Special Collections News

Kellie Templeman loves data so much that it’s not just her day job but her night job too. Kellie, the research data management coordinator at the University of Georgia Libraries, is a team statistician for the Athens Rock Lobsters, the minor-league hockey team that recently began playing at the Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center.

Learn more about Kellie — and how her love of data can help UGA faculty and students in their research journey — in the Q&A below.

What’s your job at UGA Libraries? 

An author and historian will discuss his latest book at the building where he researched the true story of Margaret “Muriel” White Seherr-Thoss, an American wife of a Prussian count who saved a Jewish family during World War II.

 Richard Hutto will share his research and writing process for The Countess and the Nazis: An American Family’s Private War, published in February by Lyons Press. The event is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 13, at the University of Georgia Special Collections Libraries Building.

Just months after its installation, the Georgia Music Collections exhibit from the University of Georgia Libraries, currently on display at the new Akins Ford Arena in Athens, has brought home its first award.

The exhibit was recognized as a 2025 Travel Blazer by the Georgia Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus earlier this month. The award celebrates innovative destination development projects that enhance local tourism.

A unique opportunity to perform research at one of the most ecologically and historically significant sites in Georgia is available to University of Georgia graduate students and faculty, hosted by the Center for Research and Education at Wormsloe (CREW), an interdisciplinary research site administered by the UGA Libraries. 

Take a tour through Georgia musical history, with a special free curator-led event at the University of Georgia Libraries’ Georgia Music Collections exhibit, now on display at the Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center.

Ryan Lewis, Georgia music curator for the Special Collections Libraries at UGA, will lead visitors through a display that features more than 200 legendary artists, from Arrested Development to Whisperin’ Bill Anderson. The free tours of the exhibit are part of the city’s Third Thursday activities this month, and will begin at 6:30 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. on Thursday, February 20.

This Black History Month, two events at the UGA Special Collections Libraries highlight Black voices in history and journalism.

The events include a discussion with author Michael Thurmond on his book about Georgia’s founder and a panel discussion about Black publishing in Georgia in honor of the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame induction of Robert Sengstacke Abbott, the founder of The Chicago Defender.

On Thursday, Feb. 13, Thurmond will discuss his book James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey from Slave Trader to Abolitionist, published by the UGA Press. The book explores Oglethorpe’s relationships with Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Olaudah Equiano, two of 18th-century England's most influential Black men, and how they influenced his philosophy on the issue of enslavement.

Join us for Love Data Week, a series of events led by experts from UGA, the University of Liverpool, and Ludwig Maximillian University, Germany, coming up just in time for Valentine’s Day. 

UGA students, faculty, and staff are invited to a series of free workshops celebrating data and teaching researchers at all stages how to plan out their data strategies, organize, analyze, and share their results. The workshops, many of which are available online via Zoom, will be held Feb. 10-14. 

A new exhibit at the University of Georgia Special Collections Libraries tells the history of clothing, but not through fads like hoop skirts and bell bottoms. Instead, the display outlines the technology, economics and cultural changes that have led to today’s conveniences and consequences of “fast fashion.”

The exhibit, entitled “From Farms to Fast Fashion: Unraveling the Need for Sustainable Style,” weaves together the complicated history of fashion and clothing production from the days of spinning cotton into cloth and hand-sewing at home to today’s consumer lifestyle that often values novelty over durability and craftsmanship.

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: As UGA's campus reopens tomorrow at 10 a.m., all Libraries locations will open at the same time. This includes the Miller Learning Center, the Main and McBay Libraries, the Special Collections Building and others.

Please visit libs.uga.edu/all-hours for complete hours for all locations.

--

UPDATE: As UGA's campus remains closed due to winter weather, all UGA Libraries locations, including the Miller Learning Center, will be closed on Wednesday, Jan. 22. 

Digital resources — including access to e-books, online journals, and millions of database resources — will remain available at libs.uga.edu. Log in with your UGA ID to access these academic resources.

Continue to follow this account for information about reopening plans.

--

New parking procedures are in place for visiting researchers and gallery patrons at the UGA Special Collections Libraries Building.

For those community members planning to use the Hull Street Deck before 5 p.m., please consider contacting us in advance at 706-542-6331 or sclib@uga.edu  for a one-time code to enter into the deck’s payment station. Otherwise, code access will be available at the building’s front desk, but patrons must return to the parking deck to enter their information before returning to the building.

Parking validation codes are not available for UGA faculty, staff, and students, but they may pay to park at the Hull Street Deck after 1 p.m. or take advantage of hourly parking at the nearby Tate Center Deck.

Information for visitors can be found at https://www.libs.uga.edu/scl/visit