Exhibitions and Public Programming

Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) welcomes students, educators, and learners of all kinds for communal exploration and study. If you would like to partner with us on our outreach activities or learn more about TUSC programming, please contact specialcollections@tulane.edu.

For directions and hours, please see our Visitor Information page. 

Current Exhibition

Pages Unveiled: Journey into the Book Beyond Text

March 15, 2024 – June 14, 2024

Opening reception March 15, 2024, 10:00am – 4:00pm. 

Free and open to the public. 
Refreshments will be served. 

When asked to describe their favorite book, many readers will mention a beloved author, preferred genre, or an enjoyable narrative trope. They express their love of books because of the comfort with a familiar everyday object that is easily accessed by reading, scrolling, listening to, or running fingers against Braille code. Despite using our beloved books all the time, we seldom pause to consider the book as an object. 

Featuring more than 50 book objects ranging in date from c. 1300 to 2024, Pages Unveiled: Journey into the Book Beyond Text aims to celebrate the book’s overlooked physical elements. Visitors are invited to consider the entire book as an object of significance—its paper, inked shapes, typography, illustrations, and binding. Using recent acquisitions and works seldom on view from the rare book collections of Tulane University Special Collections, the Newcomb Art Museum, and private collections, this exhibition will give visitors a firsthand look at bookmaking materials and the varieties of books they can create. Examples of the materials and instruments employed to create, print, and bind books throughout history will be on display. 

All book lovers are invited to join us as we examine the unique facets that determine a book's singular identity so that we may “raise the veil” on the story beyond the text. 

Curated by Kure Croker, Agnieszka Czeblakow, Faye Daigle, and Samantha Schafer, Pages Unveiled: Journey into the Book Beyond Text opens March 15, 2024 and is on view through June 14, 2024 at the Tulane University Special Collections 2nd Floor Gallery, 6801 Freret Street, Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s Uptown campus.

Hours are 10am–4pm Monday-Friday. Admission is free and open to the public. 

For more information contact: 

Kevin Williams, Coordinator for Exhibits & Outreach, 
Tulane University Special Collections 
(504) 247-1836
kevinw@tulane.edu 

Upcoming Events

Please join us for these upcoming events!

In the Archives: Researching and Learning with Primary Source Materials about New Orleans

Monday, April 1, 2024
12:30 – 1:30 p.m.

Louis Prima Room (room 306) in Jones Hall, 6801 Freret St., Tulane University
RSVP required

This hands-on introduction to archives allows attendees to engage with holdings from the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, a unit of Tulane University Special Collections.

Learn about what archives are, how they're interesting and can benefit you, and why archives about New Orleans music and culture are important. Led by Melissa A. Weber, Hogan Archive curator.

This in-person workshop is open to both the Tulane University community and the general public. Students are encouraged to attend. Capacity: 20 attendees.

Past Exhibitions

Recent exhibitions include “I Shall Not Be Moved”: Black Student Life at Tulane, 1963-2023 (April - December 2023); Absolutely Unpredictable: Anne Rice in the City of Transgression (October 2022 - February 2023); Music IS the Scene": Jazz Fest's First Decade, 1970-1979 (March - May 2022); Captive Voices: Hearing, Seeing, and Imagining Angola Prison, launched as a complement to the 2019 Tulane Reading Project selection, Vengeance by Zachary Lazar; and Proteus 1892, Teunisson 1902, and Louis Armstrong 1949: Selections from the Carnival Holdings.

Digital Exhibitions
Loans for Exhibitions

Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) welcomes loan requests from institutions with established exhibition programs and professional staff qualified to handle the materials requested. Loan requests are judged on their own merits and the final decision to loan an item is made on a case-by-case basis. TUSC will provide an agreement for approved loans and cannot sign agreements from a borrowing institution. For more information about our loan program, please email Kevin Williams, Coordinator for Exhibits & Outreach, Tulane University Special Collections, kevinw@tulane.edu.