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News & Events

Building Project Moving Ahead

Last fall, Dean John Wilkin put forth a vision of a reconceptualized Library space that would establish a collections-centered research hub for the humanities and social sciences, and restyle the Undergraduate Library as a home for special collections (see Friendscript, Fall 2018).

A Home for Special Collections

The Library’s special collections—including maps, rare books, archives, and historical music instruments—distinguish Illinois from every other Library in the world and are used by people from all walks of life.

Undergraduates on the Move

The promising rethink of the Library of the future will bring Illinois undergraduates back to their roots—positioned invitingly within the Main Library building.

Full Calendar

Gifts at Work

Library Acquires 17th Century Sir Isaac Newton Manuscript

Through the generosity of Library Friends Jim and Lionelle Elsesser of Saint Louis, Missouri, the University Library now holds a treasured manuscript by one of the most influential scientists of all time—Sir Isaac Newton. Opus Galli Anonymi (Work of an Anonymous Frenchman), penned in the 1690s, is Newton’s unpublished Latin translation of French instructions for […]

I was in grade school the first time I was taken into the Library, by a family friend. I remember that we discovered the first issue of 'Life' magazine, which seemed to me of incalculable antiquitiy. For many months in the mid-60s, I returned to the archives for a University Centennial project, paging through a century of back issues of the 'Daily Illini' to compile 'An Illini Century,' a centennial memory of undergraduate life. It was an exciting time; I had the feeling that I might find most anything in those pages, and I did —from Lorado Taft's farewell to Urbana to Red Grange selling his car in the classified ads.”

—Roger Ebert

BS, 1964