May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, making it a great time to celebrate the richness of these cultures through art. Below, three librarians recommend books, films, and collections, all available through the UVA Library’s catalog.
Recommended by Bret Heddleston, Print Periodicals Specialist
Akira Kurosawa: Adaptations and originals
When I heard that the famous Japanese director Akira Kurosawa adapted a favorite novel of mine, “The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the UVA Library was the only place I could find the phenomenal, but not well-known adaptation. It’s still the best way to see it for free!
Guest post by Director of Technology Solutions Carla Arton andEconomics & Commerce Research LibrarianNicholas Cummins
As the United States marks its 250th anniversary in 2026, Americans have an opportunity to reflect on the many communities whose histories are intertwined with the nation’s story. Jewish Americans have been part of that story since the earliest years of the republic, participating in the American experiment while also bringing with them a distinct tradition of Jewish peoplehood rooted in shared memory, learning, covenant, and communal responsibility.
The UVA Library is pleased to join Archives Leadership Institute in announcing its 2026 cohort. The program selects 25 archivists to participate in an institute to be held in June, the third year the event has taken place at UVA.
“ALI is a national leadership development program funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). Designed for mid-career archivists, the institute provides advanced training that equips participants with the knowledge, skills, and professional networks needed to lead change within the archival profession and the cultural heritage institutions they serve.
On April 17, 2026, the Library and the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences announced the creation of the AI Literacy and Action Lab, a program meant to consider the complexities of AI in higher education head-on.
With two pilot projects already underway this spring, one launching this summer, and two more confirmed for fall 2026, the lab is already off and running. Pilot projects focus on a variety of topics, such as the future of work, critical and ethical thinking, and AI-integrated lesson planning for humanities and STEM courses. Each project involves a librarian facilitator — an expert who is also trained to work as a coach for the team through the entirety of the project.
Guest post from Jenn Huck, Associate Director of Research Data Services & Social, Natural, and Engineering Sciences. Huck assists researchers and teachers in identifying and accessing an array of numeric and geospatial data and is the liaison to the School of Data Science.
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.”
The lab aims to serve as a hub for students and faculty on AI, enabling them to conduct research and build a library of AI materials to address questions surrounding the technology.
This year, the University of Virginia launched its AI Literacy and Action Lab, based on a framework created by Leo S. Lo, UVA’s new university librarian and dean of libraries.
At UVA, leaders say part of the solution may lie in closer collaboration with employers — giving students hands-on experience while helping schools better understand workforce needs.
“With AI, there will be new ethical questions and ethical dilemmas. So we need to help students learn how to think about those new ethical questions, just be aware of them and having a framework to think about how to apply that in their lives,” said Leo Lo, dean of libraries.
