News, announcements, updates, and happenings in the UVA Library

Experience unique vibe of the Music Library in Old Cabell Hall!

By Mitch Farish |

Guest post by UVA Librarian for Music & the Performing Arts Amy Hunsaker

The Music Library has been described as a fishbowl, with its Byzantine-inspired blue carpet squares and arched ceilings. It is very quiet there, except for music that occasionally wafts through from a rehearsal or music lecture. Quirky, hidden study spaces are tucked behind walls of books. It is perhaps the most unique library on Grounds and is worth a visit — if you can find it.

Featured resources

Need Journal access? We’ve got you covered.

By akl3b |

There have been a lot of news stories in the past few years about the “big deals,” academic publishing, and its relationship to journal access in higher education, including here at UVA. And it’s true: what’s happening now is, well, a big deal; one that will affect the way we publish and read for decades to come. This article focuses on three aspects: tools you can download and utilize to make for easier access, processes we’ve put in place on the back end to ensure your access is uninterrupted, and opportunities that have come from this unique moment. If you’re new to this effort, you could start with the Library’s information about Sustainable Scholarship, see recent news stories about the “big deals,” or if you’re familiar and ready for next steps you can jump straight into how you can help.

Featured resources, Sustainable scholarship

A half century of history and entertainment news available in the Rolling Stone Archive

By Mitch Farish |
Top section of Rolling Stone magazine title banner superimposed over cover photo of John Lennon kissing his wife, Yoko Ono, his arm curled around her head.
Rolling Stone magazine cover, January 22, 1981.

The Library has the entire backfile of Rolling Stone magazine in the Rolling Stone Archive — now available in the Library’s A-Z Databases list from its beginning to the present: full-color scans, full-page content, cover-to-cover, including articles, editorials, and advertisements, with article-level indexing and searchable text.

Featured resources

Unearthed: Examining the contents of a 111 year old time capsule

By jph9e |

- Guest post by UVA Library Special Collections Conservator Sue Donovan

On September 12, 2020, the time capsule underneath the “At Ready”/“Johnny Reb” statue in front of the Albemarle County Courthouse came out of the ground after crews had carefully removed the tons of granite and bronze sitting over it. The time capsule, a copper box containing papers, books, and other artifacts, had been placed into a hole in the concrete foundation. The foundation had expanded over time, pressing in on the sides of the thin copper box, and causing the box lid to pop off. This meant that the time capsule had been soaking in groundwater since slightly after it was buried in 1909. Silt from the groundwater colored the water brown, coated the exterior of the contents, and effectively acted as an adhesive between the surfaces of once-distinct books and rosters. As the water level rose, the contents of the time capsule became bathed in a malignant microcosm perpetuated by a mixture of the inherent acidity of the paper, the metal of the box itself, and nature’s ultimate solvent: water.

Inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility, News and announcements, Preservation

Library Resource “Caribbean Newspapers” chronicles History of the West Indies through most of the 18th and 19th Centuries

By Mitch Farish |

The Library online resource "Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876" features publications from 22 islands, covering 150 years of Caribbean history (most of the 18th and 19th centuries) in more than 140 fully searchable titles. These documents provide valuable insights into the islands’ sugar cane plantocracies and the traffic in African lives that fueled the empires of colonizing countries England, Spain, France, and Denmark.

"Caribbean Newspapers" is an essential source for research in:

Featured resources

Library Resource has full Color, Archival Quality scans of Time and Life Magazines, including Ads

By Mitch Farish |

New! The Library offers full issues of Time and Life magazine online, cover to cover with all pictures and ads intact. Click “Research” at the top of the Library homepage. Look in the A–Z list of online resources to find the Time Magazine Archive or Life Magazine Archive. At the EBSCO search page, type search terms. All results will be from that publication.

Featured resources

Documenting and Preserving the Graffiti in Alderman Library’s Study Carrels

By jph9e |

Guest post by: Kennedy Castillo (UVA Linguistics MA, 2019), Lise Dobrin (UVA Associate Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics Program Director), Liam Donohue (UVA Anthropology and Environmental Science BA, 2019), Grace East (UVA Anthropology PhD Candidate), Edith Kachia (Visiting Fulbright Swahili TA, 2018-19), Jenny Lee (UVA English and American Studies BA, 2019), Dakota Marsh (UVA English BA, 2020), Jacob Nelson (UVA Linguistics BA, 2020), Will Norton (UVA Linguistics BA, 2020)

Library stories, Renovation

Cutaway View of Renovated Main Library Shows Vision for Future

By akl3b |

The renovated space includes flexible areas for individual and group study and research throughout the building, as well as new elevators, bathrooms, and stairwells, and all-new mechanical infrastructure.

Cutaway view of the renovated main library
Section perspective from west, looking east towards the Rotunda. HBRA Architects with Clark Nexsen, October 22, 2018. 

Basement

Mechanical rooms and building storage will be located on the basement level, as will compact shelving and processing areas for Rare Books School and Library and Flowerdew Hundred closed collections.

Renovation

UVA Library news from around the world

  • After a nearly four-year closure for renovations, Shannon Library has re-established itself as the University of Virginia’s main study spot. This December marks a full academic year since five floors of expanded seating and a grilled cheese café joined historic reading rooms and the checkered entrance hall students first crossed back in 1938.

    C-Ville Weekly
  • If you’re still wondering what to ask your loved ones for this holiday season, the University of Virginia Library staff is here to help.

    UVA Today
  • Book-loving adventures over five decades inspired a California couple to make a $3.1 million donation to Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, the largest donation in its history.

    UVA Today
  • A new exhibition at the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections sheds light on an often-overlooked Harlem Renaissance poet in UVA’s backyard.

    UVA Today
  • This scary season, if you find yourself on a midnight dreary without a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore to ponder, the University of Virginia Library has recommendations for you.

    UVA Today

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