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. 

My Favorite Things: Selections by Tulane University Special Collections Staff

On view March 13, 2025 – June 13, 2025

“What is your favorite item in the collection?” It’s a question every archivist, curator, and librarian has heard countless times—from colleagues, researchers, and visitors alike. For many of us, selecting just one object feels impossible. With thousands of documents, artifacts, and books under our care, each holding its own unique historical significance, how do we choose?

For the exhibition My Favorite Things: Selections by Tulane University Special Collections Staff we invited Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) staff to embrace this challenge. Each participant selected up to five objects that hold personal significance—items that captivate them, that they return to time and again, whether for the item’s historical importance, the stories they tell, or the sheer joy they inspire.

Featuring materials from TUSC’s archival, printed, and audiovisual collections, this exhibition reflects our individual and collective passions. Through these selections, we hope to spark curiosity, nostalgia, and a deeper connection to the past. We invite you to explore these treasured pieces and discover the stories behind our favorite things; including Special Collections’ very first donation of a letter from Thomas Jefferson to M. duPlantier concerning draining land near New Orleans owned by the Marquis de Lafayette, jazz musician Danny Barker’s grocery list, an 1836 watercolor panoramic view of New Orleans, and Paul Tulane’s Act of Donation (and the pen used to sign it). 

Curated by Agnieszka Czeblakow and Kevin Williams, My Favorite Things: Selections by Tulane University Special Collections Staff opens March 13, 2025 and runs through June 13, 2025 at the Tulane University Special Collections 2^nd Floor Gallery, 6801 Freret Street, Joseph Merrick 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

In the Archives: Researching and Learning with Primary Source Materials about New Orleans
Fall 2025 date and time TBA

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

For more information, email mweber3@tulane.edu.

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.

TUSC staff, as well as many Tulane students, have created several digital exhibitions that feature TUSC collections. Some highlights are linked here; to view all of the TUSC digital exhibitions, please visit the Tulane Libraries portal for online 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.