News

In 1848, William and Ellen Craft fled Georgia in disguise — and for 19 years, left the country — to escape slavery and become activists for freedom, literacy and education for Black Americans before and after the Civil War.

Nearly 175 years later, their names will be permanently etched at the heart of the birthplace of public higher education in the United States, with two study rooms in the Main Library of the University of Georgia dedicated in the couple’s honor. Along with the naming of two adjoining study rooms for Mary Blount Bowen Green, a little-known white schoolteacher from the same community, the markers will celebrate Georgians who worked to build a better future for the students of today.

More than two dozen publications by The Georgia Review and the UGA Press, units of the University of Georgia Libraries, have been included in a free, open source database intended to help readers in further understanding issues of anti-racism and racial justice.

The database from JSTOR, an online library of academic journals, books, and primary sources, serves as a companion to the New York Public Library Schomburg Center’s Black Liberation Reading List, a collection of 95 fiction and nonfiction titles that range from memoirs, biographies, and essays to books of poetry, short stories, and graphic novels.

The UGA community is invited to celebrate National Poetry Month with the UGA Libraries at two student poetry readings later this month.

The April 27 and 28 events will feature student poets from Stillpoint, UGA’s student literary magazine, and is hosted in conjunction with The Georgia Review, a nationally acclaimed literary-culture journal that is a unit of the Libraries.

A University of Georgia librarian has received a presidential citation from the Special Libraries Association for her service to the organization during a challenging 2020.

Sheila Devaney, a research and instruction librarian at the Main Library, was recognized as a part of the 2020 Annual Conference Advisory Council for the group’s shift to providing virtual educational content when the pandemic forced conference plans to change. The committee worked to provide sessions on timely topics, including social justice and library responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

From the times when families gathered around the radio for presidential fireside chats to the daily commutes of today, radio broadcasts have been an important part of the culture of the United States.

Later this month, volunteers have a chance to help preserve those broadcasts — from Anchorage, Alaska to Bangor, Maine, and small towns and large cities in between — so that they can be used by researchers for future generations.

Fourteen University of Georgia faculty members will collaborate with UGA Libraries archivists this May to design learning opportunities for students using historical materials, as part of the 2021 Special Collections Libraries Fellows program.

From finance to film studies, the sixth cohort of the program reflects the broadest range of academic disciplines in the program’s history, reaching faculty from eight schools and colleges and 13 academic departments. The group exemplifies the wide range of materials that students and researchers can explore in the Libraries’ three special collections units.

Four writers whose words have inspired people around the world will be celebrated as the newest members of the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame this fall.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown, playwright and performance artist Pearl Cleage, and National Book Award Bronze Medal recipient Clarence Major have earned the 2021 distinction, administered by the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia to honor the state’s literary legacy.

In addition, the November ceremony will include a special posthumous recognition in honor of the late civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who was elected into the hall in 2019 for various works, including his speeches, his autobiography, and his trilogy of graphic novels.

His memoir “Run: Book One” — a sequel to the best-selling “March” trilogy — will be published Aug. 3. Lewis completed the story before his death last July at 80.

To mark Congress Week, UGA’s Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies will host a virtual event featuring Atlanta Journal-Constitution senior reporter Tamar Hallerman, who will discuss her work as a journalist covering politics and Congress in Washington.

The April 8 event is scheduled for 1 p.m. via Zoom Webinar, and is free and open to students, faculty, and the community.

A UGA Libraries faculty member has received a distinguished service award from the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association for her work to connect researchers and students to Georgia political history.

Jill Severn, access and outreach archivist for the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, has been awarded the Marta Lange/SAGE-CQ Press Award, which is presented annually to an academic or law librarian whose research or activities have contributed to information service in law or political science.

EITS will be upgrading technology at the Main Library after the library closes at 9:00 p.m. this Friday, March 19. This outage may last until 1:00 a.m. on March 20 and affects access to the following sites:

• The UGA Libraries' website: sites using libs.uga.edu such as ILLiad interlibrary loan requesting
• The Digital Library of Georgia: dlg.usg.edu

During this time, GALILEO and GIL may be accessed through the following links:

GALILEO databases: https://www.galileo.usg.edu/uga1 ('Search GALILEO' on that page is equivalent to UGA's Multi-Search)

GIL Find catalog: https://galileo-usg-uga-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/search?tab=default_tab&vid=UGA