Please support the Library by completing our user survey
Much of UVA received an email survey from UVA Library on March 3, “Share Your Feedback on UVA Library Services.” The survey is essential in helping us make future plans — please check your email and complete yours today!
Possible Virgo interruptions early Wednesday, March 26
Maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. on Wednesday will impact Virgo functionality: Availability, checkouts, requests, and sign-in may be affected. We expect normal function to return by 7 a.m.
News, announcements, updates, and happenings in the UVA Library
Most UVA students, and a portion of faculty and post-docs, received an email from UVA Library on Monday, March 3, with the subject line, “Share Your Feedback on UVA Library Services.”
The link in the email, which is unique to the recipient, leads to a survey the Library conducts every few years. The purpose of the survey is to better understand the needs of our University community, and make future plans based on those needs.
Why does it matter?
Survey results help Library staff advocate for our community: In the past, survey results have affected decisions about method of delivery of library materials, access to collections, investment in electronic vs. physical materials, and use of spaces.
Additionally, responses to this survey contribute to long-term data gathered from previous surveys, helping us understand the goals, requirements, and habits of Library users over time.
UVA Library celebrates Women’s History Month with book and film suggestions, discussed below. These selections from Library staff are intended to inspire learning about the accomplishments of women.
The Library welcomes applications to four programs with application deadlines in March — two for UVA-affiliated instructors and researchers, two for non-UVA researchers who are seeking to pursue study in Special Collections.
For UVA instructors, staff, and faculty
Research Sprints offer an intensive work environment for a specific project or a component of a broader project. During the sprints, faculty or staff work intensively with librarians for three full working days. The goal is to work without distractions during that period to produce a tangible product or outcome.
On the second floor of Shannon Library, two massive mixed-media collages hanging side by side are catching the attention of passers-by. The art installation, titled “Free to Be, a Collective Virginia Landscape,” is the work of Maria Villanueva, an Assistant Professor of Art who arrived at UVA in August. Using layered transfers of photographs, gouache and watercolor paints, and colored pencils, Villanueva mixes Charlottesville’s urban spaces with the lush landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountains, interspersing local birds, people, and texts into the visual narrative, all presented on giant scrolls.
University Librarian John Unsworth, who oversaw a four-year renovation to the main UVA library and a two-year pandemic that shut down the libraries and all of Grounds, has announced he will retire at the end of the academic year.
In nature, bright colors are often indicative of danger — poisonous spiders and insects (and their imitators) often adorn themselves with electric coloring as a warning to potential predators. Turns out, some books inadvertently do the same.
In the mid-1800s, arsenic became popular as a compound used in book making. Its allure comes from the fact that arsenic, when combined with copper, has the ability to create brilliant emerald greens, which were then used in ornate covers and illustrations. The problem? We now know that long-term or large-scale exposure can lead to skin and lung irritation, and even cancer.
It's Love Data Week! At UVA Library’s Research Data Serviceswe help researchers understand how to keep their data organized and well-managed. For Love Data Week 2025, we talked to Kristen Schwendinger, Director of Research Integrity and Ethicsat UVA’s Office of the Vice President for Research, to help us understand the intersection of data management and research integrity.
In this blog post and the podcast linked below, she provides research ethics advice that benefits all data stakeholders. Kristen writes:
By day, Associate Librarian Josh Thorud teaches audio/video and digital art instructional sessions to students and helps faculty design courses that involve media literacy, AI, and digital storytelling.
When he’s not at work in UVA Library’s Robertson Media Center, Thorud focuses his attention on his own media projects, namely screenwriting and film editing. These projects have taken him around the world to various film and art festivals. Late last year, a film he edited (directed by UVA studio art professor Federico Cuatlacuatl) won the Arte Laguna Special Prize, in Venice, Italy.
In the first installment of our new “Staff Spotlight” series, we spoke with Thorud about how he brings his creative skills into his work at UVA Library.
This Black History Month, librarians on the Arts & Humanities team invite you to explore stories of the African American experience from the past two centuries.
Featured in this post are two collections of primary sources for historical research, a biography of a Union Army soldier, and a history of the Freedman’s Bank by UVA history professor Justene Hill Edwards.
Dec. 10, 1938 - Herbert Friedman, a day shy of 14 years old, boarded a train in Austria bound for England. It was the eve of World War II, and he was one of nearly 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, who were rescued from Nazi-controlled territory across Europe.
A UVA Today story tells the tale in more detail, as Friedman eventually made his way from London to the United States, where he studied to be a pharmacist, fought for the U.S. in World War II and the Korean War, and started a family.
Eighty-seven years after Friedman’s departure from Austria, his personal effects — including the number assigned to him on that fateful train — were gifted to UVA Library by his sons.
Ken Elzinga was honored Friday for his longevity at the University and his iconic status among students past and present. University officials hung his portrait in the Graduate Student Lounge of the Shannon Library.
The “Anne Spencer: I Am Here!” exhibition at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library honors Harlem Renaissance poet and Civil Rights activist Anne Spencer. Located in the library’s Main Gallery, the exhibition opened Oct. 22 and will run through June 14.
University of Virginia librarian John Unsworth, who oversaw a four-year renovation to the main UVA library and a two-year pandemic that shut down the libraries and all of Grounds, has announced he will retire at the end of the academic year.
On Dec. 10, 1938, on the eve of World War II, Herbert Friedman boarded a train in Austria bound for England. It was the day before his 14th birthday. He joined nearly 10,000 children, virtually all of them Jewish, who were rescued from Nazi-controlled territory across Europe and taken to the United Kingdom. His son, University of Virginia alumnus Mark Friedman, has donated materials documenting his father’s remarkable life to UVA’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.
Rare Book School at the University of Virginia's 2025 schedule includes more than 40 classes, featuring online courses and in-person possibilities. In-person courses in Charlottesville will be offered in the University of Virginia's newly renovated Edgar Shannon Library. For the best chance of being admitted on the courses, applications should be submitted by February 17.
For UVA instructors, staff, and faculty
University Librarian John Unsworth, who oversaw a four-year renovation to the main UVA library and a two-year pandemic that shut down the libraries and all of Grounds, has announced he will retire at the end of the academic year.
In the mid-1800s, arsenic became popular as a compound used in book making. Its allure comes from the fact that arsenic, when combined with copper, has the ability to create brilliant emerald greens, which were then used in ornate covers and illustrations. The problem? We now know that long-term or large-scale exposure can lead to skin and lung irritation, and even cancer.