Have you, your colleagues, your lab, or your collaborators created a striking image, schematic, model or other visual element in relation to produced research?
Do you ever wish you had a wider audience for a compelling visualization within an article, chapter, or book?
“The Art of Research,” from the Art in Library Spaces Committee,invites participants and viewers to reconsider the visual components of research — charts, diagrams, maps, illustrations, microscopic imaging, radiography, models, and more — not only as technical tools, but as creative acts of interpretation and inquiry. The Committee invites submissions for a special exhibition in its Dean’s Gallery (fifth floor east and west corridors), celebrating the visual language of research at the University of Virginia.
For National Arab American Heritage Month, UVA librarians honor the achievements of four Arab American women writers who express their Levantine birthright in stories that confront stereotypes and celebrate cultural legacy.
James Murray Howard (1947-2008), for 20 years the Architect for Historic Buildings and Grounds at the University of Virginia, supervised the restoration of many aspects of Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village until his retirement from UVA in 2002.
When Leo S. Lo began his tenure as University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at UVA in 2025, he learned that artificial intelligence (AI) companies were already running out of “training data” — open material across the internet (books, webpages, articles, spreadsheets, and more) to absorb into their generative models for content creation. AI companies had begun approaching research libraries asking for access to archival collections to train their systems.
“What struck me was that the materials being requested are irreplaceable,” Lo said. “Unpublished letters, photographic archives, oral histories, manuscript drafts. In many cases they exist in only one place. With current AI training methods, once those materials are used, the connection between the AI system’s answers and the original source disappears. ... That felt like something the archival community needed to address together, not one library at a time.”
Spring, the season of renewal, is here, and with it are new resources from UVA Library that can boost your brainpower, help you relax, and make you happier. A new Photography and Animation Studio in Clemons Library offers training in visual effects. Over in Shannon Library, patrons can find a wide selection of in-demand books in the new Popular Reading Collection on the fourth floor, as well as a new home for the Library’s Graphic Novels Collection on the floor below.
Photography and Animation Studio
Librarians in the Robertson Media Center (RMC) recently launched a new Photography and Animation Studio in the Digital Media Lab on the third floor of Clemons. Meridith Wolnick, Director of the Library’s Teaching and Learning programs, said that the studio is ideal for students and instructors who assign or create visual projects, as well for people looking to boost their creativity.
For Women’s History Month this year, librarians at UVA recommend a variety of books written by women, ranging from science fiction to memoir to Greek myths.
The University of Virginia Library has six locations, an array of cozy study spaces, millions of items available for checkout or browsing, and new resources arriving each day. And did you know we also offer events throughout the year ranging from exhibitions to concerts for UVA and the Charlottesville community ?
Join us at the Library this spring for craft workshops, writing and editing support, zine tutorials, and live music. All Library events are free.
On Presidents Day 2026, the University of Virginia hosted a special event, “Declaration Under the Dome” in the Rotunda as part of the University’s ongoing UVA250 celebration.For one day only, UVA Library staff members moved an original 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence from its secure vault in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library to the Rotunda Dome Room for public viewing.
When Lucy Bassett was a child, her mother had a makeshift darkroom in their family’s basement. “We’d be folding laundry and also hanging pictures on the clothesline,” she said. Bassett stayed interested in photography and recently wove it into her work as a professor of practice in public policy at UVA’s Batten School.
At UVA, Bassett serves as an expert in children and caregivers in humanitarian contexts, working to improve early child development outcomes. In the aftermath of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that shook southeastern Türkiye and northern Syria in February 2023, Bassett became concerned about the 2.5 million people, many of them children, who were displaced by the disaster and were now living in crowded container camps.
Leo S. Lo, dean of libraries at the University of Virginia, launched a Statement of Shared Practice regarding AI training requests with 11 other universities, including Tulane University, to “protect the integrity of unique cultural heritage materials as AI developers increasingly seek to access them.”
Tucked within the expansive interior of Edgar Shannon Library, the Scholars' Lab Makerspace offers something most academic spaces do not — the ability to experiment without pressure.
As the spring semester continues, libraries across Grounds fill with students reviewing notes, finishing projects and writing papers late into the evening.
“We are facing a technology that is so disruptive … that I have never seen something like this disrupting education in my lifetime, calculators, internet and computers — I don't think any of them can compare to what is happening right now,” Library Dean Leo Lo said.
