Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The University of Georgia’s Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library takes a closer look at Georgia’s incarceration history in the new exhibit The New South and New Slavery: Convict Labor in Georgia, now on display at the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. The display examines the forced labor of prisoners in the state from the beginnings of the convict lease system in the 19thcentury until the abolition of the chain gang in 1945.

As players and fans prepare for the kickoff of the University of Georgia’s football season, the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library plans to revisit recent program history in the new exhibit Beautiful and Brutal: Georgia Bulldogs Football, 2017. The display will open Friday, Aug. 30, at the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries at the University of Georgia.

Virginia Eubanks, Rachel Devlin, and Vanessa Siddle Walker are the 2019 recipients of the Lillian Smith Book Awards. An award ceremony will take place at the Center for the History of the Book on Sunday, Sept. 1st at 2:30 p.m. 

The Southern Regional Council established the Lillian Smith award after Smith's 1966 death. Internationally acclaimed as author of the controversial novel, Strange Fruit (1944), Lillian Smith was the most outspoken of white, mid-20th century Southern writers on issues of social and racial injustice. Today the University of Georgia, the Georgia Center for the Book and Piedmont College join the SRC in presenting the awards. 

The University of Georgia’s Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library will take a closer look at Georgia’s carceral history in the new exhibit The New South and New Slavery: Convict Labor in Georgia, opening July 26 at the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. The display examines the forced labor of prisoners in the state from the start of the convict lease system in 1868 until the abolition of the chain gang in 1945.

Poet Coleman Barks has spent the past sixty years exploring the possibilities of American ecstatic poetry. His life and work is the subject of a new exhibition, Praying Aloud in Public: The Papers of Coleman Barks, opening in the Rotunda Gallery of the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries on Friday, May 24.

Born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Barks studied English literature at University of California, Berkeley, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before joining the faculty of the University of Georgia in 1967. He taught at UGA until his retirement in 1997.

The University of Georgia’s Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library will be hitting the road this summer with a traveling exhibit of materials from the UGA Athletic Association Archive.  Jason Hasty, UGA Athletics History Specialist for the Hargrett Library, will bring historic materials to several public libraries in east and central Georgia.“This is a great chance for everyone to see materials – uniforms, equipment, photographs –  that represent UGA’s rich athletics heritage”, said Hasty.  “I’m especially excited that this travelling exhibit will feature a mix of older artifacts as well as some items donated from our recent student-athletes and teams.” 

Congratulations to our folks who recently received National Endowment for the Humanities grants.

We were delighted to learn that the UGA Press and its partners (including Hargrett and DLG) will receive an NEH/Mellon Open Book Grant for the Georgia Open History Library. This project, in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of the United States, will allow for the digitization and creation of freely-accessible ebooks for 50 titles on the history of Georgia.

The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies will receive funds for the exhibit "NEH on the Road: Power of Children."

The UGA campus will not have internet for most of the day on Saturday, March 9th.

At the Special Collections Libraries, this means we will not be able to provide access to materials. If you would like to view materials on Saturday, please contact us sclib@uga.edu or 706-542-7123 by 12pm on Friday, March 8th.

For the other campus Libraries, this means that you will not be able to login to our computers, and our systems (e.g., websites and other resources) will be inaccessible. You will still be able to check out books.

UGA will conduct network maintenance during this time. We apologize for the inconvenience.

With women’s suffrage artifacts on display in the galleries, the University of Georgia’s Special Collections Libraries will celebrate Women’s History Month this March with a number of special events.

The events, co-sponsored by the UGA Institute for Women's Studies and Lucy Hargrett Draper Center and Archives for the Study of the Rights of Women in History and Law, include a film series and a keynote lecture.

The film series kicks off on March 2 with Iron Jawed Angels, a historical drama based on the suffrage movement in the 1910s. The Monday evening series continues with Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice on March 16, Standing on My Sister's Shoulders on March 23, and Golden Gate Girls on March 30. All screenings will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries auditorium. (UPDATE: March 16, 23, and 30 screenings are canceled.)

A University of Georgia collaboration that presented Georgia’s incarceration history in an exhibition and on stage is being honored as one of the top public history projects in the nation.

Archivists with UGA’s special collections libraries partnered with theatre and dance faculty on campus and at Spelman College to engage students in an exploration of reports, correspondence, newsfilm, photographs and other original materials from archival collections documenting the history of convict labor in Georgia. Over the course of three semesters, students and faculty created a devised theatrical performance grounded in that history.