Rare Books and Special Collections, Hesburgh Library, Notre Dame

11/11/2025

Meet Ruben Celani, our new Postdoctoral Research Associate in Italian Studies and Zahm Dante Collection curatorial fellow. Learn what drew him to Hesburgh Libraries, what he’ll be working on and what excites him about our collections.

Read the Q&A: http://library.nd.edu/.../hesburgh-libraries-welcomes.../

Meet Ruben Celani, our new Postdoctoral Research Associate in Italian Studies and Zahm Dante Collection curatorial fellow. Learn what drew him to Hesburgh Libraries, what he’ll be working on and what excites him about our collections.

Read the Q&A: library.nd.edu/news/hesburgh-libraries-welcomes-postdoctoral-research-associate/

10/31/2025

Happy Halloween!

Celebrate Halloween by gazing closer at vampires. This week’s Rare Books and Special Collections, Hesburgh Library, Notre Dame blog shines a light on Edward Gorey’s design work for the 1977 Broadway revival of a 1920s adaptation of the first play about Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula.

See “A Closer Look at the Gorey-est of Vampires” by Sara Weber, Special Collections digital project specialist.

Read more: https://sites.nd.edu/rbsc/a-closer-look-at-the-gorey-est-of-vampires/

12/16/2024

Welcome to Payton Phillips Quintanilla, who joined Hesburgh Libraries as a Latin American and Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator.

Payton is responsible for stewarding the Libraries' Latin American and Iberian Studies collections, including building strong relationships, teaching and instruction, and fostering use of the collections.

Before joining Notre Dame, Payton worked as a Research Specialist in the Pre-Hispanic Art Provenance Initiative at the Getty Research Institute. She earned a Ph.D. in Hispanic languages and literatures and a master’s degree in Spanish from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a master’s degree in professional writing from the University of Southern California (USC).

10/31/2024

Happy Halloween!

Why do we carve jack-o’-lanterns for Halloween? We can thank Irish immigrants who brought their traditions to the U.S. Discover who Jack is and how he came to haunt the bogs of Ireland in this week’s Rare Books and Special Collections, Hesburgh Library, Notre Dame blog, which highlights an 1836 issue of The Dublin Penny Journal.

See “An Irish Story Produces a Halloween Icon” by Special Collections Digital Project Specialist Sara Weber.

Read more at: sites.nd.edu/rbsc/halloween-2024/.

10/18/2024

Welcome to Matthew Knight, who joined Hesburgh Libraries as an Irish Studies Librarian and Curator.

Matthew is responsible for stewarding the Libraries' Irish Studies collections, including building strong relationships, teaching and instruction, and fostering use of the collections.

Before joining Notre Dame, Matthew served as an Associate Librarian at the University of South Florida. He earned a Ph.D. in Celtic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University.

04/08/2024

03/13/2024

Take a journey through space created by the objects and mapmakers who used them when you visit Rare Books and Special Collections, Hesburgh Library, Notre Dame’s spring exhibit, “Mapping the Middle Ages: Marking Time, Space, and Knowledge,” curated by David T. Gura, Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts.

The exhibit is inspired by one of the themes for the 99th Annual Meeting of The Medieval Academy of America, hosted on campus by The Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame later this spring.

The exhibit is open Monday-Friday, 9:30am-4:30pm, through July 31, at 102 Hesburgh Library, Rare Books & Special Collections.

Learn more: library.nd.edu/event/spring-exhibit-2024

11/10/2023

Follow along on our blog for updates on interesting new acquisitions, exhibits, events, and other things relating to Notre Dame's Rare Books and Special Collections!

https://sites.nd.edu/rbsc/

In this week’s Rare Books and Special Collections, Hesburgh Library, Notre Dame blog, Theology and Philosophy Librarian Alan Krieger highlights a new rare acquisition: a 16th century German-language Catholic Martyrology that was edited by the famed Jesuit scholar-saint, Peter Canisius.

No other holdings of this edition have been found in a North American institution.

Learn more: https://sites.nd.edu/rbsc/a-revised-martyrology-for-16th-century-german-catholics/

11/10/2023

From spell books to historic texts, there's a seemingly endless resource of research on the campus of Notre Dame

09/12/2023

Always grateful for the important work done by Preservation!

08/29/2023