The theme for Open Access Week 2024 is a continuation of 2023’s “Community over Commercialization,” focusing on prioritizing approaches to open scholarship that serve the best interests of the public and the academic community.
Library communities have long sought to facilitate the sharing of knowledge — they lessen financial barriers, seek to understand their audiences, and encourage discovery and innovation. The UVA Library supports quite a few programs to this end, and aims to facilitate open publishing through tools, assistance, and the power of the academic community.
What do sketches of “Gibson Girls,” with their sumptuous bouffants, have in common with the abstract covers of The Craftsman magazine or the stark, black-and-white woodblock prints in early graphic novels? They all represent American modernity at the start of the 20th century, illustrated through innovations in print culture.
This past spring, four graduate students enrolled in the art history seminar “American Modernisms,” taught by University Professor of Art Elizabeth Turner, delved through the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library as part of their coursework. They found and analyzed early 20th-century advertisements, playbills, wordless (graphic) novels, magazines, and cartoons. The students, along with Turner, curated their findings, turning their work into the latest first-floor exhibition in Special Collections: “Issuing Modernisms: Modern Stories, Types, & Aesthetics.”
The recently opened Edgar Shannon Library is busy and bustling, and the space is also enlivened by new art throughout the building. The art is part of the Art in Library Spaces (AiLS) initiative, designed to create inclusive artistic spaces for the University and Charlottesville communities and strengthen the UVA Library’s presence as a place of belonging for all. AiLS is currently focused on Shannon Library but will bring art into all the buildings in the University Library system. The initiative is steered by the AiLS Standing Committee, co-chaired by Library Associate Dean for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility Catalina Piatt-Esguerra and Curator of Material Culture in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library Meg Kennedy, and made up not only of Library staff but also members of the arts community at UVA and in the surrounding area.
In partnership with UVA Arts, the Library’s Art in Library Spaces committee welcomes proposals for artistic works to be displayed in Shannon Library’s second floor gallery. Faculty and staff at UVA are welcomed to apply, and the selected recipient(s) will receive $5,000, paid to their department to fulfill the project.
Here I present my selection of books to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (Sep. 15 – Oct 15, 2024). Six books are included in this list; one inspirational for UVA’s own Latino community; another two describe a current painful reality for the Latino community in the U.S., and three of the books celebrate the literary and vital creativity of Latino writers and poets. Enjoy!
The University of Virginia Library has six locations; an array of cozy study spaces; millions of books, journals, videos, newspapers available for checkout or browsing; and new resources arriving each day. And did you know we also offer events ranging from exhibitions to concerts for UVA and the Charlottesville community throughout the year?
Below, check out five upcoming events for those who love crafting, bookbinding, spatial mapping, and more. All Library events are free.
UVA Library is celebrating a major milestone: the books in Shannon Library’s stacks are now fully moved in and available to patrons. Each floor in Shannon (aside from the basement and second floor) has two stacks locations — Stacks West and Stacks East.
In observation of Disability Pride Month this July, the Library would like to highlight a number of resources exploring disability justice and activism that we hold in our collection, including anthologies and essays, memoirs, a primary source database, and an introduction to core concepts in disability studies. The quoted text is from each book’s publisher.
A University of Virginia professor enlisted students to document the messages—profane, hopeful, despairing—left on library carrels by previous generations.
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.
