The UVA Library, in collaboration with the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, is embarking on a new IMLS-funded project to develop a collaborative community hub, designed as a dynamic resource to support librarians, educators, and technologists in navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of AI and open educational resources (OER).
The project will feature:
a comprehensive knowledge base,
a curated resource repository,
and a platform for ongoing discussions on technical, ethical, and legal issues.
The project will also include an AI-OER Fellowship Program, which will convene practitioners to test AI tools, share insights, and contribute to establishing best practices in the field.
We are pleased to announce that Carmelita Pickett, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources and Content Strategy at UVA Library, has been elected to a three-year term with the HathiTrust Board of Governors. Pickett has been active with HathiTrust for many years, serving in the Program Steering Committee and functioning as the Shared Print Program Liaison. Read the full announcement from HathiTrust.
HathiTrust was founded in 2008 as a collaborative of academic and research libraries. The HathiTrust Digital Library preserves and offers access to more than 18 million digitized items, and HathiTrust programs seek to protect and expand access to library materials.
November is Native American Heritage Month – a perfect time to honor Indigenous traditions, cultures, and histories. At UVA Library, we’re highlighting work created by and about Native Americans.
Thanks to Librarian for History and Religious Studies Keith Weimer, and Curator of Material Culture Meg Kennedy for the book recommendations below.
It’s nearly Halloween, and to celebrate the holiday we’ve put together this compilation of chilling stories about UVA Library covering supposed spirits in the stacks, creepy items found in Special Collections, and recommended horror reading from two of our librarians. Stop by one of our six locations to check out a book, pick up a specialized sticker, or perhaps hunt for a ghost.
The 2024 Open Access theme of Community over Commercialization continues last year’s theme prioritizing approaches to open scholarship that serve the best interests of the public and the academic community.
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.
The University itself also has a noteworthy space to learn more about zines — the Zine Bakery project within the Scholar’s Lab, on the third floor of Shannon Library.
The College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at UVA has announced that it will receive a $2.04 million grant from the Mellon Foundation for the Julian Bond Papers Project. The investment will accelerate efforts to digitize, annotate and publish the vast archive of civil rights leader, educator and activist Julian Bond. The manuscript collection is housed at UVA's Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.
A University of Virginia professor enlisted students to document the messages—profane, hopeful, despairing—left on library carrels by previous generations.
