Beyond the Reading Room

Join us this Thursday, September 17th, between 4-6p for our first Third Thursdays at the Library event of the semester!

Get a sneak peak at SCRC's upcoming Fall exhibit through our August “Recipe of the Month.” Drawn from Meals for Small Families by Jean Mowat, “Cocoa Sticks” epitomizes one of the key themes of the 1920s: an unapologetic use of commercially made and packaged foodstuffs in support of simple & speedy meal preparation.

This month’s recipe offers a preview of Special Collections’ Fall exhibit: Faster and More Fun: American Home Cooking in the 1920s, with Chocolate Blanc Mange from Fun in the Kitchen (1927).

Summer calls for cool drinks and cool eats. This month’s recipe comes from Fannie Farmer’s The Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1920), third edition, third printing.

On Tuesday 9 June 2026, at 5:30 pm in the Special Collections Research Center, Julia Miller, author of the widely acclaimed "Books Will Speak Plain: A Handbook for Identifying and Describing Historical Bindings," will show us us what “magnificent” can mean with regard to the binding and repair of some of our oldest books. Julia's presentation will be accompanied by a display of seven exemplars from the U-M Library’s collection of Greek manuscripts. Refreshments will be provided.

Like April's Corn Bread, this month’s recipe is drawn from Ella Hall’s manuscript cookbook, which will be available to purchase as a facsimile from the University of Michigan Press in June. One of the first recipes that caught my attention when I read through this book was “Sweet Pickled Apples,” credited to "Mrs. Rhea on Ann St."

We are pleased to announce a new exhibition created to coincide with the American Semiquincentennial, on view from May 8 to September 20, 2026 in the Hatcher Gallery Exhibit Room. On display is a selection of historical materials and artifacts from the Joseph A. Labadie Collection documenting the Peoples Bicentennial Commission (PBC).

Keeping with last month's theme of cornbread, this month’s recipe is also corn bread, but from the 20th century. Ella Hall was a Black landlord and cook who lived in Ann Arbor from the early 1920s until she passed away in 1962. Her manuscript cookbook resides in the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive and a facsimile edition will be released by the University of Michigan Press in June 2026.

Join us this Thursday, April 16th, between 4-6p for our final Third Thursdays at the Library event of the semester featuring the Lawrence Kasdan Papers!

Join us this week for a conversation and collection visit with artists specializing in Ottoman classical book arts!