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University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

Name: University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
Address: 1100 E 57th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, US
Telephone: +17737028705

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The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center is home to the University of Chicago Library's Archives, Rare Books, and Manuscripts.

Find us on Tumblr: http://uchicagoscrc.tumblr.com/
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10/12/2026

From the collections: Photograph of a Native Hawaiian weaving Lauhala mats, Island of Hawaiʻi, 1936.

The Hala tree is a palm-like tree from the Pandanus family found in Hawaiʻi. Dry hala leaves, called Lauhala, are gathered and used by master weavers to craft mats that can be used as a base to make art and other artisan objects such as baskets, jewelry boxes, and hats. While this photo captures a women weaving Luhala in 1936, Luahala weaving is a living art in Hawaiʻi.

Pictured:
Title: Hawaii
Scientific Plant Name: Pandanus tectorius
Common Plant Name: Hala (Hawaiian screwpine)
Photograph Date: 1936
Location: Hawaii County, Hawaii
Collection: University of Chicago Department of Botany Records
Repository: University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center
Image Identifier: apf8-01261

10/10/2026

Happy Birthday to Oscar Brown Jr., born October 10th, 1926, in Chicago, IL. Brown passed away in 2005, but today marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Brown was a musician, an essayist, poet, playwright, and activist. He is well known for his work in the arts and for promoting and committing to the liberation of the global Black diaspora through philosophy and active initiatives for self-improvement and self-determination. He created his own art form, Dramatic Organizations of Musical Expressions (D.O.M.E.s.), and wrote numerous plays, songs, and poems. Some of his more famous works include Kicks & Co., Big-Time Buck White, Great Nitty Gritty, and Cybersoul.

You can learn more about Oscar Brown Jr. at , thanks to his daughters, Maggie and Africa. They implemented the Oscar Brown, Jr. Archive Project at Logan Center for the Arts and donated his papers to the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center. Their work has continued Brown’s work by sharing his creations, most of which were never published. Oscar Brown Jr.’s legacy continues to live on and be explored.

Pictured is the cover of Oscar Brown Jr.'s book, ‘What It Is’. Released in 2005, ‘What It Is’ is a collection of Brown's poems and opinions.

Pictured:

Brown, Oscar, Jr. Papers, Acc. #2026-085, Box 5, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

10/09/2026

In honor of Banned Books Week 2026, swipe to see a selection of books in the SCRC Collection that have been banned or challenged in the United States. Highlighted books are presented in publication order.

You can learn more about rising book bans via the UChicago Library Banned Books Initiative and explore the Library’s Collection of more than 2,000 banned books on the UChicago Library website.

Primarily organized by the American Library Association and Banned Books Week Coalition, Banned Books Week is an annual event that highlights the value of free and open access to information. The 2026 theme is “Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read."

10/08/2026

From the collections in honor of the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire, which began on October 10th, 1871: Richard's illustrated and statistical map of the great conflagration in Chicago.

The pictured map depicts the burn district and some additional text and images related to the Great Chicago Fire and a brief account of great fires of modern times.

UChicago Library’s map collection “Before and After the Fire: Chicago in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s” is digitally available and presents a collection of maps to demonstrate how the fire impacted the Chicago. During these three decades, Chicago grew from a small city of 109,000 into a large one with a population of more than 1,000,000. It is often said that no city of the Western world had ever grown so quickly. Growth was only barely interrupted by the catastrophic fire of 1871 in which perhaps a quarter of Chicago's dwellings and most of its business district were burned. The Fire did force the city to establish a new building code and perhaps encouraged a new self-consciousness about planning. The years after the Fire saw the implementation of the city's "boulevard" system and the inauguration of parks along the Lakefront of which Lincoln Park (institutionalized in 1864) is perhaps the best known example.

If you’d like to view the additional digital materials in this collection, follow the linktree in our bio, click on "Digital Collections" and navigate to “Before and after the fire: Chicago in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s”.

Pictured:
R.P. Studley Co. Richard's Illustrated and Statistical Map of the Great Conflagration in Chicago. St. Louis: R.P. Studley Co., 1871.

10/04/2026

Join the Kim-Park Program on 10/16 for a colloquium presentation, The Sociability of Paper and Isaac Newton’s Archive with Scott Mandelbrote, fellow and Perne and Ward librarian at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge.

🗓Friday, October 16th at 3:00 PM

About the program:
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) perhaps needs little introduction either as a mathematician and physicist or as an administrator (or so-called ‘autocrat of science’). His archive has been the subject of sustained study since he died, particularly since the 1950s, with published editions of his correspondence, mathematical and optical papers, and online projects devoted to his chymical papers and to the archive as a whole. Very little of this interest, however, has considered the archive from the standpoint of the material history of the book: how (at a physical, material, and social level) did Newton read, write, and disseminate his ideas. With whom did Newton collaborate in making his work, in what contexts, and for what purposes? How did material constraints shape Newton’s own and others' sense of what he was doing and how did he deploy his own knowledge and control of his archive to manufacture intellectual stature and image?

This talk will consider whether, as we begin to take these questions into account, the picture of scientific authorship and authority which has been associated with Newton’s life might change, and whether, as a result, we should reconsider the form of scientific activity and publication in the late seventeenth century. The paper of the archive shifts from being a vehicle to transport readers into the mind of the author, and becomes a vehicle for exchange, facilitating communication and the sharing of ideas and experience among contemporaries.

