Wear Books!

Thanks for visiting us at the Great Gator Welcome! On this page you’ll find more information about the materials and opportunities here in Special and Area Studies Collections.

We’re all a little mad here…

Alice and Wonderland (1910)

This edition of Alice in Wonderland
contains some of the most well-known
illustrations from the British artist Mabel
Lucie Atwell, and is one of over 120,000
children’s books in the Baldwin Library
of Historical Children’s Literature.

Atwell Art for Alice in Wonderland

Here be Dragons

The Natural History (1599-1668)

Around 1550, the Italian naturalist and scholar Ulisse
Aldrovandi set out to create an ordered
encyclopedia of the world’s species from
the mundane to the monstrous. The dragon on your tattoo sits alongside hundreds of entries on plants, animals and minerals, compiled over several lifetimes of effort.

The 13 volumes of the Natural History

Because it’s Florida

The Citrus Label Collection

So they’re not technically books, but this
collection of over 3000 labels, mainly
from Florida’s citrus industry, is a
fascinating part of the state’s economic
and cultural history, as are the other
holdings of the P.K. Yonge Library of
Florida History.

Alligator Supreme Citrus Label

Explore the Collections

These are just some of the collections that make up our Department, and you can see them all here on our department website. On campus, you might see these materials, and us, in your classes, or you might take advantage of our digital resources.

Our three library reading rooms offer great space to collaborate or to study individually.

Interested in spending more time in the library? We have opportunities to study, work, and even fellowships to introduce undergraduates to interdisciplinary research and let them create their own projects in the collections.

Undergraduate Research Fellowships

Storied Books at the University of Florida

Semester or yearlong fellowships to encourage student research and learning in UF's Special Collections.

Making a Monster

The dragon tattoo you have started out as an image carved on wood and printed by hand. Turning it into a tattoo required using 21st century technology to reverse the process.

And there you have it. This little exercise only scratches the surface of what digital editing and collage can do to transform our collections. Our materials are here to inspire learning, creativity, and to help you do new things. We hope to see you in the collections someday, and if you find something that you think is sticker-worthy, let us know about it!