Exhibits: Hesburgh Libraries and Online
The Hesburgh Libraries offer a number of exhibits that are open to the public as well as to campus students, faculty and staff. See Exhibit Guidelines and Request Form
Current displays:
In addition, various departments within the Libraries are creating Web-based exhibits and collections of digital texts and images. For a listing, see:
Hesburgh Library Concourse Exhibits
The Hesburgh Library’s Irish Studies Collection supports and reflects the interdisciplinary nature of Irish Studies at Notre Dame. The window display of recent additions to the collection include the great Atlas of the Irish Famine, as well as collections of poetry, books on politics and religious studies, biographies ranging from Bram Stoker through Archbishop to David Norris, correspondence of Archbishop McQuaid, and many other subjects.
This display highlights notable Black Notre Dame graduates, both undergraduate and graduate. We felt that this display was the perfect opportunity to educate the Notre Dame community about some of the very accomplished people who walked through the very same buildings we do today. From Condoleezza Rice to Tim Brown, Blacks have made their mark both on and off the Notre Dame campus and we hope this display inspires people to follow in their example.
Rachel Boggs, ‘13
The Chemistry Demo Team's display highlights all the activities that the team are involved with through out the year. These activities include live shows, visits to schools, school groups coming to Jordan Hall, and science themed summer camps. The Chem Demo Team is comprised of graduate students from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry who have a passion for education.
Rare Books and Special Collections
On July 5, 2011 a fifteenth-century Book of Hours (private prayer book) was auctioned by Sotheby’s in London. Lot 113 of their Western Manuscripts and Miniatures sale sold for a modest price to an anonymous buyer.
Lot 113 found its way to Germany, where it was cut apart so its leaves could be sold individually—a practice called book breaking, which is all too common.
By October, numerous leaves from the manuscript were put up for auction on eBay sites in several countries by a dealer in Leipzig, Germany.
The purchase of individual leaves encourages book breaking. Thus, the Hesburgh Library does not usually buy single leaves, but exceptions are made in significant cases. Breton manuscripts are among the rarest due to the extremely small number which survive. A peculiar calendar was up for auction in February 2012, which one of the Library’s curators was able to localize positively to Vannes, Brittany ca. 1450. It is crucial that a calendar remain intact—if the months are separated important details are forever lost.
What started as an attempt to preserve an extremely rare medieval calendar became an effort to reconstruct an entire manuscript (now called Frag. III.1). This exhibit shows what this manuscript had been and what it has become.
This exhibit is curated by Dr. David T. Gura (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts, Early Imprints & the History of the Book).
January 21 to August 16, 2013 102 Hesburgh Library, Open to the public |
OnLine Exhibits and Digital Collections
Rare Books and Special Collections
The Rare Books and Manuscripts Unit of the Department of Special Collections has produced a number of exhibits featuring selections from major collections as well as several digital collections which aim to provide a comprehensive online catalog for specific holdings:
Online exhibits:- Power and Politics in the 19th-Century River Plate – books and manuscripts from the O'Grady Collection at the University of Notre Dame
- Familia Praedicatoria - in the University of Notre Dame Library - medieval manuscripts, incunables, and sixteenth-century books containing texts and images of the Order of Preachers
- Inter Folia Fructus - a survey of significant acquisitions related to Medieval British Studies
- Nos Los Inquisidores – selections from the Harley L. McDevitt Collection on the Spanish Inquisition
- "Renaissance Dante in Print (1472-1629)"
- Selections from the Library of José Durand
- Colonial Currency
- Coins of Colonial and Early America
- Manuscripts of the American Civil War
- Washington Tokens
- Wolf Collection of Irish Postage Stamps
Edmund P. Joyce Sports Research Collection
The Edmund P. Joyce Sports Research Collection in the Department of Special Collections offers the following online exhibits:
- Autographed Baseballs in the Joyce Sports Research Collection
- Selections from the Harry E. Winkler Collection of Boxing Photographs
Medieval Institute Library
The Medieval Institute Library has produced the following exhibits and digital collections of its holdings:
Online exhibits:
Digital Collections:
- Medieval Seals: A Collection of Facsimiles at the Medieval Institute
- Inventory-Catalogue of the Drawings in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan
Anastos Byzantine Library
A new Byzantine Studies Library is being built around the recently-acquired collection of the late Milton V. Anastos. While the collection is being cataloged and housed, you are invited to take a brief "walking tour" through the history and culture of Byzantium.
Devers Program in Dante Studies and the ItalNet Consortium
Established in 1995 to support rare book acquisitions in the John A. Zahm Dante collection and to fund an annual lecture series and visiting professorship in Dante studies, the Devers Program is also a founding member of the international ItalNet Consortium, whose mission is to make available scholarly Internet resources of literary and historical materials relating to Italian studies. Selected digital projects produced by ItalNet include:
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