The idea was simple but ambitious: stage an “ABCs” exhibition spotlighting UVA Library collections, entirely curated by Library staff. The exhibition would showcase the breadth of the Library’s holdings, and also serve as a welcome for new University Librarian and Dean of Libraries Leo Lo, who was set to begin at UVA just days before the opening.
When Curator of University Library Exhibitions Holly Robertson and Exhibitions Coordinator Jacquelyn Kim put out the call for staff curators, the response was enthusiastic. The result? 48 topics featuring more than 200 items, most displayed in the Main Gallery of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, but with outposts in Shannon, Clemons, Fine Arts, and Brown libraries as well.
“ABCs of the UVA Library,” will be on display through June 13, 2026, and we hope you’ll be able make it to Grounds to visit in person. In the meantime, to pique your interest here are just a few of the items and their descriptions, along with some of the background from the topic they illustrate.
Photograph of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion
From “B is for Black America,” curated by Ervin L. Jordan Jr., Reference Archivist, and Regina D. Rush, Reference Librarian
Distinguished University of Virginia scholar Armstead L. Robinson (1947-1995) described the 400-year African-American experience as an “epic encounter” of sociocultural challenges. History shines its brightest light on famous lives, but the heartbeat of progress depends on everyday people whose perseverance and resilience, quiet hopes, and small victories inspire us.
Documents matter. Those displayed in “Black America” and countless others awaiting discovery are not just historical artifacts but a testament of the enduring presence and profound impact of Black Americans in shaping the nation.
The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, also known as the “six triple eight,” was a mostly Black all-female military unit tasked with reconciling a two-year backlog of 17 million pieces of mail with a six-month deadline. This military unit composed of 824 servicewomen and 31 officers was deployed overseas to England and France during World War II. Amid challenges of racism and sexism, the 855-strong unit of stenographers, postal clerks, and other support staff accomplished the nearly impossible feat of clearing and delivering mail to over 7 million service members in record time. The Herculean task was accomplished three months ahead of schedule and significantly uplifted the morale of American troops.
Most recently, the battalion’s accomplishments were hailed in a 2024 movie directed by Tyler Perry, “Six Triple Eight,” with Kerry Washington portraying Major Charity Adams (1918-2002), its commanding officer.
Photograph featuring Harry Clemons with former student Kwang-Tsing Wu and others
From “C is for Clemons’ Correspondence,” curated by Veronica Fu, East Asian Collections Librarian
Before assuming his role as the tenth University Librarian at the University of Virginia in 1927, Harry Clemons was sent by the Presbyterian Board to serve both in the English Department and the library at the University of Nanking. During his fourteen-year (1913–1927) tenure in Nanking, he cultivated enduring relationships reflected in the extensive correspondence — over 100 letters — exchanged between Clemons and his former students and colleagues from 1927 to 1947. One such student was Kwang-Tsing Wu, who sought to pursue formal library science training in the United States.
Clemons’s sustained efforts to support his former student’s aspirations are highlighted in letters drawn from exchanges between Wu, Clemons, and members of Clemons’s academic network, tracing the arc of a journey shaped by determination, institutional support, and cross-cultural navigation.
In August 1939, Wu (left), his wife, and two friends visited Harry Clemons (center), then University Librarian at the University of Virginia. The photo was taken in front of Alderman Library — now renamed Shannon Library.
Miniature edition of Lafcadio Hearn’s “Kwaidan”
From “F is for Fairy Tales,” curated by Bret Heddleston, Print Periodicals Specialist
Authors of fairy tales have served as both compilers of older supernaturally-oriented folk tales and writers of new tales inspired by traditional lore. Some authors wrote new stories in the style of fairy tales, as Irishman Oscar Wilde did with “The Selfish Giant,” or used the concept as a novelistic conceit like Scottish author George MacDonald did with “Lilith: A Romance.” Even writers known wholly for other types of fiction, including Louisa May Alcott, experimented with fairy tales.
The sampling of books shown in “Fairy Tales” highlights beautiful bindings, as well as some less popular titles by otherwise famous authors, from the UVA Library’s broad collection of fairy tales.
Lafcadio Hearn was a famous popularizer of Japanese folk culture abroad. From a western point of view, “Kwaidan” is a mix of “ghost stories” and “fairy tales,” but these categories overlapped more in the Japanese view of that time.
The miniature of “Kwaidan,” fully illustrated, includes two stories: “Jikininki” and “Yuki-Onna.” Readers of this version will have to adjust their pace to short bursts of story on each tiny page, but it’s a perfectly good way to read a ghost story.
Kindertransport identification tag
From “F is for Friedman Collection,” curated by Patrick Garcia, Senior Major Gift Officer
On December 10, 1938 — the day before his 14th birthday and on the eve of World War II —Herbert Friedman boarded a train in Austria as part of a Kindertransport program. Kindertransport (children’s transport) was the informal name for a series of efforts that rescued about 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, from Nazi-controlled territory across Europe.
Despite the limitations of what Friedman could transport first to Great Britain in 1938, then to the United States to join his family in 1940, he had the presence of mind to keep the artifacts that documented his journey to safety as war was breaking out. Over time, he translated letters and documents and organized these materials in binders.
Herbert had three sons: Mark, Ron, and Gary, all UVA alumni. In December 2024, Mark donated the artifacts of his family’s history to the UVA Library — as well as funds to underwrite the expense of processing the collection.
