New exhibit alert! Now on display until mid-November, “A Few of Our Favorite Things: 65 Years of Special Collections and University Archives.” Each wall and case showcases a staff member’s selection of favorite collections or collection items in celebration of our anniversary.

Jumping on that Odyssey bandwagon with our beautiful 1541 edition of the Iliad and Odyssey in Greek with Greek commentary. Want to come take a look yourself? The call number is PA4018 .A3 1541. #Odyssey #Homer #RareBooks

#OnThisDay in 1947, this is what the intersection of Pyramid Way and B Street (now Victorian Avenue) looked like in Sparks! Things have changed a little, haven’t they? The photo was taken by @nevadadot and is part of a larger series. Photo ID: UNRS-P1988-35-01 #SparksNV #LincolnHighway #Nevada

Sometimes a photo in the archives provides an unexpected sense of perspective. This photo shows University President Joseph Stubbs with the 1913 summer school staff. This summer, hundreds of faculty and staff are in the middle of running more than 1,000 classes. #FromTheArchives #AcademicSky

We're closed tomorrow in observance of the Fourth of July and America 250. Here's a peek into how the Vanderleith Family spent July 1901 - what appears to be a dance card pasted into the Vanderleith Family Scrapbook. Read more and view the scrapbook here: archive.library.unr.edu/public/repos...

Lucius Beebe and Mr. T-Bone Towser would like you to know that a new exhibit is coming in about a month, so you should visit our current one on student cartoonists while you can! In this heat, it’s a lovely air-conditioned activity. Photo ID: UNRS-P1993-53/12. #Archives #Exhibits #VirginiaCityNevada

We’re hoping our extended Wolf Pack network can help us out! We know these women were University of Nevada students, dressed to attend a campus football game around 1904, but we don’t know their names. Does anyone recognize these faces? #CrowdSourcing #OldPhotos #Archives #HelpUs #HaveYouSeenMe

Sometimes you find things in the archives that clearly have a backstory, and you have no idea what it might be. Like this weirdly combative book inscription: "Ernest Leaverton - And so you have to go afar off to another country to help someone? Do you? - July 1910"

How about some end-of-the-week endpapers? Lovely marbled pieces in this 1797 folio of John Milton’s works. Not a contemporary binding (that red spot is a binder’s ticket from Minneapolis) but it sure is pleasing to the eye.

I have plenty of *questions* but no answers. From the Hugh A. Shamberger Papers, NC1333. Anyone have thoughts? The photo is unlabeled in a batch to do with Goldfield, NV.

We’ve seen frankenbooks before but a photograph stitched back together is a new one for us. Any #GLAMS folks or #Skybrarians seen something like this before? We all momentarily thought it was a tree before looking closer! Photo number UNRS-P2004-17-15

10. A most excellent, scientifically-minded doggy from 1934.

“The Man on the Bicycle” came to us in 2024. It celebrates the life and art collection of Greg Nelson, a committed patron of arts and education. After his passing, the Greg Nelson-Warren Nelson Family provided a generous donation to refurbish a room in the KC as an archives classroom.

On this day in 1950: Virginia and Truckee Railroad Locomotive No. 5 with plow standing opposite the Virginia and Truckee engine house and turntable in Reno. ID UNRS-P1987-23-3554. #railroad #VirginiaAndTruckeeRailroad #TrainPlow #OldPhotos

It’s the last day of Fall Semester 2025! We did it! We’re wishing our campus community a happy, rejuvenating, and safe winter break. Photo: Winter scene at Donner Summit, 1940s. Nevada Photo Service, James Herz Papers. Photo ID UNRS-P1992-01-7554. #DonnerPass #SnowyRoad #OldPhotos #Archives

A new exhibit is going up on the third floor of the Knowledge Center! “New Acquisitions, 2020-2025” is a sampler platter of materials that have come to us since the start of 2020. It will be on display until the end of March - take a break from winter chill and come take a look!

🚨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.