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Cory Lampert, Head of Digitial Collections in UNLV Libraries Special Collections & Archives, and her colleagues Emily Lapworth (Digital Special Collections & Archives Librarian) and Sarah Jones (Visiting Special Collections & Archives Technical Services Librarian) "raise the curtain" on a fabulous new digital collection that has made it possible to access hundreds of documents and photos on Las Vegas entertainment history.
From the German Baroque to Revolutionary France, with Bill Harrah’s playing cards in between, the art of printing and printmaking has captured the eye of collectors. This Reading Room exhibit highlights the visual arts of printing from three collections representing three very different collectors: a European scholar of literature, an unknown American collector of Napoleana, and a Nevada gaming mogul.
In part two of this series on his exhibit "The Visual Art of Printing," curator Peter Michel considers Bill Harrah's extensive playing card collection housed in Special Collections & Archives.
Bill Harrah and his Collections
William Harrah, founder of a corporate gaming empire that until recently bore his name, was also a collector, most famously of cars. Some of his other personal collections came to UNLV with the Harrah’s Corporate Archives including a hood ornament collection, but also a collection of over 350…Read More
UNLV Libraries Special Collections & Archives Metadata Librarian Darnelle Melvin.
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, Special Collections & Archives Metadata Librarian Darnelle Melvin gives us a glimpse into life working among the rare treasures of the library.
1. When you first began working in Special Collections, what was the one item or…Read More
The Mary Etta Syphus family home in Panaca, Nevada, where the packet of letters were found hidden in a wall years after the house had been abandoned. Photo taken approximately 1973. (MS-00169)
Love letters seem like an appropriate offering for Valentine's Day, and we hope you enjoy this story from our colleague Angela Moor. A Ph.D. candidate in the UNLV History Department, Moor works part-time as a member of our archival processing team, and that is where she first encountered this poignant collection of Syphus-Bunker correspondence.
Special Collections & Archives will host an opening celebration for our next exhibit, BUILT: A Photographic Survey of the Built Environment of the Las Vegas Valley, on Friday, Feb. 9 from 5:30-7 p.m. in the Goldfield Room at Lied Library.
Guests will have an opportunity to tour the exhibit at the start of the event and meet with photographer and exhibit curator Aaron Mayes. BUILT utilizes images captured by Mayes as part of the UNLV University Libraries Special Collections and Archives collecting initiative Building Las Vegas. The exhibit showcases Mayes’ work to date on the project and spotlights development trends, challenges, successes, and failures in our…Read More
A new exhibit showcasing the extreme diversity of the built environment in Las Vegas is now open on the first floor of Lied Library. "BUILT: A Photographic Survey of the Built Environment of the Las Vegas Valley" features an extensive collection of photographs taken by photographer Aaron Mayes, Visual Materials Curator in Special Collections & Archives, from the Building Las Vegas project.
BUILT showcases Mayes’ work to date on the project and spotlights development trends, challenges, successes, and failures in our desert city. As part of “Building Las Vegas,” Mayes has taken thousands of photos of the built environment of Las Vegas from housing developments and construction sites to the Strip and the washes and wetlands that dot our desert landscape. He combines these with…Read More
Special Collections and Archives and the Center for Gaming Research are delighted to welcome our latest Eadington Fellows, Dr. Dana Herrera and Dr. Cynthia Van Gilder who are working on a joint research project centered on "Hawaiian Vegas."
Unbeknownst to most visitors, Las Vegas is home to a unique niche tourism: it is overwhelmingly the vacation destination of choice for residents of the state of Hawai’i, even affectionately termed the “Ninth Island.” It is estimated that 1 in 10 residents of Hawai’i visit Las Vegas at least once per year. These Hawaiian travelers to Las Vegas primarily select The California Hotel, nicknamed, “The Cal,” as their preferred sleeping, gambling…Read More
Special Collections and Archives in the UNLV University Libraries will receive a $100,000 Humanities Access Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a project to document the contributions of Latino communities to the development of Southern Nevada.
“Latino Voices in Southern Nevada” is an oral history and community engagement project aimed at expanding the diversity of the voices that Special Collections and Archives preserves. The project will involve students in connecting with the community, and engage multiple generations in reflecting on the lives and experiences of the region’s Hispanic residents.…Read More
Photographs of Frontier Victory rally , Culinary Union, Las Vegas (Nev.), 1998 January 31. Culinary Workers Union Local 226 Las Vegas, Nevada Photograph Collection (PH:00382)
In one photograph a diverse group of union workers hold up a banner together that boldly declares, “Whatever it takes. As long as it takes.” In another, Rev. Jesse Jackson holds his fist in the air during a labor union rally on the Strip. And in a series of negatives, the moment is captured when one of the longest labor strikes in American history finally ends, with jubilant workers embracing each…Read More
