It’s National Archives Month, and the annual #AskAnArchivist Day is next Thursday, October 16. Got questions about archives and archivists? Just ask! Questions of any level of experience or seriousness are all welcome! For more information: www2.archivists.org/initiatives/...

Seeking applicants for the 2026 James Award! This annual $5,000 prize supports scholars pursuing research in the political collections held here in Special Collections. Apply today! library.unr.edu/places/knowl... #academicsky #ResearchFunding #ApplicationsOpen

Not much autumn color yet around here, so we’re turning to artist’s books like “An Autumn Garden” by Claire Lawson-Hall and Muriel Mallows (2000). The book has a “Jacob’s Ladder” structure and fits easily in the palm of your hand - an excellent example of good things coming in small packages.

That feeling when you're writing an exhibit and realize you left the hardest bits for last.

Take note, fellow learning enthusiasts!

We love finding doodles in antique books! This 1868 copy of Horace Greeley’s memoir, “Recollections of a Busy Life,” was at some point owned by someone who enjoyed drawing. Both front and rear endpapers feature sketches! No clues as to whether these were drawn from life, memory, or pure imagination.

In the Sep 4, 1863 Territorial Enterprise, Mark Twain expressed his preference for the name Lake Bigler over Lake Tahoe. t.co/RupjeI0sch "I hope some bird will catch this Grub the next time he calls Lake Bigler by so disgustingly sick and silly a name as "Lake Tahoe.""

It was wonderful to speak with Elspeth Olson about her recent portal article, "Scaffolded Assignments and Embedded Archivists: A Critical Assessment of the Themes in Archival Instruction Literature, 2013-2023." Read the full article on our preprint site. @lunabrd.bsky.social @unr-scua.bsky.social

Normally, rodents in the archives are a huge problem - but in this case they’re just super cute! This half-page Japanese print is one of a number of Asian artworks on our uncatalogued backlog shelves - including copies of works by masters of the art form like Hokusai and Harunobu.

Archival appraisal is a craft and it can be taught. My and @boxreceiver.bsky.social 's chapter on archival appraisal is available as a pre-print here: digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/libr_pubs/77/. It's very, very practical and it centers our values. We would love your feedback!

Very excited for our colleagues at the Jon Bilbao Basque Library - featured in a story by the BBC!! www.bbc.com/travel/artic...

Y'ALL. AMAZING.

It's National Photography Day! Have you checked out the digital Special Collections Photograph Collection recently? unr.dgicloud.com/special-coll...

As students begin returning to campus for fall semester, we like to share this image of the University entrance, circa 1910. It’s featured on one of the postcards we hand out at events. If you’re familiar with the gates on south campus, you’ll recognize familiar features. Looks pretty different now!

We entirely understand this. Many of us have historical nemesis, frequently because of their impossible handwriting!

We are proud to announce the release of 𝙍𝙚𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙊𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙧𝙨: 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙒𝙚𝙨𝙩 by John M. Glionna. Click here to learn more, and purchase your own copy today: unpress.nevada.edu/978164779207... #UniversityOfNevadaPress #Nonfiction #AmericanWest

Dear friends and patrons, please be advised that new students begin arriving on campus on Thursday, August 14. Campus, especially the library, will be very crowded! If you plan to visit us next week, we encourage planning your trip for Monday-Wednesday.

Artist’s book mail!! We acquired five pieces by UNR alum Emiland Kray and had a fun time experimenting with their structures and content while unboxing them. The new books are entitled Arrhythmia, Dream Eats Memory, I AM NOT A WASTE, Ever Dream of This Man?, and Book of Shadows. Sample photos below.

Oh hey there, Governor Mr. President!

The story of Reno's Chinatown is the focus of one of the archives lesson plans we offer faculty!

We’re in the dog days of summer, so a cool image of a dog sled team in the Sierra snow is a relief! The dog days mark the hot, lethargic part of the summer when Sirius, the dog star, rises and sets in unison with the sun. Photo: Dog sled team, possibly driven by JE Church, c1910. UNRS-P0454-2.

Occasionally we remind people that paper is the most stable long-term storage medium* and it's always a surprise. *Unless you're into carving your own stele, in which case you might have some significant long-term storage SPACE problems.

Watermarks Tell Tales 📜 blogs.library.duke.edu/preservation...

This is SO COOL.

🧵Have you ever heard of T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, Emery Walker, or the Doves Press? It’s a story that particularly brings together seemingly disparate groups of specialists: rare books/typography enthusiasts and Thames mudlarks (people who hunt for fragments of London’s past along the river shore).

While the #digitalarchives represent a small portion of our entire collection, more is added all the time. Two particularly useful collections feature text-searchable scans of past UNR course catalogs and commencement programs. These resources are available to all! unr.dgicloud.com/special-coll...

If any of you like to keep your SCUA researcher registration up to date, your 24-25 registration has now expired! Go ahead and do a fresh one for 25-26: library.unr.edu/specoll/usin...

This is photograph UNRS-P2004-18-318 in an online news article from 2024. Today we had a patron inquiry about it, and with no item number included, it took an hour to locate. So cite your sources. You’re doing the right academic thing, and you may be saving some future archivist’s sanity. #archives

Books in archival collections frequently have signs of previous owners. Today, when doing a condition assessment of John Bigelow’s 1856 memoir of John C. Fremont, we discovered three sheets of geometry homework from the 1940s. It’s a tantalizing hint at a moment in the book’s life! #LibraryLife

Speak up for your libraries - public, academic, school, speciality - we all need your help.

This is something that most people will miss, because they're not in the profession and haven't ever really thought about historical knowledge is produced. But it's an incredibly important point.

If you find our digital collections load particularly slowly, this is probably why. www.404media.co/ai-scraping-...

Reminder to all that we will be CLOSED on Thursday, June 19, in observance of the Juneteenth holiday.

Come see a genuine McKissick's Opera House program in our current exhibit! "Stage Craft: Reno Little Theater at 90" will be on the third floor of the library until Thanksgiving.

Father’s Day is this weekend! From anecdotes about a famous father by Clara Clemons, to poetic reflections by Stephen Shu-ning Liu, to meditations on loss in the artwork of John McWilliams, we find fathers and their impact on their children all over our collections. #FathersDay #Libraries

Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are the University of Nevada, Reno’s Special Collections and University Archives Department, part of the University Libraries. We house the materials that are old, rare, fragile, or too valuable to be in the circulating collection. And we’re open to all users!