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

Guest post by Christine Slaughter, Social Science Research Librarian 

In observation of Disability Pride Month this July, the Library would like to highlight a number of resources exploring disability justice and activism that we hold in our collection, including anthologies and essays, memoirs, a primary source database, and an introduction to core concepts in disability studies. The quoted text is from each book’s publisher.

Charlotte Hoopes had no idea what open educational resources (OER) were until she had to build an introductory business course from scratch in 2021, her first year as an assistant professor in the McIntire School of Commerce*. The cost of business case studies and simulations consumed her class budget, leading her to discover free, “open” textbooks. As she delved into the world of OER, she discovered resources and grants through UVA Library that allowed her to create her own open textbook specifically tailored for her class. That textbook is now available worldwide, and has been used by more than 1,000 students.

June is here and Pride Month is upon us again! This is the month when we honor queer history and the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 in Manhattan, New York, that set an already-burgeoning gay rights activist movement into high gear. Here in Charlottesville, we get to celebrate Pride twice! Once in June and again in September, when our town and the University celebrate Pride with the full involvement of UVA students.

This month Reference Librarian Mandy Rizki is highlighting a handful of the many library resources that focus on LGBTQIA+ lives, experiences, and fields of scholarship.

In 2023, the Library was the grateful recipient of a major gift — a collection of humor and illustration, mainly of social and political satire — from retired attorney Josephine Lea Iselin, a noted collector of illustrated books, prints, manuscripts, and ephemera. The collection, housed in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, is relevant to fields ranging from art and literature to political science, history, and media studies, and will find broad use in research, instruction, exhibition, and outreach.

Here, we take a close look at just a few of the more than 900 items in the Iselin Collection of Humor.

UVA Library is pleased to announce its 2024 Research Sprints program. Research Sprints provide faculty with the opportunity to partner with a team of expert librarians on a specific project, offering deep interaction and an extended time commitment. During the sprints, faculty work intensively with librarians for one to three full working days to overcome obstacles, explore new research avenues, or test new methods. The 2024 Research Sprints program will be dedicated to the following projects:                                                                                                                                 

The Library is pleased to announce that the following projects have been selected for support in the Course Enrichment Grants program. These grants provide support to faculty interested in enhancing students’ abilities to seek, evaluate, manage, and use information and data in scholarly contexts, as well as create media-rich class assignments. Faculty recipients work with teams of library staff to revise their syllabi and plan for in-class instructional support.

May marks the celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month, a commemoration established by both the Federal Government and the state of Virginia. This year, UVA Library’s Rose Oliveira-Abbey and Carla Arton delved into the rich local history of Jewish Americans in Virginia, a legacy dating back to 1585. While Jewish communities have been established throughout the state, our resources primarily highlight the vibrant narratives from Northern Virginia, Richmond, Charlottesville, and Southeast Virginia. This exploration is presented through three distinct reader experiences: to discover in print, online, or in person.

May is Asian / Pacific Islander / South Asian American Heritage Month, making it a great time to feature materials created by, for, and about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Join the Library in celebrating this heritage month and take a look at our librarians’ recommendations below!

When first-year students signed up for Piers Gelly’s course to fulfill their required ENWR class credits for fall 2023, they had no idea that they’d soon become the only group of first-year students to curate an exhibition at UVA Library.

The exhibition, “Collective Bargaining for the Common Good,” runs through June 20 in the First Floor Gallery of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. The exhibition amplifies 22 years of labor advocacy at UVA and in the Charlottesville area, ongoing through this day.

This April, the UVA Library honors National Arab American Heritage Month with selections of books and films by Arab American women. Leigh Rockey, Librarian for Collections Management and Video Resources, recommends the following titles.