New Year, New Building

Welcome to Spring Semester 2012 at UGA! As you've read in recent posts, the Russell Library is now settled in its new home -- the Special Collections Building (300 South Hull Street) -- and we're once again open for regular research hours (8:30am - 4:30pm).

In August I blogged about our new exhibit galleries. Now, as we approach our grand opening on February 17th our exhibit fabricators are hard at work on the 2nd floor installing casework, furniture, and graphics that we've been developing with designers for the past two years. And, our staff is working like crazy to make sure all the objects, labels, and media for the galleries are ready for installation.

As promised in August, we have used our "Political Slang" series on the blog to preview some of the content that will fill our opening exhibition in the Harrison Feature Gallery (drumroll please...) On the Stump: What Does it Take to Get Elected in Georgia?

This exhibition considers the evolution of campaigning for political office in the state from the passage of the white primary in 1900 to the presidential election of 2008. The exhibition invites visitors to step into the shoes of a candidate and onto the campaign trail: from the initial decision to run to crafting a strategy, shaking hands, kissing babies, and everything in between.

Over the next few weeks we'll give you updates on the gallery -- showing pictures of the installation and some sneak peeks of the Hargrett and Brown archives gallery spaces as well.

Jan Levinson, Outreach Archivist, Russell Library