Late last month, UVA Today published a story on “must-read books for the summer” recommended by UVA Library staff. The suggestions ranged from a book about how Taylor Swift reinvented pop music (by a UVA alumnus) to Jane Austen’s arguably least-known work. That piece stayed on UVA Today’s list of “most popular” stories for two weeks and was even shared by UVA President Jim Ryan on Instagram.
To read more about these books, click the image below to access the UVA Today story.
Cecelia Parks, Undergraduate Student Success Librarian; Anne Causey, Reference Librarian; and Kiowa Hammons, Director of Copyright & Scholarly Communication Services, recommend nine books and films exploring the history, present, and future of trans people.
See the full list in Virgo, plus a few books that did not make the final cut!
The Edgar Shannon Library has been open a little more than a year, and in that time, it’s welcomed several hundred thousand visitors and hosted hundreds of events, workshops, and presentations. For a broad look at Shannon Library, check out our Overview and What’s in Shannon Library? videos.
For a closer look, enjoy the photos below. Photographers Tom Daly and Sanjay Suchak found some unusual angles, interesting patterns, and unexpected views of the library, capturing unique details of Shannon Library over its first year of operation.
The fifth-floor stacks in the newly renovated Shannon Library. (Photo by Tom Daly)
HBRA Architects received a national architecture award last week for their work on the Edgar Shannon Library at the University of Virginia. Traditional Building magazine honored the firm with its 2025 Palladio Award in the category of Commercial – New Design & Construction – more than 30,000 square feet.
Many people are familiar with Jewish culture — through food, humor, holidays, or history. But fewer have explored what it means to live a Jewish life, especially in the United States. For religiously observant Jews, that can include honoring the Sabbath each week, studying sacred texts, following Jewish religious law, and practicing daily traditions that bring meaning and connection.
Two fourth-year UVA Library student workers, Andrew Spencer and SuLing Llanes-Trexler, were profiled in UVA Today this week in a story about their unlikely friendship.
The Library’s exhibitions program allows us to serve the UVA community and beyond as an evolving space for discovery and celebration of our shared cultural heritage, by showcasing to the public the rare and unique materials available to the University’s faculty, students, and visiting researchers in a controlled environment, and celebrating them in creative and edifying ways. Exhibitions also allow us to take advantage of partnerships with other institutions and guest curators to bring fresh insight and new treasures to our galleries.
In a competitive application process, 25 archivists have been selected as cohort members in the 2025 Archives Leadership Institute (ALI) to be held at the University of Virginia Library, June 8-14, 2025.
ALI is a grant program funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and aims to meet the ongoing professional development requirements for mid-career archivists. UVA’s grant provides $300,000 for the three-year project, which began in 2024 and will extend into 2026. ALI offers advanced training for the cohort, giving them the knowledge and tools to transform the archival profession in theory, practice, stewardship, and care.
When Gayle Cooper was a little girl picking cotton on her family’s subsistence farm in Alabama, she had no idea she would go on to become one of UVA Library's longest-serving employees.
The ‘Visions of Progress: Portraits of Dignity, Style, and Racial Uplift’ catalog, showcasing the photos and stories of African Americans in central Virginia during the early 20th century, is in partnership with ... the University of Virginia’s Small Special Collections Library.
Linton worked with Sue Donovan, a book conservator in Special Collections at UVA Library to study the bodices and ensure they did not contain traces of arsenic.
