Silver Special Collections Library
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Silver Special Collections Library
Silver Special Collections stewards and shares our collective story. We provide access to research materials relating to the study of Vermont, the history of the University of Vermont, and the history of the book as a form of humanistic expression.
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48 University Place, Room B201
Burlington, VT 05405
uvmsc@uvm.edu
(802) 656-2138
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Visit our spaces
Like all UVM Libraries, Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, visiting researchers and the general public. Visit our reading room to use library materials or study in the historic Billings North Lounge.
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Research guides
Librarians curate guides to courses, topics and more. Find your course guide for a specific semester or learn where to start your research within a specific subject area.
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Special Collections Blog
Read the stories behind our collections. 'Silver Stories' features blog posts about our collections, events, exhibits and news.
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Research assistance
Special Collections librarians are available to help you access materials in the Vermont Research Collection, the University Archives, and the Rare Book collections. We can also suggest resources about our collections and provide research consultations for students and scholars.
Often, the best way to get started working with us is to just reach out. Research assistance is available in Special Collections during our open hours. We also provide remote reference service via email or by phone at (802) 656-2138.
We try to answer about hours and availability of materials the next business day. We answer other questions within two weeks.
Teach with us
There are many ways Special Collections helps UVM faculty and instructors.
Class sessions in Special Collections
Special Collections librarians provide introductions to archival research and teach or co-teach class sessions focused on our holdings in a particular subject area.
Class instructors may reserve our classroom to teach with Special Collections materials. We can help you locate materials to support your teaching.
Classroom visits
Special Collections librarians visit your classroom to introduce students to our resources, research tools, and procedures and give presentations on specialized topics.
Course guides
We create digital guides to help students identify Special Collections resources and tools useful for a class or assignment.
Assignment support
We identify and reserve material that students use on their own time in our reading room. Students can also make their own requests.
Research consultations
Special Collections librarians meet with individual students or small groups to discuss research strategies and suggest resources.
Learn more about the library instruction program.
Ask and visit Special Collections
Because working with Special Collections' materials can take some planning, we always suggest that the best way to work with us is to bein touch. Email or call us (802) 656-2138.
Who can visit?
Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, visiting researchers and the general public. Learn more about visiting Silver Special Collections.
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Exhibit: Working, Vermonters on the Job
To create the current exhibit in the Silver Special Collections gallery, we explored our collections to find photographs showing Vermonters at work. The exhibit includes photographs of people working in granite quarries, maple sugar bushes, city streets, a university library, a wartime factory, and on farms during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We also included a wall of portraits taken by Vermont photographer Peter Miller that record rural Vermonters who work in the woods, teach, operate post offices, brew beer, fight fires and fix small engines.
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Early American Literature Project Celebrates African American Poet Phillis Wheatley
In 2023, Silver Special Collections librarians Chris Burns and Prudence Doherty, English professors Elizabeth Fenton and Mary Lou Kete, and UVM alumnus and book collector Bruce Lisman ('69) initiated an Early American Literature project at UVM. The project involves significantly expanding the Silver Special Collections Library’s holdings of late 18th and early 19th century American literature to support UVM classes, research projects and events. Bruce Lisman generously started the project with a donation of books from his collection as well as funds for additional purchases and a lecture series, the Lisman Lectures in Early American Book Culture.
This spring, the Early American Literature team is highlighting the poems of African American poet Phillis Wheatley that have been added to the Rare Book collection.
