This Just In: Summer Beach Reading Edition

The following miscellany of recent book acquisitions is intended, not for those basking and basting on a sandy beach, but for those who prefer the cool, calm, and comfortable surroundings of the Special Collections reading room under Grounds. Take a … Continue reading

Class Notes from Rare Book School: A Special Collections Edition

You know it is officially summer when Rare Book School (RBS) begins at the University of Virginia.  RBS offers week-long, intensive courses on manuscript, printed, and born-digital materials.  Although a completely independent institute, RBS shares a close relationship with the … Continue reading

ABCs of Special Collections: E is for

Welcome to our newest installment in the ABC series!  Today, we give you the letter… E is for Endpapers With rare exceptions, endpapers are not part of the book as printed. They are the double leaves (or pages) added at … Continue reading

On view now: Landmarks of Dystopian Fiction

Wednesday morning, National Public Radio reported that the recent revelations about NSA surveillance have led to skyrocketing book sales of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: As of this morning, Amazon sales of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 had jumped 6,021 percent … Continue reading

This Just In: Rolling in the Stacks with the Charlottesville Derby Dames

This week, we feature a guest post from Charlottesville Derby Dame Grëtel vön Metäl, also known as Gretchen Gueguen. When we here at the Small Library think about new materials we would like to add to our collections we take … Continue reading

ABCs of Special Collections: D is for

We are delighted to present to you, the letter: D is for Darwin As a medical student in London, Paul Victorius began collecting rare books and manuscripts, focusing primarily on Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. Victorius returned to … Continue reading