Exhibit Space
Current Exhibition
Marvelous Medieval Marginalia: Drawings, Doodles, and Notes on the Edges of Readers’ Imagination (March 9-July 15, 2025)
Upcoming Exhibitions
Manuscripts, Maps, and Illustrated Books, curated by students in Professor Sherry Fowler's History of Art Seminar in Japanese Art (Summer-Fall 2025)
Bergeron-Sousa exhibit, curated by a KU faculty member (Winter-Spring 2026)
Recent Exhibitions
Watson Library's First 100 Years: Impacts, Innovations, and Renovations (August 2024-February 2025): Part of KU Libraries' Watson Centennial.
Object Lessons: Selections from the Conservation Services Historic Bookbinding Models Collection (March-August 2024)
To the Great Variety of Readers: Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio (September 2023-January 2024): The inaugural exhibit in a new series of exhibitions co-curated by KU faculty and Spencer librarians and funded by a major gift from David Bergeron and Geraldo Sousa.
Past Exhibitions
Photographic Treasures of Historic Leavenworth, Kansas (February-July 2023): A traveling exhibit from the Leavenworth County Historical Society with supplemental materials from Spencer Research Library.
Keeping the Books: The Rubinstein Collection of the Orsetti Family Business Archive (September 2022-February 2023)
Mary Huntoon: Artist and Art Therapist (August-November 2021)
Imagined Worlds: Writers and the Process of Speculative Fiction (January 2020-January 2021)
Unseen Hands: Care and Preservation of KU Libraries’ Collections (July 2019-January 2020)
Meet the Spencers: A Marriage of Arts and Sciences (January-June 2019)
50 for 50: Celebrating Fifty Years of Kenneth Spencer Research Library (September 2018-January 2019)
The Art of Nature: Natural History Art and Illustration by D.D. Tyler (June-August 2018)
Women's Athletics at KU: From Physical Education to Recognized Athletic Program (January-May 2018)
To Make the World Safe for Democracy: Kansas and the Great War (September 2017-January 2018)
Histories of the English Language (June-August 2017)
Education: The Mightiest Weapon (February-May 2017)
In the Shadow of Cortés: From Veracruz to Mexico City (September-December 2016): A traveling exhibit from Indiana University Bloomington with supplemental materials from Spencer Research Library
Easter 1916: Rebellion and Memory in Ireland (February-July 2016)
Achievement of a Dream: The Birth of the University of Kansas (September-December 2015)
All Creeping Things: A History of Herpetological Illustration (May-August 2015): An exhibit by graduate students in KU's Museum Studies program
Free Speech in America: The Wilcox Collection at 50 (February-April 2015)
Ornithological Illustration in the Age of Darwin: The Making of John Gould's Bird Books (September-November 2014)
Legacy of the White City: Revisiting the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 (May-August 2014): An exhibit by graduate students in KU's Museum Studies program
The Magic of Oz: A Collection Celebrating a Classic (January-April 2014): Materials from the collection of KU alumna and lifelong Oz collector Jane Albright
Plainly Spoken (November 2013-January 2014): A traveling exhibit sponsored by the Midwest Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers
Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence: Stories of Loss, Destruction and Survival (August-October 2013)
River City Rebels: Beat Poetry in Lawrence (May-July 2013): An exhibit by graduate students in KU's Museum Studies program
100 Years of Jayhawks: 1912-2012 (December 2012-March 2013)
Riddle Me This: A History of Games and Puzzles (May-August 2012): An exhibit by graduate students in KU's Museum Studies program
Discover Kenneth Spencer Research Library (November 2011-April 2012)