2024: UT Libraries Year in Review

In 2024, UT Libraries served a record number of students, strengthened academic offerings through involvement in curriculum committees across colleges, including the new College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies, and forged partnerships that propelled UT Libraries initiatives to the global stage.

Our goal in 2025 is to take UT Libraries to the next level. We will build on our momentum, continuing our mission of excellence in service, programs, and initiatives.

Here’s a look back at our 2024 highlights:

• A grant-funded team of Special Collections librarians visited Paris, France, in the summer to research the life and work of Knoxville-born artist Beauford Delaney. UT Libraries holds Delaney’s complete personal archive. The visit will inform the Libraries’ future and digital exhibits. The Beauford Delaney Papers also were opened to researchers in January.
   
• UT Libraries for the first time partnered with Knoxville’s world-renowned Big Ears music festival to present Boundless: Artists in the Archives, which featured singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah. Kiah’s original composition was inspired by firsthand accounts — preserved in the Libraries’ archives — of the deadly wildfires that swept through Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains in 2016.
   
• UT Libraries continued preparations for shifting collections to the planned Library Storage Annex. Librarians began an intensive review of the Libraries’ physical collections, removing outdated or rarely circulated titles and designating others for the move to the soon-to-be-built annex. The annex will provide long-term preservation and storage for lesser-used collections.
   
• Staff have been hard at work on a completely redesigned UT Libraries website to streamline access to library services and resources. The new site will launch in spring 2025.
   
• Chris Durman, coordinator of the George F. DeVine Music Library and a treasure trove of music history, was interviewed by BBC Radio about the history and cultural significance of the Graceland Mansion.
   
• Katie Hannah, new director of the University of Tennessee Press, joined the UT Libraries family on April 1. She set the direction of the Press to expand its author list to more closely reflect Tennessee’s diverse population and to create opportunities for students interested in the field of book publishing.
   
• Exhibits of materials from the Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives highlighted UT Libraries’ holdings related to The Pursuit of Justice, artists’ books, the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, and Black History Month.
   
• UT Libraries continues to invest in preparing K-12 students to be college-ready. The Community Learning and Engagement department hosted hundreds of elementary through high school students from schools across East Tennessee. They engaged in hands-on learning with Libraries STEM initiatives, learned how to conduct research within library resources, and imagined themselves as college students with tours across campus.
   
• UT Libraries made many library services and resources accessible to students directly from Canvas, the portal through which students access and submit course assignments. Through the Libraries’ Canvas presence, students can access electronic textbooks that the library purchases, thus saving students, collectively, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Students can also directly access hundreds of databases, self-paced learning tools such as tutorials and research guides, and chat online with a librarian.
   
• The Webster C. Pendergrass Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine Library received the Collaborative Program of the Year award from UT’s Division of Student Life for its efforts to address food insecurity on campus. The library’s Big Orange Pocket Pantry provides food and hygiene essentials to students, faculty, and staff.
   
• UT Libraries’ staff, initiatives, resources, exhibits, and collections were featured in 22 news stories in international, national, and local media including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Chronicle of Higher Education, local National Public Radio affiliate WUOT, Library Journal, Knoxville News Sentinel, WBIR Channel 10, and WATE Channel 6.
   
• UT Libraries was featured in eight campus and student news media stories, including in the Daily Beacon and Torchbearer magazine.