Elizabeth Ott
On April 27, Wilson Special Collections Library will hold its first Recent Acquisitions Evening since 2019. The free public event will take place from 6-8 p.m. The entire community is welcome!
“The Recent Acquisitions Evening is Wilson Special Collections Library’s signature open house event,” said Interim Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Director of Wilson Library Elizabeth Ott. “The whole community, from students and faculty to researchers and community members, is invited to take a tour of the most recent additions to the collections.
Ott said that the Recent Acquisitions Evening is an opportunity to truly engage with the collections and the staff who work with them. “More than an exhibition, this is an event where visitors can experience collections across all of our collecting areas—expert library staff are on hand to introduce visitors to items, answer questions, turn pages and create an interactive environment of discovery and exploration.”
North Carolina Collection business services coordinator Alison Barnett is helping organize the event. We asked her what else you should know.
What will I be able to see?
Alison Barnett
The items on display during the Recent Acquisitions Evening will come from all five of the collecting areas at Wilson: The North Carolina Collection, the University Archives, the Southern Folklife Collection, the Southern Historical Collection and the Rare Book Collection.
There are some truly amazing books, which is what people first think of when it comes to a Library, but our collections include much more than just books. There will be hundreds of items, including puzzles, printing blocks, music recordings, maps, personal letters, political ephemera — the list could go on and on.
For example, you can see the envelope announcing the nominees from when Lewis Black won his Grammy Award. There is a map of shipwrecks on the North Carolina coast. There is also an entire table on foodways, including some cookbooks from our robust collection.
How can I engage with materials?
Materials will cover every single table in the Fearrington Reading Room. Folks will be able to walk around the room, view the items on display and talk to the staff to find out more about the items they’re seeing.
There will also be a few stations where you can experience some of the Library’s digital materials. For example, one listening station will play recordings from the Media and the Movement Project Collection. The collection of Black-owned radio station broadcasts includes rare recordings with Joan Little, Angela Davis, Ben Chavis and more. At another station, you can hear Jesus Enriquez ’23 discuss his experience as a Latinx student from rural North Carolina in a recently recorded oral history from the UNC Story Archive.
You can also take a moment express your own creativity. There will be a station where you can craft a souvenir button and coloring sheets to commemorate the event.
Will I be able to talk to people about the items on view?
We have volunteer staff from across the University Libraries. Every department in special collections will be present — curators, archivists, catalogers and more. Visitors will meet the people who care for these materials and make them available for study or research. These are the people who will help you if you come back to work with an item from Wilson in the future.
Everyone at Wilson is very passionate about the collections, and we’re bringing that expertise to share history or provide context about these materials.
Want to know more about Recent Acquisitions Evening?
Get a first look at some of the items that will be on display during the event.
