Special Collections

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

In celebration of GIS Day on Nov. 19, the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries’ GIS Lab created “Mapping Vanderbilt’s Past, Present, Future,” an interactive story map that documents how the university’s campus has been imagined, built, contested and reshaped across its 150-year history. 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. Read More

New exhibits in three campus locations celebrate the Immersion Vanderbilt program and highlight hands-on learning projects created by former undergraduate students in collaboration with the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. Read More

Family, friends and colleagues of Sen. Lamar Alexander gathered at Vanderbilt’s Special Collections and University Archives Oct. 22 to celebrate his distinguished career and the digitization of the Lamar Alexander Papers by the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. Read More

Eight decades of Vanderbilt University history are commemorated in a new exhibit at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. "Dare to Grow, 1945–2025" is on view in the Central Library fourth-floor lobby through mid-February 2026. Read More

The human mind’s susceptibility to suggestion and the trance-like state of hypnosis are the subjects of a new exhibit at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. "Power of Suggestion: The Hypnotism Library of Dr. Albert Moll" is on view at Special Collections and University Archives through mid-February 2026. Read More

The 2025 Southern Festival of Books, presented by Vanderbilt University in partnership with Humanities Tennessee Oct. 18–19, will connect faculty, students, alumni and others with university ties to a vast community that shares their love for creative expression. Read More

A new collaboration between the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries and the Google Books initiative will make it possible for users worldwide to access works that are rare, out of print, or generally unavailable outside the Vanderbilt library system. 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