Beyond the Stacks

For friends and supporters of the U-M Library

OCTOBER 2026

Exterior of the Hatcher Library in autumn.

A new home for our collections:

U-M Library Repository

After years of planning, I’m thrilled to announce that we're moving forward with the design of a world-class, state-of-the-art repository, purpose-built to protect our vast collection of books, archives, and irreplaceable items from temperature swings, pests, and moisture so they can be preserved long into the future.

It seems fitting to share this news as a new academic year begins and our campus comes alive, because what excites me most is that generations of students, faculty, and researchers will benefit from this investment.

This is about more than the collection. The repository is an important piece of the library’s evolution, making it possible to reimagine existing library spaces where students and researchers can study, ask questions, and make discoveries together.

I am grateful to everyone who has helped bring this vision forward, and excited to see where it takes the library next.

Lisa Carter

Dean of Libraries, University of Michigan

Homer, papyrus, and the next generation of conservators

Marieka Kaye with seminar student

Once every two years, a handful of papyrologists and conservators make their way to Ann Arbor for something they can’t get anywhere else in the Americas: the Papyrus Conservation Summer Seminar. This August 3-14, they received hands-on training with Marieka Kaye, director of preservation services, learning the ins and outs of treating, storing, and documenting papyrus manuscripts, ancient texts written on rolls or sheets made from the papyrus plant.

And they had plenty to practice on. U-M’s Papyrology Collection (1000 B.C.E. to 1000 C.E.) is the largest in the Western Hemisphere, with portions of the Homer epics, "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad," tucked among its holdings.

As curator Giuliano Sidro told the Associated Press, without training the next generation, “this is a craft that is going to be lost."

Video still with a pair of hands using instruments to adjust fibers on a piece of papyrus.

Campus maps and the women cartographers who shaped them

Colorful pictorial map of Ann Arbor from 1926.

"Down in Ann Arbor Town" by Jessie Horton Koessler and Gertrude A. Strickler (1926)

Curious to know what campus looked like in the early days? Come find out. The exhibit Down in Ann Arbor Town: Pictorial Maps, Campus Traditions, and the Women Who Made Them is officially open at the Clark Library (Hatcher Library South, 2nd Floor). The exhibit features an original copy of the century-old “Down in Ann Arbor Town” map, a collection of beautifully detailed maps by women cartographers, and a selection of maps tracing how campus has been drawn and redrawn over the decades. Part treasure hunt, part love letter to Ann Arbor, come see how the campus you know got its start on paper.

All aboard! Charting the Wolverine with Elaine Wilson

Aerial drawing of the Huron River, surrounded by trees and spanned by a train track.

The Huron River from "Charting the Wolverine," a work in progress by Elaine S. Wilson

If this exhibit piques your interest in maps, you’re in luck: the Clark Library will feature Elaine S. Wilson in her lecture: How Wonderful a Good Map Is: How I Came to Chart The Wolverine, on Wednesday, October 28, 4-5:30 pm. The talk traces her ongoing project “Charting The Wolverine,” which depicts the Amtrak route that runs from Pontiac, Michigan to Chicago. Since 2008, she has produced 31 maps and 240 watercolors. Elaine will share how she dug into historic atlases and maps for inspiration, then hit the back roads of Michigan and Indiana, following the railroad tracks to paint and draw as she went.

Help support the map collection

Behind every exhibit — the research, the restoration, the stories of women cartographers getting their due — there’s support from donors, just like you. Help future exhibits like this one through the Stephen S. Clark Library Fund. Any gift of any size to any area of the library before the end of the year ensures that you’ll receive our very popular U-M Library Calendar.

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HathiTrust lands $5M to shape responsible artificial intelligence

HathiTrust, a collaborative, digital library founded at the University of Michigan in 2008, has received a five-year, $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to build responsible, AI-enabled access to its vast collection of digitized books.

Partnering with Northeastern University Library and the nonprofit Authors Alliance, HathiTrust will use the funding to improve metadata and text quality, open up verified text and images for scholarly research, and establish clear standards for trustworthy, sustainable AI use in libraries. Executive Director Mike Furlough said, "Through this project, HathiTrust will help to ensure that AI and machine learning actually address the unique needs of library users and serve the broader public interest. It's an opportunity for libraries to set direction for how these emerging technologies use library collections."

It's a striking example of the kind of forward-thinking, mission-driven work that happens when libraries lead rather than follow, and a reminder of how far-reaching U-M Library's impact truly is, well beyond our own campus. Investments like this one shape how researchers and readers everywhere will access knowledge for generations to come.

Fun fact: Our library has serious horror movie street cred

Actor Anthony Hopkins is wearing a straight jacket and restraint mask while director Jonathan Demme gives instructions.

Director Jonathan Demme on the set of "The Silence of the Lambs" with actor Anthony Hopkins (far left), 1991. The straight-jacket Hopkins is wearing is part of U-M Library's Demme collection. Photo courtesy of Firstpost.

That straightjacket Anthony Hopkins wore as Hannibal Lector from “Silence of the Lambs”? It lives right here, donated to the U-M Library’s Mavericks and Makers Collection by director Jonathan Demme. And this fall, it’s stepping out: the jacket is on display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, as part of The Horror Show, a new exhibition on the history of horror in cinema.