News

As history unfolds during the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Georgia Special Collections Libraries are collecting experiences and responses from Georgians to preserve for generations to come.

Georgia residents can contribute to the project by sharing how the crisis has impacted their family, business, education, and well-being. Digital submissions may include personal reflections, photos, poetry, recordings or any other means that demonstrate how the pandemic affects people’s lives.

“Georgians who contribute to the coronavirus collection will help to build our collective understanding of the kaleidoscope of human experience in this unusual circumstance,” said Toby Graham, university librarian and associate provost. “Even as we live through the COVID-19 crisis, we should begin to document this critical time for the benefit of future students and scholars.”

The UGA Libraries Undergraduate Research Award (LURA) recognizes excellence in inquiry and the process of gathering and using information in research. This award is open to any UGA undergraduate student undertaking a research project. Requirements are a meeting with a librarian to develop their information skills and a short essay describing their how their process enriched their final research paper.

Winners are chosen in the divisions of: Seniors, 1st-3rd Year students, and a Jurors’ Choice that recognizes use of a specialized library resource, research method, or other exceptional characteristic of the applicant’s research. More information on the winners and the award process can be found on the LURA website.

When UGA students need help on a research project or a paper, they know to head to one of our Libraries. But when they are miles from campus, it might seem like that help is out of reach.

Yet while our campus and our locations are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and statewide shelter-in-place order, the services and resources of the libraries are available virtually.

Our librarians are available via our online chat, email and individual remote consultation, and many of our books and resources are available digitally.

We know that it can be difficult to find the tools that you need, so the Libraries and the Office of Online Learning are hosting a series of webinars to help you navigate the library at a distance and ask our librarians questions.

Through membership in a digital preservation consortium of 150 academic libraries, millions of the University of Georgia Libraries’ books remain remotely accessible while UGA’s campus is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The partnership with HathiTrust provides our faculty, staff, and students with emergency access to digital copies of almost 40 percent of print holdings at UGA and other USG institutions. Combined with the UGA’s existing collection of e-books, HathiTrust’s temporary emergency access enables patrons to read from millions of e-volumes across a broad range of disciplines.

In compliance with the governor’s stay-at-home order, UGA Libraries will no longer offer book pickup or scanning services.

This applies to all outstanding book requests, including interlibrary loan requests, slated to be picked up at the Main Library, until further notice.

We encourage you to continue to take use of the libraries’ digital resources at libs.uga.edu.

Coinciding with Census Day, April 1, the latest issue of The Georgia Review, Spring 2020, is now available for purchase. In honor of the decennial count, a crucial institution of the American democratic process, we are publishing a Spring issue that presents authors’ and artists’ explorations in various genres of what it means to attempt representation of the diverse communities that comprise the United States.

Dear faculty,

As we all learn to navigate a new virtual landscape at the University of Georgia, the UGA Libraries remain your gateway to knowledge through our digital resources, remote consultations and classes, and other online services.

Here are some ways that the Libraries can help, especially as you conduct your online classes.

Digital resources

The Libraries’ digital collection includes hundreds of research databases, over 48,000 electronic journals, and approximately 400,000 full-text e-books.

During the University of Georgia’s spring break March 7-15, students, faculty and staff may continue to visit UGA Libraries, although various locations will operate on a different schedule.

The Main Library on North Campus and the Science Library on South Campus will close on Sunday, March 8 and reopen 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, March 9 through Friday, March 13. The locations will return to normal business hours on Saturday, March 14.

The Miller Learning Center will be closed over the weekend, March 7-8, and operate reduced hours from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, March 9 through Friday, March 13. The facility will close on Saturday, March 14, reopening at 1 p.m. Sunday, March 15 to resume normal 24-hour-a-day operations.

The University of Georgia will conduct campus-wide network maintenance on Saturday, March 7 from 6:00 a.m. - midnight. As a result, there may be intermittent outages of campus Internet access and information systems. Since the exact timing of outages on Saturday will be unpredictable, please assume that online resources will be unavailable. 

For the Libraries, if the network is down you will not be able to log into our computers or use the wireless network. Our systems (e.g., websites, databases, e-journals) will be inaccessible from campus. 

You will still be able to check out books.

GIL and GALILEO will only be accessible during outages if you are using a non-UGA Internet service provider at the following URLs:

The construction of interstate highways transformed the landscape of the United States of America during the second half of the 20th century; the process also altered the economy, politics, and culture of the country.

A new exhibition on display at the University of Georgia’s Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries explores the origins and impact of these roads in Georgia with a focus on the political compromises and fiscal policies that made them possible.

The exhibit Paving the Road to Progress: Georgia Interstate Highways is now on display in the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies’ gallery. It traverses the rocky path of the interstate system’s development, which cost far more and took much longer than predicted.