🚨Last call to see the current exhibit! “Stage Craft: Reno Little Theater at 90” closes November 24! Come check us out on the 3rd floor of the Knowledge Center before then - this is a fun one, you don’t want to miss it. #archives

It’s spooky season! Have you thought of exploring our witchy books? Mostly about witch trials, identification, etc., rather than spells, we have books going back to the 16th century on the topic. Super cool stuff!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

A member of staff was recently on vacation in London and took photos of Hammersmith Bridge, where the type went into the river, and a few samples recovered by mudlarks. They are on display at the Museum of London Docklands.

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

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

We have two cuneiform tablets. They’re both approximately 3,000-4,000 years old! Most of our collection is 19th, 20th, and 21st century, though.