon community dealt with this trauma. This attack created a lot of fear and uncertainty around future marathons. In fact, the London Marathon was run six days later, and security was greatly increased there because of what had happened in Boston. But many marathoners in Boston and across the country defiantly raced again, and two of these races – both called “One Run” – are documented in the Our Marathon collection.

Several people run over the yellow and blue finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Runners at “One Run” event in Boston (May 2013). Photo courtesy of MarathonFoto Photographrs.

The first of these races, the “One Run” Boston Marathon event, took place on May 25, 2013. The bombings kept about 5,700 runners from finishing the original race on April 15, and so “One Run” was seen as a way for these runners to complete the final mile of the race. The Facebook post about the event also said “all are welcome to run – nobody will be turned away. This is a free event open to everyone. No registration is required.” This event was thus meant to be inclusive and healing, but it also allowed marathoners to re-experience the outcome of their race.

A video of the opening ceremony for “One Run” is available through the Our Marathon collection. During this ceremony, the national anthem is sung by the children’s choir of the St. Ann Parish, the church to which Martin Richard—an 8-year-old boy who was killed by the bombing—belonged.

Four people stand on the side of a road in what looks like a desert holding a white banner reading "One Run Boston Relay" and displaying a blue map of the United States with a white trail from Los Angeles to Boston. There are signatures all over the sign. Three of the people are wearing blue t-shirts that say "One Run Boston."
Carrying the Banner at the #onerun for Boston. June 11, 2013

Numerous photographs, contributed to this archive by MarathonFoto, also display the joy of the participants and their families as they cross the finish line.

The second race highlighted in the Our Marathon collection occurred a month later. “One Run for Boston” was a non-stop running relay of 3,328 miles, starting in Los Angeles on June 7, 2013, and ending in Boston on June 30, 2013. This race, organized by Danny Bent, Kate Treleaven and Jamie Hay, was a fundraiser, collecting $550,000 for the victims of the bombing through Boston’s One Fund.

The “One Run for Boston” race had an emotional finish. John Odom was badly injured while watching his daughter run on April 15. On June 30, his daughter, Nichole Reis, handed the baton to him in his wheelchair and pushed him over the finish line.

A man sitting in a wheelchair wearing a yellow raincoat over a Boston Strong shirt is smiling and surrounded by cheering runners wearing One Run Boston shirts
John Odom and “Miles” the Baton. July 1, 2013. Photo courtesy of Kristi Girdharry

Both of the “One Run” races served first and foremost as an acknowledgement of the suffering caused by the marathon bombing. They also served as a unifying force, made clear by the obvious camaraderie displayed in the photos here. But finally, these races allowed marathoners a kind of therapeutic experience – they took hold of a situation in which they were vulnerable and transformed it into an active reclamation.

Remembering Christine McVie: An Interview with Larry Katz

Christine McVie standing in front of a microphone holding three maracas. She has long blonde hair and is wearing black.
Christine McVie
(Photo by Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Christine McVie, long-time keyboardist for the band Fleetwood Mac, died at the age of 79 on November 30, 2022. 

Records of McVie’s life and legacy can be found in the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections’ Larry Katz Tapes, a collection of audio recordings between Boston arts and music writer Larry Katz and numerous musicians from 1980 to 2005. 

This interview with McVie took place shortly after Fleetwood Mac’s fourteenth studio album Tango in the Night was released in 1987, which marked the band’s triumphant return after a five-year hiatus. This hiatus saw the band’s members pursuing solo careers in music, but they ultimately came back together to create more music for, as McVie calls it, “the entity called Fleetwood Mac.” 

Listeners of Katz’s interview can come to understand McVie’s view of the band as something larger than herself or the other members in it. “The end result to me is always magical,” McVie states when asked about the “magic” that Fleetwood Mac imbues on its listeners. Even though she admits that the process can be tedious at times, she also reflects on the “mystical” feeling of listening to a record she could spend an entire year working on. 

In this way, McVie describes the creation of an album “like a painting.” “[We] decide what colors we need, what depth we need, what kind of emotion we need… We sketch it in and fill in the colors as we go along.” 

When asked about her future, McVie states, “I don’t see any reason to stop…I don’t see any reason at all–it’s my life. I don’t know what else I’d do if I didn’t write songs or sing.” 

Source: “Interview with Christine McVie, English singer, songwriter, keyboardist and member of band Fleetwood Mac.” Larry Katz Tapes. University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department.

Reading Recommendations for Native American Heritage Month

American Indian activists began working to establish a national “American Indian Day” in the early 20th century. Native advocates like Arthur C. Parker, Sherman Coolidge, and Red Fox James believed that a national day of observation would commemorate the Indigenous community’s history and culture. Various individual states established “American Indian Days” between 1915 and 1920; more recently, some states—including Massachusetts—have changed the second Monday of October, formerly “Columbus Day,” to “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” to focus on the stories of the Native peoples who existed in these lands before European contact, rather than on the oppressors, and to acknowledge the United States’ complicated legacy of colonialism and white violence. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush declared November National Native American Heritage Month (also known as “American Indian Heritage Month”).

