Jean And Alexander Heard Libraries

Vanderbilt University Librarian Jon Shaw, who has led the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries since 2022, has been reappointed for a five-year term and named dean of libraries and letters, effective July 1. Shaw is the inaugural Connie Vinita Dowell University Librarian, thanks to generous support from Dowell, M.L.S.’79, Vanderbilt’s first dean of libraries, and her husband, Stephen P. Miller. Their gift, made during Vanderbilt’s Dare to Grow campaign, reflects the couple’s ongoing commitment to the Heard Libraries and strengthens philanthropic momentum for the library dean’s role and strategic priorities.  Read More

The world’s preeminent scholars of early American history convened at Vanderbilt University June 11–13 for the Omohundro Institute’s 29th annual conference, hosted by the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. This premier gathering for historians and researchers who focus on American history through the early 19th century featured cutting-edge research, panels and workshops covering “Vast Early America”—that is, North America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic world. Read More

Check out the initial author lineup for the 2026 Southern Festival of Books! Read More

A new exhibit at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries celebrates America’s semiquincentennial—the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—by exploring the United States’ formative years. 'Forging a Nation' will be on view through December 2026. Read More

The collaboration reflects a shared commitment to advancing respectful, community-engaged research and supporting Indigenous knowledge preservation. Read More

Library professionals from across North America came together at Vanderbilt University May 27–29 for the 2026 Southern Library Support Staff Conference. This annual gathering, hosted by the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries, is designed to offer all levels of staff at academic, public, school and special libraries an opportunity to learn, teach, share and develop connections with others in their field. Read More

Vanderbilt University computer science students have developed an accurate, reliable and cost-effective solution for segmenting and labeling television news broadcasts, making them more discoverable and accessible to researchers. This new tool, the first created through the Vanderbilt Cloud Innovation Lab for Libraries and Applied Digital Preservation, powered by AWS, uses artificial intelligence to improve upon manual processes and may reduce costs up to 80 percent. Read More

In an age defined by information overload, viral narratives, and deepening political divides, Vanderbilt University’s McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies is positioning itself at the forefront of media literacy education. Read More

The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries have migrated to a new journal finder for open access publishing. Read More

Lamar Alexander, BA’62, continues a six-decade journey on the path of public service, one that famously began with a thousand-mile trek across Tennessee in his signature red-and-black plaid shirt. However, for the Vanderbilt community, his legacy is rooted even deeper—stretching back to his days as an undergraduate, serving as editor of The Vanderbilt Hustler and a key student voice of support for racial integration at the university. Soon, a variety of activities led by the university will allow the broader community to learn more about his storied history and engage with the former Tennessee governor and U.S. senator. Read More

Vanderbilt faculty, staff and administrators can gain free unlimited access to Inside Higher Ed courtesy of the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. This online news source provides daily updates, in-depth analysis and career resources for higher education professionals, covering topics such as federal policy, faculty issues, admissions, technology, AI and more. Read More

Three Vanderbilt University students have been recognized with funding to support their original research related to 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire. The grants, awarded annually by the Fondation Claude Pichois, are hosted and administered by the Fondation de France in partnership with Vanderbilt’s W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies. Read More

The Biodiversity Heritage Library has announced a new collaboration with Vanderbilt University’s Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries that will provide digital preservation support for the world’s largest open-access repository of natural history materials. Through the agreement, the Heard Libraries will contribute cloud infrastructure expertise and technical leadership for BHL, which serves as a foundational resource for biodiversity science, taxonomy and conservation research, with more than 63 million pages dating from the 15th to the 21st century. Read More

That spirit of shared responsibility anchored a recent collaboration among the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville Public Library’s Special Collections, Vanderbilt University and Tennessee State Parks, bringing history to life through dialogue, performance and community engagement. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries have received a pair of grants supporting Tennessee America 250 initiatives from the Tennessee Commission for the United States Semiquincentennial. The funding, made available by the state of Tennessee, is administered by the Tennessee State Museum in support of statewide America 250 activities. Read More

Vanderbilt University now maintains its own REDCap instance, a secure web application for building and managing online surveys and databases. University staff and postdoctoral researchers currently using REDCap through the Vanderbilt University Medical Center instance must migrate their projects to the university instance by Wednesday, April 15, 2026, to avoid loss of project data. Read More

Vanderbilt’s Central Library second-floor gallery is awash with color with the opening of Brighter and Brighter: The Poetry Prints of Sam Maitin. The exhibit is on view at Central through August, when it will move to Special Collections and University Archives and be on display there through November 2026. Read More

Among the artifacts librarian Mary McSparran selected from Vanderbilt’s Special Collections and University Archives for a pop-up exhibit last fall were a NASA space suit and a journal listing books about UFOs. Neither would seem a likely choice for a literary salon, where the exhibit was on display, but this was no ordinary discussion of writers and their works. The gathering was part of a growing collaboration between Special Collections staff and Vanderbilt faculty, in which the curators and archivists play an active role in teaching by offering students access to unique materials that bring their coursework to life. Read More

Infinite Worlds: Science Fiction and the Future of Humanity is now on view in the fourth-floor lobby of Central Library. The exhibit, which features rare publications from Vanderbilt’s Special Collections and University Archives and Central Library collections, explores speculative fiction through themes such as advances in science and technology and their effect on the future of human society. Read More

Effective Nov. 18, 2025, Vanderbilt University deployed a dedicated REDCap instance, separate from Vanderbilt University Medical Center. University REDCap users who have projects on the VUMC instance should take immediate action to migrate them to the VU instance, or archive projects that are no longer needed. Read More