Exhibitions

Olin and Uris Libraries present regular exhibitions and displays throughout the year. Olin displays are outside the Map & Geospatial unit (level B), opposite the circulation desk (level 1), and outside the periodicals reading room (level 1). In Uris Library, exhibition cases are in the upper lobby and on the gallery level.

Uris Library Cocktail Lounge
Ready for a New Generation!

In 1982, Uris Library opened a new addition carved out of Libe Slope, featuring a panoramic window with glorious western views and very comfortable seating. It soon became known as the cocktail lounge, a popular spot for late-night studying and the occasional nap. In 2019, the well-loved room underwent a renovation to renew furnishings and equipment, and make it more accessible. This exhibition focuses on the design and renovation process.

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Notes from Cornell Typewriters

From May to September 2018, Library users were invited to record their thoughts on vintage typewriters set up in Olin and Uris libraries. Inspired by Notes from a Public Typewriter, the typewriters allowed Cornellians to connect with each other and the past. This exhibit spotlights the machines and some of the messages left by people who were experiencing manual typing for the first time, and others who were reconnecting with a bygone technology and with...

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When the Emperor Was Divine

Julie Otsuka’s novel, When the Emperor was Divine, was the 2013 New Student Reading Project book, read by all new Cornell undergraduates. The text imagines the historical experience of internment for Japanese Americans through the eyes of one representative, but unnamed, family.

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Uris Historical Tour

The University Library building, later renamed Uris Library, opened on October 7, 1891, precisely twenty-three years after classes began at Cornell University. The architect, William Henry Miller, was Cornell’s first student of architecture, remembered through his many buildings on campus and portrait, which hangs in the Uris Library lobby. In addition to the library, with its iconic tower, he designed Barnes Hall, Stimson Hall, Boardman Hall, and Risley Hall, two fraternities, the A. D. White...

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A. D. White Library Tour

A curated tour through the President Andrew Dickson White Library, the historic heart of Cornell's first library, and iconic university landmark. This online exhibition explores the architecture, history, and people associated with the A. D. White Library.

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Olin @ 50: Inspiration Since 1961

Half a century ago, life in John M. Olin Library looked very different — but the building itself is a long-standing symbol for generations of Cornellians. The exhibition on view in Olin and Uris libraries traces Olin’s history through photographs, drawings and artifacts. Beginning with Boardman Hall, the building that preceded Olin on the south side of the Arts Quad, it explores the state of Cornell’s libraries in the 1950s, which led to the building...

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Engaging Early American History through Mapping
HIST 2391 - From Terra Incognita to Territories of Nation-States

History 2391 grew out of a desire to find a new way to expose students to the rich and diverse visual record of Early American history. The seminar engages the rich cartographic record of colonial North America via an in-depth analysis of two dozen iconic maps. Students assessed human representations of space across cultural boundaries, and explored change over time in the mapmaking practices of indigenous peoples and various European intruders.

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Selections from the Barazangi Map Collection
Understanding the Middle East through Geologic Movement

This exhibit features maps donated by Professor Muawia Barazangi, emeritus professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. The maps and images explore how plate tectonics created, and shaped the geography of the Middle East, and how that geologic history resulted in the region’s status as both an oil & gas rich region, and an epicenter of natural disasters.

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Olin & Uris Libraries

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