Throughout November, visit the Hub on the first floor of Snell Library to explore our print collections featuring Native and Indigenous authors. If you’re not in Boston (and even if you are), make sure to check out the e-books and audiobooks on our virtual bookshelf! Here are some recommended reads from our collection:

Cover of The Only Good Indians


The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (2020): If Halloween didn’t fulfill your cravings for creepy, check out the book Entertainment Weekly called “one of 2020’s buzziest horror novels.” The dark past of four American Indian families leave them terrorized by a vindictive entity determined to make them pay for their sins.



Cover of Split Tooth


Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq (2018): This award-winning novel by Inuk throat singer and artist Tanya Tagaq traces a girlhood in 1970s Nunavut, blending myth and memoir. The audiobook is read by Tagaq herself.




Cover of Poet Warrior


Poet Warrior by Joy Harjo (2021): Three-time United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo writes about her ancestry and the tribal stories and traditions that shaped her. She meditates on grief, loss, ritual, memory, music, joy and everything in between.




Cover of This Land is Their Land


This Land is Their Land: The Wompanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman (2019): Historian David J. Silverman unmasks the truth behind the simple, cheerful Thanksgiving story still taught in kindergartens around the country, and places the Wampanoag tribe at the center of the narrative.

Reading Recommendations for National Hispanic Heritage Month

Bienvenidos a Northeastern, and happy Hispanic Heritage Month! Initially recognized as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, the celebration of Hispanic American history was expanded to a month-long event in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan, and is observed from September 15-October 15 each year. Here at the Northeastern University Library, we’ve curated a selection of recreational reading that highlights Hispanic voices, stories, and culture.

Visit the Hub on the first floor of Snell Library to check out the print collection, which includes titles in both English and Spanish. If you’re not on the Boston campus, enjoy any of the e-books or audiobooks linked from our virtual bookshelf! Here are some recommended reads:

The cover of The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas (2022)

This Gothic fairytale begins in the years following the Mexican War of Independence. Beatriz, left orphaned and homeless by the war, marries a wealthy widower and moves to his secluded country estate. But as she settles into her new home, Beatriz begins to hear voices and see visions, and to wonder what really happened to her husband’s first wife.

The cover of Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta by Isabel Allende (2022)

The newest novel from the award-winning author of The House of the Spirits and Zorro (among many others!) follows the momentous hundred-year life of Violeta Del Valle, from her birth in 1920 until her death a century later.



The cover of Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through America's Stolen Land by Noé Álvarez

Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through America’s Stolen Land by Noé Álvarez (2020)

The son of Mexican immigrants living in Washington, Noé Álvarez left college to participate in the Peace and Dignity Journey: a months-long run organized every four years by Indigenous and First Nations communities, with the intention of fostering and reaffirming cultural connections among First Nations peoples.

Recreational Reads Available Through New OverDrive Subscription

Looking for your next great read? Northeastern University Library is proud to announce our new OverDrive platform, which offers a dynamic collection of e-books and audiobooks to all members of the Northeastern community. Enjoy curated selections of new fiction, popular nonfiction, classic works, and audiobooks.

You can explore the full OverDrive collection at northeasternuni.overdrive.com. We’re adding new materials all the time, so be sure to check back frequently! Northeastern’s OverDrive platform connects seamlessly to the free Libby app for iOS and Android, which allows you to place holds, check out books, and read or listen on your tablet or smartphone. If you’re a member of a public library that supports Libby, you can quickly switch between library accounts to maximize your reading experience.

E-books and audiobooks in the OverDrive collection are also linked directly from Scholar OneSearch, our library catalog, so you can do all your searching in one place!

Users are currently able to check out three titles at a time for up to two weeks, and can place a maximum of three simultaneous holds. When accessing materials on OverDrive, you’ll be prompted to log in with your Northeastern/Mills or NCH London credentials.

Northeastern’s OverDrive instance replaces our previous membership to the SAILS OverDrive platform, and allows Northeastern librarians greater control over the materials in the collection. This means that we’re able to respond to your requests! If there’s something you’d like to see in the library’s collection, just fill out the Recommend a Purchase form to let us know.

Here are some recommended reads to help you get started…

The cover of the book Persuasion by Jane Austen


Persuasion: The recent Netflix adaptation of this Jane Austen novel may have been a bit of a flop, but the original story is a classic for a reason. Austen’s final work is a romantic meditation on love and duty.




The cover of Book Lovers by Emily Henry



Book Lovers: This New York Times bestseller is a love letter to books and reading, and a romance between two very different—but maybe not so different?—readers.




The cover of Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

Between Two Kingdoms: At twenty two, Suleika Jaouad has just graduated from college and has her whole life ahead of her. Then, without warning, she’s diagnosed with leukemia. But this is not a book about surviving cancer. It’s a book about what comes after: learning to live in the world again.