300 South Hull Street
Athens, Georgia 30602
706-542-7123
Reading Room: M,W,F: 8-12, 1-5
T,Th: 8-12, 1-7
Galleries: M,W,F: 8–5
T,Th: 8-7
Requests for items in the storage vault
cannot be processed after 4:15 M,W,F
and 6:15 T,Th.
Opened in 2012, the 115,000 square foot Richard B. Russell Jr. Special Collections Libraries Building houses the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, including University Archives, the Richard B. Russell Jr. Library for Political Research and Studies, and the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Collection.
The Building includes an exhibit and event level, classroom space, research rooms, and a state-of-the-art high density vault with 340,000 cubic feet of storage space.
The Building is named for Senator Richard B. Russell, Jr., who served as the United States Senator from Georgia from 1933 to 1971. A native of Barrow County, Georgia, and a graduate of the University of Georgia in 1918, Senator Russell served as a representative in the Georgia House of Representatives beginning in 1920. He was elected Speaker from 1927 to 1931 and then served as Governor from 1931 to 1933 before being elected to the United States Senate. Russell’s career in Washington, D.C. included work on the Armed Forces Committee and the Appropriations Committee, two posts that he used to secure over 40 research and military facilities in the state, thus ensuring economic growth for Georgia during his lifetime and well into the twenty-first century. For more information on the life and work of Senator Russell, visit the Russell Library website.