Upcoming Exhibits

Winter Quarter 2024

Bibliosaurus!
January 2 through April 19, 2024

It was not until 1842 that the word "dinosaur" officially appeared in print, in a British Association for the Advancement of Science report written by Richard Owen. One hundred and eight years later, dinosaurs and prehistoric life have become vivid parts of our imagination. How did this transformation of taxonomic Victorian paleontology enter into part of our everyday vocabulary and experience? In large part, books, magazines, and other media brought ancient creatures to life, integrating them into diverse visual experiences. This exhibit explains this transformation of paleontological nomenclature into digestible and imaginative stories that captured the imaginations of generations of individuals. A rich variety of publications -- monographs, journal articles, popular books, comics, magazines -- will be supplemented with original art, posters, photographs, and occasionally, even fossils to explain the transformation of dinosaurs and prehistoric life from Linnean taxonomy to everyday figures, appearing in editorial cartoons, advertisements, corporate logos, clothing, and many other places.

Spring Quarter 2024

Scav Hunt at UChicago: Seeking Fun, Finding Tradition
April 29 through August 9, 2024

Quirky, impossible, and simply fun, Scav Hunt has set UChicago students on weekend-long searches for eclectic lists of miscellany since 1987. Bordering on the absurd, Scav has set world records, been the focus of many road trips, and prompted countless teams of students to band together in search of zany must-haves from each year's scavenger hunt list. This exhibit will look at Scav's origins, traditions, and search lists that have turned this annual springtime event into a beloved campus tradition.

Fall Quarter 2024

Forest of Leaders: Talents and Impact of UChicago's Korean International Students
September 3 through December 13, 2024


Prior to the prevalence of commercial flights, studying abroad to the United States was uncommon. Unlike today, international study was not an opportunity available to many students. For the very few students who managed to make their way across continents, understanding the cultural and social interactions between two different countries posed a huge challenge.

UChicago has long made efforts to enable the intellectual growth of individuals from different parts of the world, and in the early 1920s, UChicago welcomed its first Korean international students—Kwang Sup Yum (Divinity) and Sae Woon Chang (Mathematics). Since then, the Korean international student population at the university has steadily grown, with an increasing number of those students advancing upon graduation into academic careers in many fields.

The educational philosophy of the late CHEY Jong-hyon presents an exemplary model of how Korean international students were able to find their place within the University and thrive. CHEY, former chairman of the SK Group and a UChicago alumnus, believed in the importance of cultivating talented youth and sponsored the studies of over fifty UChicago students and more than 1,000 students aspiring to earn PhD degrees in institutions across the US.

This exhibit will explore the history of Korean international students at the University, the growth of these students from the completion of their programs of study to intellectuals around the world, and the research they have contributed to their respective fields. Additionally, the exhibit will highlight how CHEY Jong-hyon’s educational philosophy has helped produce such scholars across five decades, his influence as a businessman and philanthropist, and look at the impact of the Korean Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS).

Winter Quarter 2025

A Pressing Call: Women Printers from the Time of Gutenberg to Today
January through April 2025

Quick, name a printer! Johannes Gutenberg, Aldus Manutius, or John Baskerville might come to mind--men whose printer's devices hang across the hall outside the Special Collections Exhibition Gallery. If asked to name a woman who worked as a printer, however, many of us will draw a blank – though it is not for a lack of women participating in the printing industry. From the earliest era of hand-press printing in late 15th-century Europe, women have worked in the print trade in a variety of roles including as publishers, print shop proprietors, typesetters and compositors, and booksellers. The history of women's contributions to book production have been obscured by the societal constraints placed on women’s labor, and they were often hidden behind the names of men or corporate bodies. If one knows how and where to look, however, it becomes clear that thousands of books in the Library’s rare books collections were printed by women.

Using case studies and the works of women printers from Yolande Bonhomme to Virginia Woolf, this exhibition will explore the following questions: Who qualifies as a printer, and how has that definition changed during 500 years of technological innovations to printing in the West? How did women get into printing professions, and what were the social and economic drivers that facilitated their involvement? How does one identify the work of women printers when women are rarely named in the books they printed?