University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

04/02/2025

Hidden fore-edge painting by Martin Frost after the Edward Burne-Jones painting “King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid” in a copy of Poems of Tennyson (London: H. Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1910), call no. PR5550.F10

03/24/2025

Please join us in welcoming the newest member of our team, Emily! Emily joins the public services team as a Reader Services & Administrative Assistant, working with researchers and students visiting our reading room.

03/21/2025

What a bookplate! This was pasted into an 18th-century English book by an unidentified former owner. As a reminder, we’re open to the public! Anyone can come consult our collections in our reading room. (Call no. PR3346.C2Z8A14 1774b v.2)

03/12/2025

Celebrate Women’s History Month at the University of Chicago Library with Lifting Voices: Celebrating The Coretta Scott King Book Awards on Saturday, March 15, 12–2 PM at Regenstein Library, Room 122.

Families are invited to children’s Storytime with Carmenita Peoples, featuring past Coretta Scott King Award winners. Award-winning author Claire Hartfield (UChicago Law ‘82) will discuss the impact of these powerful books. Enjoy a Da Book Joint pop-up bookstore and exhibit tours of "Honoring Voices: The Coretta Scott King Book Awards."

Free and open to all. RSVP encouraged. Light refreshments provided.
Learn more: https://events.uchicago.edu/event/245254-lifting-voices-celebrating-the-coretta-scott-king-boo

03/10/2025

Good luck on your winter quarter finals! Remember to get some sleep, hydrate, and eat a couple of proper meals, too.

This photo of Sam Nakagama taking a placement test appeared in Life Magazine. Photo by Joe Scherschel, Life Magazine.

Photo from our Photographic Archive.

03/03/2025

Please join us in welcoming the newest member of our team, Greer! Greer joins the public services team as a Reader Services & Administrative Assistant, working with researchers and students visiting our reading room.

02/17/2025

Applications for the 2025 Platzman Memorial Fellowships close at the end of the month! https://lib.uchicago.edu/about/news/applications-open-2025-platzman-memorial-fellowships/

02/13/2025

New acquisition: Eighth-century Buddhist pagoda and mantra

The UChicago Library has acquired Hyakumantō darani 百万塔陀羅尼 [One million pagodas and mantras], an exquisite piece of tangible cultural heritage from Japan.

01/27/2025

On January 29, 2025, Ruby Bridges will speak on her experiences as a civil rights pioneer, activist, and author at UChicago’s 35th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Celebration. The event will take place at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at 6 p.m. See this UChicago News article for more information.

The keynote speaker for UChicago's 35th Annual Commemoration Celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is Ruby Bridges: the first Black child to desegregate her elementary school in 1960.

01/15/2025

Hooray! Our reading room will re-open on Friday, but remain closed on Thursday. Please contact us if you have questions: https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/visiting/contact/

01/14/2025

Emergency maintenance continues, so we will be closed tomorrow, January 15th.

01/12/2025

🛑 Our reading room will be closed tomorrow Monday, January 13th for maintenance. We will re-open on Tuesday the 14th. We apologize for the inconvenience.

12/12/2024

Regenstein and Mansueto libraries will close on Monday, December 16 due to a planned water outage. All library buildings will close by 2 p.m. on Tuesday, December 24 and will be closed December 25 – January 1 for Winter Recess. All libraries will reopen Thursday, January 2.

Regenstein and Mansueto libraries will be closed Dec. 16 and all libraries will be closed for Winter Recess.

12/04/2024

If you're celebrating , we recommend fresh ones, not these OREO Big Stuf (sic and RIP) cookies packaged for Persian Gulf War troops, ca. 1990.

Photo by Nathan Keay for University of Chicago Magazine
Photo by Nathan Keay, for

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive.

11/27/2024

This image is No. 93 of the views entitled “Groups from Life, Comic and Grotesque”, housed here at SCRC in the Stereograph Cards Collection 1873-1914.

Stereograph Cards are interesting objects for examining popular culture of previous historical periods and the production of early American photography. As described, “A stereograph consists of two nearly-identical (often-photographic) images which form a three-dimensional image when viewed through a stereoscope. Stereographs in this collection were advertised as “views” of people, landscape, artifacts, and locales.”

We wish you all a happy celebration of Thanksgiving!

11/25/2024

We will close at 2:00 on Wednesday and will be closed all day Thursday and Friday in observance of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Our regular hours will resume Monday afternoon at 1:00.

11/22/2024

Some late medieval or early modern bookworms found these wooden boards to be a tasty treat.

(Ms102, compilation of religious treatises by Richard of St. Victor and Hugh of Strasburg, early 15th century?)