Special Collections News

UPDATE: This has been postponed. Information will be posted when it is rescheduled.

Newspaper accounts of key moments in Athens and University of Georgia history are available freely online as part of the Georgia Historic Newspapers database, thanks to a Digital Library of Georgia effort to digitize issues of the Athens Banner-Herald from 1928 to 1965.

Established in 1974, the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia will mark its 50^th anniversary this fall as the only archive in the state dedicated exclusively to documenting politics, policymaking, and public life. 

In celebration of this milestone, the Russell Library will host a pair of public events on Tuesday, Oct. 22, engaging several of the top political thought leaders on national security and international relations issues. The anniversary events will begin with a morning conversation with former U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss and retired Maj. General Arnold L. Punaro, followed by an afternoon discussion with internationally renowned UGA political science emeriti professors Gary Bertsch and Loch K. Johnson. 

During a two week stretch this September, University of Georgia Libraries will host three acclaimed authors (and some notable musicians) for fun, free events open to the community, as well as UGA students, faculty, and staff.

The first event celebrates Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Brandon Som and acclaimed Jordanian writer Siwar Masannat to campus to celebrate their recent publications with the Georgia Review Books, an imprint by the Georgia Review with the University of Georgia Press. Som's book Tripas was a finalist for the National Book Award before winning the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Masannat's book cue was released in the spring of 2024.

Celebrate the Olympic glory of University of Georgia Athletics this fall by visiting a new exhibit on display at the UGA Special Collections Libraries.

The exhibit Bulldog Olympians takes viewers through decades of the international competition, which has hosted more than 200 UGA athletes competing for Team USA or their home countries. The display includes original Olympic artifacts and rarely seen photographs of Georgia's Olympians, including a look behind the scenes from retired swimming and diving coach Jack Bauerle, who served as an Olympic coach for the 2020 Tokyo Games.

A trailblazing newspaper founder, an influential teacher and poet, and an inspirational author/priest have been selected as the newest members of the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

The 2024 class of honorees include Robert Sengstacke Abbott, publisher and editor of one of the most influential Black-owned newspapers of the early 20^th century; Wyatt Prunty, founding director of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Tennessee Williams Fellowship Program; and Barbara Brown Taylor, an author and Episcopal priest.

Prunty and Taylor will inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, administered by the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia, at separate events this fall. The celebration of Abbott’s posthumous induction is slated for early 2025.

The community is invited to submit their home movies for free digitization, offered by the Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards, one three special collections units at the University of Georgia Libraries.

Online registration is now open for the second edition of “Free the Tapes,” where audiovisual techs from the archives will digitize up to three old videos in any format — from Super 8 and Betamax to VHS and more — at no cost. 

Participants can drop off their materials at one of four dropoff days:

A Q&A scrawled in marker onto a white record sleeve as well as on the vinyl, a hand-painted message on the back of a shovel, a battered straw hat with fraying pink trim, and photographs of pets. These items and dozens more add to the character of the Athens’ music community on display this fall at the UGA Special Collections Libraries along with colorful portraits of the artists taken at their homes.

A documentary presented by the University of Georgia Libraries has earned a regional Emmy Award. 

INSIDE The Warren Commission, a project that has aired on public broadcasting across the United States throughout the past year as part of the 60^th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, was selected as a Southeast Emmy Award recipient. 

The documentary delves into the inner workings of the Warren Commission, the blue-ribbon Congressional body charged to investigate Kennedy’s assassination.

Due to an ongoing construction project, there will be limited access to the exhibition galleries on the second floor of the UGA Special Collections Building between Monday, July 29 and Friday, August 3, 2024. Please keep this in mind if you are planning a visit to the building during this time.