Herbert Friedman was a witness to Kristallnacht, a night of anti-Jewish terror that began Nov. 9, 1938 and led to the deaths of scores of German and Austrian Jews and the destruction of Jewish-owned homes, businesses, schools, and synagogues. The next morning, he went to check on his family’s immigration status, where he was put on the list for the Kindertransport program. A month later, Friedman was on a train bound for Belgium, then a ship to Harwich, England.
Pictured above is the cardboard identification number Friedman wore as part of the Kindertransport Program.
“Lockdown” — an artist’s book
From “P is for Pandemic Books,” curated by Brenda Gunn, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Preservation
“Pandemic Books” is intended to prompt conversation about personal and collective experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also celebrates artist’s books as a means of personal expression, originality, and creative endeavors.
Printer and book artist Gail Watson stretches one’s idea of what a book is and can be. Working with literal lockdown as her master theme, Watson creates an experience that goes beyond turning a paper page and requires “effort on your [the viewer’s and reader’s] part, just like living through a pandemic.” While the materiality of the book creates tension (making the reader think, “How do I even get into this?”), the narrative is pensive, critical, and angry. Watson notes cross-country road trips in 2021 and making and exhibiting art during 2022, and she offers general reflections on living during this particular time, including catching and recovering from COVID-19 herself. Watson delivers a scathing commentary on President Trump’s handling of the virus outbreak. She, like many other artists in this exhibition, took the opportunity to get personal on a number of levels, including her observations of the nation’s political context and response to the pandemic.
This book was letterpress printed on pulp board, has screenprinted and laser-engraved wood round covers, and is bound with a U-bolt.
A POW’s war time log
From “P is for Prisoners of War,” curated by Barbara Hatcher, Special Collections Cataloger
The Small Special Collections Library stewards items in many different formats, including published narratives, diaries, letters, scrapbooks, and photographs. Across these varying formats, our collections hold stories of ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and the stories of prisoners of war (POWs) are particularly compelling. This section highlights the plight of men held captive in different wars, different countries, and different decades. Yet, we see similarities in their stories of survivaI — in their fear, defeat, hope, patriotism, resourcefulness, humor, longing, and resilience.
During World War II, wartime logs were distributed to prisoner of war camps through the War Prisoners’ Aid of the YMCA chapter in Geneva, Switzerland. Joseph Elsleger used his logs to document his time as a prisoner of the German Army after his plane was shot down over France on June 23, 1944. The logs include drawings of the prison camp, makeshift recipes, and humor, as well as a section at the end with the names of his fellow inmates.
The monstrous pig of the German Ocean
From “S is for Sea Monsters,” curated by Sherri Brown, Librarian for English
In 1555, Olaus Magnus wrote of monstrous fish in the seas around Sweden, Norway, and surrounding lands: “Their Forms are horrible, their Heads square, all set with prickles, and they have sharp and long Horns round about, like a Tree rooted up by the Roots: They are very black, and with huge eyes.” Another “had a Hogs head, and a quarter of a Circle, like the Moon … four feet like a Dragons, two eyes on both sides of his Loins, and a third in his belly,” and he spoke of a serpent “200 foot long, and moreover 20 foot thick ... [with] hair hanging from his neck a Cubit long, and Sharp Scales, and is black, and he hath flaming shining eyes.”
The lore of sea monsters, rich and varied, can be found in classical mythology, global literature, art, cartography, and more. Even in the twenty-first century, the depths of the ocean remain much of a mystery, with the first ever video of a colossal squid only taken in 2025. So who’s to say that these fantastical creatures are, in fact, fantastical?
Olaus Magnus’s 1539 “Carta Marina” was the first map of Nordic countries to give details and place names — and his 1555 “Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus” (“A Treatise Concerning the Northern Peoples”) was the earliest comprehensive history and encyclopedia of Scandinavia.
Like in his “Carta Marina,” Magnus devotes chapters of “Historia” to water and the creatures and activities related to it. Chapters include “On Fish” as well as “On Monstrous Fish.” Shown here is the monstrous sea-pig, said to symbolize the ongoing religious upheavals in the 16th century.
Photos of 1970s UVA student life
From "Y is for Yearbooks,” curated by Lauren Longwell, University Archivist
The Library holds a wide range of yearbooks across its collections, both in the Special Collections Library and among other circulating materials, representing a variety of organizations. These range from UVA’s own Corks and Curls to yearbooks from segregated public schools in the Charlottesville area; private institutions, like the Miller School in Albemarle County; the Albemarle Garden Club; and even the Dutch Treat Club, an arts organization in New York City.
Published annually, yearbooks are valuable research tools that capture informal, candid, and everyday moments often absent from official records. They provide rich context for understanding both local and national events, as well as prevailing public sentiments on social issues. In addition to verifying facts and filling gaps in archival collections, yearbooks are especially important for documenting communities and groups historically excluded from the archival record. They offer a vivid glimpse into what life looked and felt like for an organization at a particular moment in time.
Roy Alson attended the University of Virginia from 1970 to 1974. During his time there, he worked as a photographer for The Cavalier Daily and Corks and Curls, eventually serving as photo editor for Corks and Curls. The printed negatives he produced were used to select images featured in the above 1971 edition of the yearbook, as well as in the student newspaper.