Special Projects

African American Studies: 50 Years at the University of Florida provides an impactful overview of African American Studies; documents the research of Black faculty at UF; examines how African American Studies encourages community engagement and service; contains testimonies from community elders; and includes reflections by and about prominent UF alumni such as Judge Stephan Mickle…

The Agriculture in the Sunshine State booklet includes images from the Jerry Chichone Jr. Citrus Label Collection and other Florida agriculture images.

The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature, part of the Special and Area Studies collection in Smathers Library at the University of Florida holds over 120,000 volumes published in Great Britain and the United States from the mid-1600s to the current moment. In addition to containing many rare and colorful books, it serves as an…

Often heralded as the “gateway to the world,” the Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, merging water, commerce, and culture. Yet its surrounding area, the Panama Canal Zone, was a world unto itself. The Zone was controlled by the United States from 1903 to 1979, with many Canal Zone residents viewing themselves as…

Cyberbullying and Digital Safety: Applying Global Research to Youth in India builds capacity for cyberbullying research and prevention in India. The book synthesizes global scientific knowledge on cyberbullying risk and prevention and digital safety more broadly, with a specific focus on the extent to which that research has been applied to India.

Dear Dordo presents a collection of 175 letters that were exchanged between prolific author John D. MacDonald and his wife Dorothy (known as “Dordo”) between May 1943 and June 1945. These letters provide a fascinating and honest account of life during World War II from a husband in the U.S. Army and a wife on…

Finding Cuba-related images in Cuban postage stamps is to be expected and comes as no surprise to anyone. Much less known and studied is the fact that, from time to time, Cuba somehow shows up in foreign postage stamps as well as in so-called “cinderellas” (resembling stamps, but not issued for postal purposes).

This is a history of the fight for rights and citizenship undertaken by Black people in Chicago in that city’s first century, from the 1830s to 1930s.

From fine china to tobacco jars to baseball memorabilia, this amazing collection represents a wide range of Cuban-themed ceramics…

Launched in 2021 by Frédérick Madore, the Islam Burkina Faso Collection is an open access digital database containing over 2,600 archival documents, newspaper articles, Islamic publications of various forms, and photographs on Islam and Muslims in Burkina Faso. The site also indexes over 215 bibliographical references of books, book chapters, journal articles, dissertations, theses, and reports on the topic.
In addition to the metadata attribution, optical character…

Madagascar from A to Z is a children’s alphabet book written in English and translated into Malagasy.

Recounted in the form of a journal, this story shows how Americans in the 1940s understood and treated polio.

Curated by Jim Liversidge, the Martin Harris Collection Exhibition centers around Martin Harris’s iconic photography and portraiture from the mid-20th century. Martin Harris was a photographer from the 1930s through the late 1960s who witnessed the history and culture of the mid-20th century.

Collection highlights, public scholarship, and more

The ten millionth digital page at the University of Florida Digital Collections comes from a very rare pamphlet, Martí y Las Discriminaciones Raciales (Martí and Racial Discrimination), produced in 1953 to celebrate José Martí’s (1853-1895) racial tolerance and as part of a wider celebration of Cuba’s national hero, 100 years after his birth. This publication…

This collection includes portraits and biographies for each university president, beginning with President W. Kent Fuchs and ending with President Andrew Sledd. It was a gift from the George A. Smathers Libraries to commemorate the inauguration of President W. Kent Fuchs.

The Undergraduate Guide to the George A. Smathers Libraries was written by undergraduate students to give fellow undergrads a better understanding of the George A. Smathers Libraries.

Curated by Suzan Alteri and John Ingram, digitized by Rebecca McNulty

When Phantasie Takes Flight: The Art & Imagination of Arthur Rackham is the digital reworking of the exhibit catalog for the original physical exhibit.