For nearly 200 years the Emory Libraries have evolved, expanded, and explored how we might better serve our patrons.

Change isn't new, nor is striving to keep pace with it. What is new is how the Libraries today are focused on supporting an environment where creativity and innovation not only thrive, but are essential to our daily lives. Through a variety of initiatives, we're developing new and improved programs, tools, and spaces for students, staff, faculty, and the larger community. Please join us in our culture of innovation.

"...this exhibition connects tomorrow's progress to its foundational beginnings...."

Founded in 1854, Emory's medical college is an institution that has progressed with technology and time. "History of Teaching Medicine at Emory" uses professor, department and student stories to illustrate the complex relationship between Emory's medical school and that history. Examining everything from early studies of human anatomy to modern strides in the field of cardiology, this exhibition connects tomorrow's progress to its foundational beginnings.

The exhibition is drawn from the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library's collections, including the Emory School of Medicine records, 1916 - 2016. On view are photographs, textbooks, medical instruments, and other memorabilia.

Weekdays: Free after 5pm | Weekends: Free

"He Had a Hammer: The Legacy of Hank Aaron in Baseball and American Culture," is co-curated by Emory University students Kyle Arbuckle, Warren Kember and Brett Lake, who are juniors and members of Emory's baseball team.

Faculty advisors are Pellom McDaniels III, MARBL faculty curator of African American Collections and assistant professor of African American Studies, and Dana White, Emory professor emeritus of American Studies and MARBL senior faculty curator.

Watch the Panel Discussion.

Weekdays: Free after 5pm | Weekends: Free

The 100+ years of digitized yearbooks provide an easily accessible trip down memory lane, but also a valuable untapped trove for research ideas.

The exhibit features a kiosk from which visitors can access the Emory University yearbooks, a narrative on how the yearbooks have highlighted various campus and societal changes over time, and oversized images from two different eras with face cutouts so visitors can pose in the fashions of yesteryear and take pictures if they wish.

Weekdays: Free after 5pm | Weekends: Free

"Atlanta photographer Billy Howard began photographing people with HIV/AIDS in 1987."

At the time, there was no effective treatment for the disease—people diagnosed with it faced the potential of an agonizing death, as well as stigmatization, discrimination, and isolation because of fears and misunderstandings of the disease.

Once Howard printed the portraits, he asked the individuals to write on them a message about living—and dying—from HIV/AIDS. Together, Howard's portraits and the subjects' honest words gave distinct faces and voices to the harrowing statistics of the pandemic.

Weekdays: Free after 5pm | Weekends: Free

"Do I dare -
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time -
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." — J. Alfred Prufrock

The environmental humanities break down conceptual barriers between academic disciplines to study the interplay between humankind and the natural world. Blending scientific knowledge with humanistic inquiry, we come to comprehend the millennia of human impact on the Earth and its attendant effects on humanity. This interdisciplinary understanding can empower us to create sustainable, empathetic, and equitable responses to present-day environmental challenges.

View the Online Resource.

Exhibit title from T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915)

Weekdays: Free after 5pm | Weekends: Free

This exhibition was created by students in Dr. Sheila Cavanagh’s fall 2017 class, English 489 and English 780: Creating an Exhibit: Theories and Practices. “Education at Emory in a Changing World” presents student research addressing how Emory has both responded to and influenced the way Emory graduates learn in a changing world.

The exhibition is drawn from a number of collections in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library. 

Exhibits on View

• "Instruction and Inclusion: Emory’s Journey to Integrating Education,” curated by Anwesha Guha [level 2]
• "Matters of the Heart: The Teaching Philosophy of Emory’s Poet-Physician, Dr. John Stone, “ curated by Mary Taylor Mann [level 2]
• "The Slavery Question,” curated by Amy Bower [level 2]
• “Unsung Players: Augusta Skeen Cooper and Brenda Bynum,” curated by Kate Battaglia and John Gulledge [level 2] 
• “Sex, Drugs, and Lecture Halls: A History of Health Education at Emory,” Curated by Hannah Griggs and Kelly Duquette [level 1]
• “Queering Emory: A Retrospective on Heterosexism and Activism,” curated by Jacqueline Veliz [Incorporated into “Stepping Out of Line” exhibition in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Book Library, level 10]

Weekdays: Free after 5pm | Weekends: Free

"...postcards depicting iconic Shakespearean characters and scenes."

Most of us don’t realize the historical importance of postcards, but Emory English Professor Harry Rusche, does. As a deltiologist (that’s a collector of postcards), he has gathered thousands of these humble 5 ½ by 3 ½ inch works of art related to Shakespeare. 

This exhibit showcases some of Professor Rusche’s extensive collection of postcards depicting iconic Shakespearean characters and scenes. Late 19th to early 20th century postcards related to Hamlet and other more popular plays are the focus. 

Conservation is a creative process based in science, preservation standards, and collection care.

"Creativity in Conservation" is a physical exhibit of the tools and treatments utilized in caring for all collections of Emory Libraries. The staff of the Conservation Lab is technically trained in the discipline of book and paper conservation. Across libraries, they provide care for rare and special collection material as well as circulating items. This care includes bookbinding, damage repair, protective enclosures, environmental monitoring, storage recommendations, pest management, and emergency response.

"Archives, those which document the lives of African American artists, are essential to telling the complex stories relative to the development of black life in 20th and 21st century America." – Pellom McDaniels III, Curator of African American Collections (2016)

“Speak What Must Be Spoken: Art, Archives, and Activism” is the culmination of projects initiated in 2016 around the theme of black art and activism by the late Pellom McDaniels III, Rose Library’s curator of African American collections. McDaniels curated “Still Raising Hell: The Art, Activism, and Archives of Camille Billops and James V. Hatch,” a major exhibition in the Emory Libraries main gallery during 2016-2017.  

Emory Libraries selected “Still Raising Hell” as the basis for the Libraries first K-12 exhibit to serve community schools. Barbara Coble of Emory University’s Graduation Generation Education Partnership joined the Libraries’ team and led the development of curriculum aligning with state standards for excellence supporting fine arts classes and social studies and English/language arts. 

The Libraries exhibitions team adapted elements of the original exhibition and created new elements for installation in a school setting. "Speak What Must Be Spoken" now consists of 10 units that can be used alone or combined with others.

ONLINE EXHIBITION COMING SOON

Emory University Graduation Generation Education Partnership