After being closed for nearly four years, Alderman Library — now The Edgar Shannon Library — reopened in early January, with 100,000 square feet of renovated space and 130,000 square feet of new construction replacing the previous stacks towers. Now that the semester is well underway, the library is already experiencing heavy traffic as users explore and enjoy the new building (check out this Cavalier Daily article for the student point of view). Photographer Tom Daly captured a few of the spaces on and just prior to opening day. In advance of our grand opening celebration on April 4, enjoy this photo essay of the renovated library!
In advance of the grand opening celebration of The Edgar Shannon Library on April 4, we’re taking a deep dive into historical photos of the building and comparing them with the renovated space today.
As a quick overview, the library renewal project, designed by HBRA Architects, began with a 100,000-square-foot renovation of the original, 1938 Alderman Library structure. The renovation also included the demolition of the Old and New Stacks, replaced with a 130,000-square-foot, five-story addition (with one additional level below grade) on the north side of the building.
This year’s Women’s History Month blog post focuses on another big event that happens every spring: The Oscars! Below, librarians Anne Causey and Cecelia Parks share books, films, and archival material related to women involved in this year’s Oscar-nominated films and lesser-known women actors and filmmakers through Hollywood history.
A new entrance to The Edgar Shannon Library makes the building easily reachable from the growing northern corridor along University Avenue. (Library Communications photo)
The University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors voted today to name the University’s newly renovated main library The Edgar Shannon Library, in honor of UVA’s fourth president.
It’s Fair Use Week! UVA Library’s Director of Information Policy, Brandon Butler, penned a piece for Harvard’s Fair Use Week series titled, “‘Stolen Books,’ Bad Faith, and Fair Use.” The piece examines the origins of AI training data and its intersections with court cases such as those around HathiTrust and Google Books. He writes:
Artificial intelligence is sure to be the hottest topic of this year’s Fair Use Week, and that hotness is well-deserved. It’s startling when a machine can instantly create written or visual works that would ordinarily require a skilled human writer or artist.
The University of Virginia Library has nearly five million print books available for checkout, five million e-books, myriad cozy study spaces, and a slew of teaching librarians to help you in the classroom or with research. And did you know we also offer events ranging from workshops to musical events for UVA and the Charlottesville community throughout the year?
Below, check out five upcoming events for those who love reading, crafting, eclipses, and more. All Library events are free.
Good news for bibliophiles: the books in Alderman Library’s fifth-floor stacks are now fully moved in and available to patrons! Browse the shelves to your heart’s content and, when ready, take your selected books to a circulation desk on the second or fourth floors for checkout. (Throughout the renovation, these books were available in Clemons or “by request” through Virgo.)
It’s Love Data Week! This year’s theme is “My Kind of Data,” and we have a guest post from Laura Hjerpe, Senior Research Data Management Librarian.
In recognition of Love Data Week 2024, I’m featuring Charlottesville data stories from the University of Virginia Equity Center and local data from the City of Charlottesville, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the U.S. Government. I chose this because my kind of datais a data story with human interest, backed up by reliable data sources.
On a warm day last June, visitors flocked to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library for a “Family Day” event in celebration of the library’s blockbuster exhibition, “Visions of Progress: Portraits of Dignity, Style, and Racial Uplift,” curated by UVA Associate Professor of History John Edwin Mason. Since its installation in September 2022, the exhibition, which showcased portraits that African Americans in Central Virginia commissioned from the Holsinger Studio in the early 20th century, had drawn national media attention and attracted more than 10,000 visitors, nearly double the average amount. On this day in June 2023, families came to say goodbye to the exhibition just before it closed, and to have their own portraits taken as well.
Rare Book School's new exhibition Famous and Forgotten: The Game of Authors will look at the history of changing literary trends via its huge collection of author card games.
One of the newest parts of Grounds and an object of fascination for upperclassmen who had to wait eons for Shannon Library to open, the tunnel between Clemons and Shannon is an unheard of architectural feat. The Clunnel may be short, but it bridges the gap between two very different academic areas.
In 1943, she began taking classes in the evenings at UVA, as women were permitted to do, though most were unable to attend UVA as full-time students. She paid her tuition in part by working in the University’s main library, then called Alderman Library, now Shannon Library.
Fire destroyed the Rotunda in October 1895. University officials immediately pushed to rebuild. In 1896 the Board of Visitors hired the prominent New York firm McKim, Mead & White to redesign the historic center of the University. The architectural drawings are now available online in an easy-to-use format through the UVA Library.
“Seeing Stars: The University’s Earliest Observatories” traces the evolution of astronomy at the University, beginning with Thomas Jefferson’s lifelong fascination with the science.
