Exhibits
Entangled Solidarities
1st Floor
February 07, 2025 – May 30, 2025
How are solidarities formed across sociopolitical struggles, and then visualized and disseminated through visual culture? Entangled Solidarities explores this question in relation to Arab American histories through the rich archival material and artists’ books found in MSU Libraries’ Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections.
Universal Access: Accessibility in the Library World
1st Floor
September 16, 2024 – January 31, 2025
This exhibit, curated by the Michigan State University Libraries’ Accessibility and User Experience units, showcases the MSU Libraries’ commitment to accessibility, demonstrated through its collections and archives, assistive technologies and equipment, and spaces. This exhibit also provides interactive sensory experiences via the sound dome and tactile table.
Palm Oil in Indonesia
2 West
May 23, 2024 – September 01, 2024
This exhibit details the history of oil palm cultivation throughout the world, with a specific focus on Indonesia and how this crop impacts the livelihoods of farmers and others in Sumatra and throughout the archipelago.
Advancing Accessibility: A Timeline
2 West
December 08, 2023 – April 30, 2024
Approximately 1.3 billion, or one in six, people experience disability worldwide (World Health Organization). Despite this high prevalence, people with disabilities have been oppressed and treated unequally and unfairly by ableist societies and systems since the beginning of history. There have, however, been many accessibility advancements and improvements, especially in technology and physical spaces, throughout time; some of which are highlighted in our exhibit.
For Better For Worse
May 02, 2023
A collection of early modern, English, conduct books offering helpful advice of the period on conduct, behavior, morals, values, spirituality, education, letter writing, personal relationships, and practical topics. This exhibit is about marriage advice in some of these books.
A Catalog of Early Works in Ray Stannard Baker Bee Collection
May 02, 2023
For over a half-century the MSU Libraries has been acquiring and building an important collection of materials devoted to early bee keeping. The Baker Collection is especially strong in apiculture works printed in English, although other languages are well represented.
Healing Waters of Bath
May 02, 2023
Bath U.K.’s famous geothermal hot springs have attracted people since prehistoric times. From the 17th century, people claimed the water had curative properties if one drank or bathed in it. Bath became a popular spa town, a place to live in and vacation at, to see and to be seen.
Footpath to Freeway: The Evolution of Michigan Road Maps
May 02, 2023
A systematic review of the maps contained in Clason State Road Maps, touring atlases, and Green Guides reveal that the road legends and other map symbols varied over the years in systematic ways.
Michigan Writers
May 02, 2023
The Michigan Writers Collection, located in Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections, is devoted to collecting and making accessible all the manuscripts and published works of selected writers with important ties to Michigan. The Michigan Writers Series recognizes and highlights the literary work of important writers who live and work in Michigan.
Defoe and the Plague in London
May 02, 2023
Daniel Defoe, 1660?-1731, was a London businessman, journalist, political pamphleteer, spy, and proponent of the novel as a literary genre. As the Second Plague Pandemic approached London in the early 1720’s, Defoe published Journal of the Plague Year and Due Preparations for the Plague to teach people about the experiences English people had had in the plague of 1664-1665.