What's New In Special Collections

Latinx Voices: Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez

Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez
Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez

As the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada project gets underway, this series highlights the UNLV students who are working as oral historians on this UNLV University Libraries Special Collections & Archives project.

Fans of KUNV Radio may recognize Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez's voice. The UNLV alumnus and current UNLV graduate student developed his first passion at UNLV while working at the campus radio station. Now as one of the students working on the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada project in the University Libraries, Bañuelos is embracing his passion and…Read More

Latinx Voices: Marcela Rodriguez-Campo

Marcela Rodriguez-Campo

As the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada project gets underway, this series highlights the UNLV students who are working as oral historians on this UNLV University Libraries Special Collections & Archives project.

Born in Cali, Colombia, Marcela Rodriguez-Campo and her family immigrated to the United States when she was five years old. Attending elementary and middle school in Florida, Rodriguez-Campo moved to Las Vegas at the start of high school in 2008. After completing an undergraduate degree at Washington State University, she returned to Las Vegas to serve as a public school teacher, specializing in teaching secondary…Read More

Book. Art. Object. by Peter Michel

Curator Peter Michel reflects on the collection of Artists' Books held in UNLV Special Collections and Archives. Photography by Aaron Mayes, Curator of Visual Materials

The book as an object designed for the transmission of text persists as a significant artifact even in a culture increasingly digital. Not all books are created as works of art, but those that are have been collected by connoisseurs, bibliophiles, and Special Collections librarians for as long as there have been libraries. Book art is a collaborative art form created by artists in small but thriving studios…Read More

Shining Light On Tragedy: Collecting 14,000,000 Tweets Following the 1 October Mass Shooting by Miranda Barrie and Thomas Padilla

"Our city of lights, in our hour of darkness, still shines." - Nevada State Senator Aaron Ford

How do cities respond to tragedy? How do they remember? How do they heal? These are some of the questions researchers at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) asked following 1 October, a mass shooting that occurred at the 2017 Route 91 music festival. Pursuing questions like these depends on access to the history of Las Vegas. UNLV Libraries has long dedicated itself to making that possible. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the libraries responded by collecting oral histories and archiving relevant websites. The libraries also collected more than 14,100,000 tweets associated with the…Read More

Collection highlight: John Levy Lighting Productions Records and the Roman temple by Jimmy Chang

Roman interpretation of classical Greek architecture, or Las Vegas’ interpretation of a Roman interpretation of classical Greek architecture?
Image Credit:Caesars Palace cabana artist’s rendering, John Levy Lighting Productions, Inc. Records, 1992-2017. MS-00832. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

In 2016 John Levy, founder of John Levy Lighting Productions, Inc. donated to UNLV Libraries Special Collections & Archives his company’s records, which feature…Read More

NV Energy Donates $10K to UNLV University Libraries Latinx Voices Project

Donors presenting a giant $10,000 check the UNLV Oral History Research Center
Tony Sanchez, NV Energy Senior Vice President, and Peter Guzman, President of the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commence, present a $10,000 check to Claytee White, Director of the UNLV Oral History Research Center, and Michelle Light, Director of Special Collections & Archives.

NV Energy has donated $10,000 to support University Libraries’ Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada project.

“NV Energy is committed to supporting programs that honor the unique diversity and cultural heritage of our state,” said Maggie Farrell, Dean of the UNLV University…Read More

Digitizing Historic Las Vegas Newspapers by Stacey Fott

Front page of the Las Vegas Age from April 1912

UNLV Digital Collections is currently completing the digitization of two historic Las Vegas newspapers for public online access. Through funding from the Commission for the Las Vegas Centennial, the Las Vegas Age, (1905-1947) and the Las Vegas Times (1905-1906) will be available online to researchers through the UNLV University Libraries website and the Library of Congress Chronicling America website. While this project shares many similarities with NDNP in terms of process and workflow, there is one major…Read More

Six Secrets from Special Collections with Sarah Jones

UNLV Libraries Special Collections & Archives Visiting Technical Services Librarian Sarah Jones

In our Secrets from Special Collections series, UNLV Libraries Special Collections and Archives staff members divulge what they consider to be the hidden gems of the library, sharing answers, based on their own experiences, to six intriguing questions. Here, Visiting Special Collections & Archives Technical Services Librarian Sarah Jones gives us a glimpse into life working among the rare treasures of the library.

1. When you first began working in Special Collections and…Read More

The Robert Woodruff Collection Exhibit

Woodruff collection image

With the construction of Hoover Dam all but finished, and the gaming and tourisms industries still in their infancy, the future of Las Vegas in 1937 held no certainties. But to young Robert Woodruff, fresh out of college in Ohio, it was a place of great possibility and great beauty. To him, it was the perfect place to build a life. All it needed was a promoter, a champion, someone to sing Las Vegas’ praises. And Woodruff knew he was that person.

UNLV University Libraries Special Collections and Archives’ new exhibit, The Robert Woodruff Collection, is located in the Flo Mlynarczyk Gallery on the third floor of UNLV’s Lied Library and will run through the…Read More

Las Vegas Centennial Commission Awards $50K Grant for Latinx Voices Project

LatinX Voices logo

The Las Vegas Centennial Commission has awarded University Libraries a $50,000 grant to support the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada project.

“We appreciate that the members of the Las Vegas Centennial Commission are investing in this project to add more perspectives from Latinx communities to our historical records on Las Vegas and Southern Nevada,” said Maggie Farrell, Dean of the UNLV University Libraries. “With approximately 29 percent of our region’s residents and 25 percent of the UNLV student population identifying as Latinx, this project will help Special Collections and Archives preserve a more inclusive historical record for Southern Nevada.”

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