UVA photographer Dan Addison captured exciting moments in October, as a crew installed massive skylights over the new library’s indoor atria.
The UVA Library inhabits more than five locations, including Brown Science and Engineering Library, Clemons Library, Fine Arts Library, Music Library, and Harrison/Small Special Collections Library; plus professional libraries like Health Sciences, Darden, and Law. The main library, Alderman, was closed in early 2020 for renovation, and work continues apace as staff members prepare to move into the space (along with books and services) in late 2023 and early 2024.
The University of Virginia Library joins the UVA community in grieving three students — second-year Devin Chandler, third-year Lavel Davis Jr., and fourth-year D’Sean Perry — victims of a mass shooting on Grounds Sunday night. Two other students were wounded.
“I weep for the parents, the grandparents, the siblings and friends of all the victims,” said Dean of Libraries John Unsworth in a message to Library employees. “Please take care of yourself and those around you.”
We asked several UVA librarians to recommend books, films, television shows, and art projects to help those who are struggling in the wake of this tragic, violent event. “In tough times we often turn to stories to help us process grief and loss,” said Ashley Hosbach, Education and Social Science Research Librarian, who will host a virtual community read aloud event featuring comforting books for children tonight at 7 p.m..
Take a look at our librarians’ recommendations below:
In his 1973 book, “The Sociology of Science,” the influential American sociologist Robert K. Merton declared: “All scientists should have common ownership of scientific goods (intellectual property) to promote collective collaboration.” This “Mertonian norm,” as it came to be known, long predated the internet (Merton first theorized it in 1942), but some scholars see it as a founding principle of the open access movement, which argues that knowledge should be free, online, and legal to reuse and share. Open Access week, Sustainable scholarship
The Library of Virginia and the University of Virginia will host a talk in late September about the role libraries play in an increasingly AI-driven world.
“The idea is to train an artificial intelligence model to help with this speech recognition into text, and that requires a significant data set,” said Lisa Blackmore, the faculty director of UVA Library’s Digital Humanities Center. “This project is a great example of how AI can be used in experimental and creative ways as part of socially engaged research.”
“Reading feeds every creative community,” says Dr. Leo Lo, UVA’s university librarian and dean of libraries. “It expands what people can imagine, improves how they communicate, and trains the patience needed to make original work. Libraries keep that creative fuel available to everyone.”
“The same quality that makes a book valuable as training data makes it likelier to be scarce in the world,” Leo Lo, university librarian and dean of libraries at the University of Virginia, told Inc.
