Category: Special Collections News
Feature Friday: Founder of Black poetry center donates collection to JMU Libraries (Dr. Joanne Gabbin)
Posted February 26, 2021
Two years before Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman made history with her performances at the 2021 presidential inauguration and Super Bowl, she took the stage at James Madison University as part of the 25th Anniversary Celebration of the Furious Flower […]
Feature Friday: JMU’s Black Comic Book Collection (Brian Flota)
Posted February 12, 2021
In 2015 and 2016, Brian Flota of JMU Libraries donated over 10,000 comic books to JMU. These are housed in Special Collections–the arm of the Libraries that restores and handles the most rare, fragile, and valuable items. Since then, Flota […]
Feature Friday: Celebrating Simms and Black History in Harrisonburg
Posted February 5, 2021
The Lucy F. Simms School was once a pillar of the Black community in Harrisonburg, Virginia. From 1939-1966, the Lucy. F. Simms School was a thriving public school for Black children in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. While its closure during desegregation […]
Spring 2021 Access to Special Collections
Posted January 13, 2021
The Special Collections reading room is currently closed to in-person research appointments. Researchers may peruse our digital collections or contact us via email (library-special@jmu.edu). Learn more here.
Feature Friday: Preserving the Stories of Displaced Virginians (Kevin Borg)
Posted December 4, 2020
Before Shenandoah National Park was founded, these lands were home for generations of Virginians. Some families lived on the same land for 250 years. In the 1930s, over 2,000 people in eight counties in Virginia were removed from the land […]
Special Collections Reading Room Available by Appointment
Posted October 20, 2020
The JMU Libraries Special Collections reading room in Carrier Library is now open to researchers by appointment. Schedule an Appointment: Appointment blocks are set for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in the mornings and afternoons. Appointments must be requested at least […]
Two new local history collections available in the Special Collections
Posted February 5, 2020
JMU Libraries Special Collections recently acquired two new collections that hold local interest, and which have already been accessed by history students at JMU for research projects. The Massanutten Hatchery Photographs, 1934-1948 documents a chicken hatchery that was once the home […]
Alumni scrapbook provides documentary (and physical) evidence of building’s christening
Posted June 13, 2019
A recently donated collection of alumni papers is now available for research! Pearl Haldeman Stickley’s great nephew, William M. Beck of Fredericksburg, donated his aunt’s scrapbooks to JMU Special Collections last week. The scrapbooks – full of concert and theater […]
Local History Celebrated in Libraries Collaborations this Spring
Posted May 22, 2019
The last few weeks of the Spring 2019 semester delivered several celebrations of projects led by JMU students relating to local Harrisonburg and Shenandoah Valley history. The Libraries assisted with key components to four of them. On April 24, 2019, […]
Color Our Collections – Images from 1923
Posted January 30, 2019
Thousands of books and other works published in the U.S. in 1923 entered the public domain on January 1, 2019. According to The Atlantic, this was “the first time since 1998 for a mass shift to the public domain of material […]