Beyond the Reading Room

Anecdotes and other notes from the U-M Special Collections Research Center.
Detailed illustration from Audubon's Birds of North America of a nest in a tree with birds sitting around it.

Posts in Beyond the Reading Room

Showing 31 - 40 of 356 items
architectural scene of cityscape in black and beige
  • Pablo Alvarez
Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (14 March) at 4 pm for our third After Hours open house of the Winter term, exploring a selection of early rare books and prints containing images printed with the technique of relief (woodcuts) and intaglio (copperplate engravings).
printed page of latin text with large initial A and border of vines and leaves in black with green and gold accents
  • Pablo Alvarez
  • Shannon Zachary
The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit featuring the title page. Students in a Fall 2022 History Lab class researched and created the exhibit.
Two yellow goldfinches perched on a thistle plant with purple flowers
  • Juli McLoone
The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce the installation of new labels contextualizing John James Audubon’s The Birds of America, which is on display in the newly-renamed Hatcher Gallery Exhibit Room. the new labels acknowledge Audubon's role as an enslaver and vocal opponent of abolition, and further contextualize both The Birds and its author within the social and scientific landscape of the 19th century.
cluster of flowers in yellow and white with green leaves and brown stems against a yellow background
  • Juli McLoone
Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (14 February) at 4 pm for our second After Hours open house of the Winter term, exploring materials related to love and romance.
Detail of miniature by Jean Coene IV, "Lamentation over the Dead Christ", in the opening of the Office of our Lady of Compassion, f. 28. Book of Hours & Psalter. Parchment manuscript, 256 folios. Paris, ca. 1505-1515.
  • Pablo Alvarez
We are delighted to announce an important recent acquisition made possible by Katharine V. Kilgour's generous gift in memory of her father Raymond L. Kilgour: a manuscript containing the texts of a Book of Hours and a Psalter. Written on parchment in Latin and French, it was exquisitely illuminated by one of the leading miniaturists working in Paris in the first two decades of the sixteenth century: Jean Coene IV.
poster with event announcement and images of family seated below potrait floral bouquet architectural cityscape and artists book with curved vertical forms emerging from red cube
  • Evyn Kropf
We are excited to continue our in-person Special Collections After Hours open houses this semester! Join us on the second Tuesday of each month from 4 to 5.30 pm in the Special Collections Research Center on the 6th floor of the Hatcher Graduate Library for an encounter with our collections.
three circular views of greek manuscript text on papyrus, persian manuscript text with astronomical diagram on paper, engraved frontispiece showing European astronomers at work
  • Pablo Alvarez
  • Evyn Kropf
The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit featuring a selection of manuscripts, early printed books, and artifacts illustrating Mesopotamian, Greek, Islamic, and Western European astronomies. Join the curators on Thursday, 12 January, 4-6p in the Hatcher Gallery for a reception celebrating the opening of the exhibit followed by an exhibit tour.
well-dressed spanish and visayan men women and children seated in chairs or on floor, some standing, in a fine room with polished floors
  • Martha O'Hara Conway
  • Fe Susan T Go
Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (10 January) at 4 pm for our first After Hours open house of the Winter term, exploring our extensive collection of letters, diaries, photographs, maps, books, and other material documenting early 20th century Philippine history!
An arm labeled "Fig 4" with letter annotations.
  • Pablo Alvarez
Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (13 December) at 4 pm for our final After Hours open house of the term exploring a selection of artifacts illustrating the early history of western medicine.
Postcard depicting a group of men in front of a two-store building in Salonica (Thessaloniki), circa 1917
  • Gabriel Mordoch
Newly cataloged for our Jewish Salonica Postcard Collection: a postcard depicting a group of men in front of a narrow two-store building in Salonica (Thessaloniki), circa 1917. On the ground floor of the building was the Electrically Powered Bakery while the first floor housed the kosher restaurant of Varsano and Mosse.