General Library News

When Savannah Chruszcz took on a project to research the Georgia Museum of Natural History, she knew that it would take a lot of time and focus. But with help from UGA librarians and archivists, she figured out how to make the work interesting and rewarding… and in the end, she earned a cash prize for her efforts.

The second year history and geology major earned an honorable mention in the 2024 Libraries Undergraduate Research Awards this month.

“I learned that I just have to have a lot of patience because sometimes a document will have a treasure trove of information, sometimes not, but there will always be something else to look into,” she said. “Research is a very long, tedious process, but a rewarding and fulfilling one.”

The University of Georgia Libraries have sponsored the Libraries Undergraduate Research Awards each year since 2007 as a way to connect students with resources, faculty, and librarians as they pursue projects of their choosing.

A University of Georgia doctoral student will focus on stories of Athens’ diverse communities this summer during the inaugural term of the Hargrett Library Fellowship in Local History.

Theodora “Tedi” Light, an Athens native who is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in history at UGA, will help grow and increase public access to the Athens African American Oral History Initiative during her fellowship, a new opportunity available thanks to a donor to the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

As part of the annual Congress Week celebrations, the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies will host former U.S. Representative Steve Driehaus (D-OH) and former USG Chancellor Steve Wrigley. The speakers will discuss democracy building, international development, and the continuing importance of civic engagement and public service. The event is scheduled for Thursday, April 11 at 6:00 p.m. in the Special Collections Libraries’ auditorium and is free and open to students, faculty, and the community.

“We look forward to Congress Week every year. It's an opportunity to provide significant programming that promotes a better understanding of the branch of government closest to the people, said the director of the Russell Library Sheryl Vogt. “Our experienced speakers promise an engaging discussion on building and sustaining democratic institutions at home and abroad.”

Have an old VHS that captured the childhood moments of basketball games and camping trips but no way to actually view the memories? Thanks to the University of Georgia Libraries, community members are invited to “Free the Tapes” with free digitization services to bring the images back to their screens.

The event is sponsored by the Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Archive, one of three special collections units at UGA Libraries and one of the largest publicly available audiovisual archives in the country. 

“We believe that home movies are meant to be treasured, but with advances in technology, too many families are left with old tapes and no way to play and preserve them for the next generation to see,” said Ruta Abolins, director of the Brown Media Archives at UGA. “For Free the Tapes: Home Movie Edition, let us cover the expense of digitization, so you can enjoy rewatching your childhood memories.”

Modern research tools such as artificial intelligence and text and data mining can open up data in ways that researchers are only beginning to imagine. Yet the complex and intense legal landscape can be so daunting that some projects are stifled by concerns of copyright and restrictive terms of use.

On April 11, the UGA Libraries will host one of the nation’s top experts on the fair use of AI and text and data mining to help researchers and librarians understand how to avoid the pitfalls. The 90-minute workshop will be led by Dave Hansen, executive director of Authors Alliance and co-principal investigator of the Text and Data Mining: Demonstrating Fair Use Project, which is supported by the Mellon Foundation.

Story from our partners at the College of Family and Consumer Sciences 

As part of a campus-wide effort to enhance safety at the University of Georgia, public hours at two University of Georgia Libraries locations have been altered. 

Beginning March 11, members of the public will be welcome at the UGA Main Library on North Campus and the McBay Science Library on South Campus during our public hours until 6 p.m. After that time, students and other members of the university community can access the buildings for study sessions and research with their UGA or college ID. The Miller Learning Center will continue to be limited to those with a UGA or college ID from 9 p.m. until 7 a.m.

The Georgia Review was honored to be a finalist for the 2024 American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) Award for Fiction with stories published in the 2023 volume year:

The University of Georgia Special Collections Libraries will host a Native college president and a lauded Black history professor during Women’s History Month this March.

First, Dr. Sandra Boham, president of Salish Kootenai College and an accomplished leader in American Indian higher education, will present the annual Jeannette Rankin Legacy Lecture in honor of the nation’s first women in Congress. The free event will be held Wednesday March 13 at 3 p.m. and is sponsored by the Jeannette Rankin Foundation and the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies.

In the 21^st century, libraries don’t just store information on shelves — they also use servers. UGA Libraries recently reached a major milestone in its digital preservation of unique materials, eclipsing 1 petabyte of storage in its ARCHive.