This event is open to all with registration and will be held at Regenstein Library.

Learn more and register for free: https://NewtonsArchive.eventbrite.com

10/03/2026

Curious what new archives, manuscripts, rare books, and digitized items are available at the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center?

You can see a list of everything that became available this September by following the link in our bio and clicking on "New at SCRC - September 2026" on the SCRC homepage.

Pictured:
Woodcut tailpiece, early 18th century
From Le Grand Dictionaire Royal by François Pomey, 1709

Call Number: PC2635.P78 1709

10/01/2026

From the Collections: Carte des communications rapides entre Paris et le reste de la France, 1882

The pictured map is of rapid transport links between Paris and the rest of France from 1882, and travel times from Paris are shown by gradient tints. It is a part of the library’s collection of European transportation maps of the 19th century, a subset of the library’s larger Maps Collection.

UChicago faculty began collecting maps in 1927. Now housed in the Library, the collection includes over 475,000 maps, 10,000 air photos, 2,000 books, and hundreds of gigabytes of spatial data. Many of the items in the Maps Collection have been digitized, and you can also engage with the collection at Regenstein Library in the Map Collection Reading Room, located in room 370.

Pictured Item:
Martin, E. Carte Des Communications Rapides Entre Paris Et Le Reste De La France. [Paris: s.n.], 1882.
Call Number: G5831.P3 1882 .M3

09/29/2026

Today in honor of the first day of classes, we wanted to share a few photos through the years from The University of Chicago Photographic Archive! Learn a little more about the images the below.

You can view these photos and many others that document the history of the University of Chicago and the development of its campus, academic programs, and community life in the photographic archive by following the linktree in our bio and clicking on "Digital Collections".

Images in post order:

Photo 1: University of Chicago mathematics class held out of doors
Photographer: Chicago Maroon
Undated
Rights and Reproductions: Copyright held by Chicago Maroon
Image Identifier: apf7-03651-001

Photo 2:
Undated
Image Identifier: apf4-01817

Photo 3: Student Government meeting
Photographer: Frank Gruber
Date: 1970
Image Identifier: apf4-04310

Photo 4:
Undated
Image Identifier: apf4-02326

Photo 5: Science Fair
Undated
Image Identifier: apf3-02393

Photo 6: Metalworking
Undated
Image Identifier: apf4-01819

Photo7 : Professor teaching mathematics
Photographer: Chicago Maroon
Undated
Rights and Reproductions: Copyright held by Chicago Maroon
Image Identifier: apf7-03649

Photo 8:
Date: 1937
Image Identifier: apf4-02319

Photo 9: Freshmen Week at the University of Chicago.
Photographer: Hart
Undated
Image Identifier: apf4-02304

Photo 10: University of Chicago students attend a discussion at Mandel Hall titled "The Political Context of Your University.".
Photographer: David Travis
Date: 1969
Rights and Reproductions: Copyright held by Chicago Maroon
Image Identifier: apf7-03669

09/25/2026

From the collections: A booklet on the film Aabshar (1953), starring the legendary actress Nimmi.

Aabshar is a musical romantic drama directed by Hasrat Lucknowi with music composed by Mohammed D. Shafi and lyrics by Wahid Qureshi.

The film stars Nimmi, an iconic figure in the Golden Age of Hindi cinema. Born Nawab Bano in Agra in 1933, her career was primarily active from her debut role in Barsaat in 1949 to her final performance in Akashdeep in 1965. Her last film to be released is Love & God, which had begun production in 1963, several years before her retirement, but was not released until 1986.

In a rare post-retirement interview with Rajya Sabha TV in 2013, Nimmi shared that she had turned down several offers for Hollywood films, including one from Cecil B. DeMille, opting to focus on her already hugely successful career in India.

This work is featured in our web exhibition " Envisioning South Asia: Texts, Scholarship, Legacies". You can view this item and many more in the exhibit here: www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/envisioning-south-asia-texts-scholarship-legacies/

Pictured Item:
Asli zahar-i 'ishq
Delhi: Ratan and Company Booksellers. [n.d.]
Frances Pritchett Collection
Regenstein Library, General Collections
Collections Link:

09/24/2026

Join the Kim-Park Program for our first program of fall quarter, Manuscript Meet & Greet: Meet the Map with Marcy Bidney!

🗓 Wednesday, October 7th at 3:00 PM in Regenstein Library

About the Program:
Maps are far more than navigational tools — they are artifacts that reflect the knowledge, ambitions, and blind spots of the people who made them. In this presentation, Marcy Bidney draws on a selection of maps from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries held in the collections of the University of Chicago Library to explore how cartographers understood and represented the world around them, and how those representations shifted alongside exploration, empire, and the growth of scientific inquiry. We'll also talk about what these objects can tell us about the cultures that produced them and the audiences they were made for. Join us for a close look at some remarkable objects from the history of mapmaking.

This program is free and registration is open to all who would like to attend.

Learn more and register for free here: MMaG-Maps.eventbrite.com

Address

1100 E 57th Street
Chicago, IL
60637

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 4:45pm
Tuesday	9am - 4:45pm
Wednesday	10am - 4:45pm
Thursday	9am - 4:45pm
Friday	9am - 4:45pm

Telephone

+17737028705

Website

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/, https://linktr.ee/uchicagoscrc

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