University of Michigan

Supporting the Student Experience

The Audubon Room’s revealing collections

Audubon’s Birds of America highlight the Library treasures displayed in the Audubon Room. Above Audubon’s Great Blue Heron.

Thanks to the generosity of Dr. Bernard J. Sivak (BA ’50),  Jennifer R. Poteat and Stephen S. Clark (BSEME ’74, MBA ’76), students and the public now have better access than ever to some of U-M Library’s greatest holdings.

Through their support, the Library was able to create the new Audubon Room in Fall 2009. Located on the ground floor of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, the space -- with signage that proclaims the “Treasures of the University Library” -- has been equipped with custom display cases and lighting to exhibit the Library’s rare materials safely and share them with the widest possible audience.

The permanent display of John James Audubon’s Birds of America anchors the rotating exhibits. Pages of the five-by-three-foot “double-elephant folio” are turned weekly. The U-M Library traces its roots to the 1838 purchase of this extraordinary, eight-volume collection of Audubon’s hand-colored prints. The Special Collections Library houses the complete set. A major investment at the time, the $970 acquisition signaled the Regents’ intent to build the U-M into a world-class educational institution.

Other rarities displayed periodically in The Audubon Room range from a 400-year-old manuscript in Galileo’s hand extolling the virtues of the telescope to the Doge of Venice, to an unpublished music manuscript by composer Claude Debussy. Earlier this year, an exhibit in the Audubon Room focused on the history of the Bible, showcasing such pieces as a letter from St. Paul to the Ephesians written in Greek on papyrus in the 2nd Century C.E. -- the oldest known copy of this portion of the New Testament – as well as a 1611 copy of the King James Bible.

The Audubon Room is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Audubon’s Birds of America slide show

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