Jon Shaw

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

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 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

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

The collected papers of celebrated humorist Roy Blount Jr. are now housed at Vanderbilt University’s Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. Blount, a 1963 graduate of Vanderbilt, donated the collection in late 2024. Read More

The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries have partnered with Amazon Web Services to launch the Vanderbilt Cloud Innovation Lab for Libraries and Applied Digital Preservation, powered by AWS. This initiative, the first of AWS’s cloud innovation programs to be housed in an academic library and focused on archival preservation, was celebrated Oct. 27 at a ribbon-cutting event and reception on the Vanderbilt campus. Read More

The 2025 Southern Festival of Books, presented by Vanderbilt University in partnership with Humanities Tennessee, will connect faculty, students, alumni and others with university ties to a vast community that shares their love for creative expression. The festival, now in its 37th year, will be at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, Tennessee State Museum and Tennessee State Library and Archives Oct. 18–19. Admission is free. Read More

The Faculty Senate will meet on Thursday, Sept. 18, from 4:10 to 5:30 p.m. in the Faculty Commons. The meeting will include a vote to possibly change rules of order regarding the Faculty Life and DEI standing committees. Read More

The life, music, writings and visual art of jazz multi-instrumentalist and composer Yusef A. Lateef will be celebrated Sept. 12–13, when Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music hosts the Yusef Lateef Symposium. The two-day conference will include panel discussions, viewings of the Yusef A. Lateef Collection housed at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries, a film screening, visual art displays and live music performances. Read More

The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives has completed a long-term project to fully digitize the Lamar Alexander Papers, which document the life and work of a significant figure in Tennessee and U.S. political history. Read More

University leaders, faculty, students and invited guests gathered at the McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies to celebrate its new home at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries’ Central Library. The interdisciplinary center promotes media literacy by providing essential resources to evaluate the objectivity of news coverage, digital media and other narratives.  Read More

Digital preservation professionals from the Southeast and across the globe convened at Vanderbilt University for the inaugural Digital Preservation Coalition Members Forum in the Americas. The April 24–25 gathering, hosted by the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries, supported the university’s goal of engaging a global community of scholars on campus and bringing their expertise to bear on the world’s most pressing problems. Read More

With the impressive jazz collections at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries, Vanderbilt students and faculty can delve deep into the history of jazz and the lives, music and impact of its pioneering musicians. Read More

See how historian Jane Landers and her team are rescuing enslaved Africans’ stories from oblivion and honoring thousands of lives. Read More

The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries hosted talks by two international scholars of Jewish history and culture on April 10 in the Central Library Community Room. Markus Krah, the John H. Slade Executive Director of the Leo Baeck Institute–New York/Berlin, and Caroline Jessen, a research associate at the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture–Simon Dubnow in Leipzig, Germany, discussed the life and legacy of German-Jewish philanthropist and publisher Salman Schocken. Read More

The agreement, signed by university and Canadian officials during a Dec. 3 ceremony at Vanderbilt’s Special Collections and University Archives, marks the second five-year collaboration between the two organizations and reaffirms their shared commitment to advancing academic collaboration and fostering innovative research. The new collaboration establishes the Fulbright Canada Distinguished Chair at Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science, with the recipients working closely with the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries.  Read More

A three-year read-and-publish agreement between Oxford University Press and the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries is elevating the visibility and impact of Vanderbilt University research by expanding access to OUP’s broad portfolio of academic journals. Under the agreement, which is effective through 2026, Vanderbilt-affiliated authors can publish open access in hundreds of OUP’s hybrid journals without incurring article processing charges. Read More