February 2nd - September 30th, 2017 in the Lally Reading room.
The materials assembled in this exhibit introduce visitors to Afrofuturist musicians, authors and speculative artists, and retroactively designated Afrofuturists texts to challenge assumptions about the black experience. That is so say, the often racially coded Digital Divide is much narrower than once thought; there is a thriving Black cyberculture populated with Afropunks, Steamfunkers, Bleeks (black geeks) & Blerds (black nerds), and a very active black science fiction community who not only produce a vast body of speculative fiction but who also create comics, graphic fiction/nonfiction, film and speculative art.

May 12th - December 15th, 2016 in the Lally Reading Room
Grassroots Activism and the American Wilderness: Pioneers in the 20th Century Adirondack Park Conservation Movement” highlights the remarkable careers of John Apperson and Paul Schaefer, two citizen activists who were dedicated to preserving the Adirondacks and New York’s Forest Preserve. This exhibit focuses on their early forays into political activism.

February 1st - April 21st, 2016 in the Lally Reading Room
This exhibit explores the scientific and literary environment in which Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was first conceived and written. Begun 200 years ago in 1816, and revised several times during Shelley’s lifetime, Frankenstein reflects contemporary developments in the natural sciences and in literary views of the natural world.

January 5 - May 31, 2015 in the Lally Reading Room.
This display of artists' books is part of a larger, three-part exhibition, Mot Juste, a celebration of text and language in contemporary visual arts on view during winter term 2015.

September 6th - November 20th, 2014 in the Lally Reading Room
This exhibition features high quality facsimile prints from Abbeville Press and Oppenheimer Inc. of John James Audubon’s Birds of America, as well as prints from the original Havell edition owned by Union College.

September 1st, 2014 - January 20th, 2015 in the Lally Reading Room
Books were critical in maintaining morale among American troops during World War Two, and millions of books were distributed to servicemen all over the world. Giving books to the troops helped keep them occupied – but also served as a symbolic contrast to the book burning of the Nazis.

May 30th - June 1st, 2014 in the Lally Reading room.
A mini three-day exhibit featuring memorabilia such as t-shirts, collectible figurines, frisbees, photos, etc, from the class of 1964.

May 2nd - May 23rd, 2014 in the Lally Reading Room
"It is a bold thing for a human being who lives on the earth for just a few score years at the most to presume upon the Eternal and covet perpetuity for any of his undertakings." - Howard Zahniser

March 31st - April 7th, 2014 in the Lally Reading Room
A glimpse of Mrs. Perkins’ Garden as it looked in full flower. Learn too about the many facets of the woman known on campus as “The Duchess”.

January 21st - March 21st, 2014 in the Lally Reading Room
This exhibit features works hand selected by Schaffer's previous head of the Special Collections department, Ellen Fladger, who retired in January of 2014.

October 8th - December 17th, 2013 in the Lally Reading Room
This exhibit features rare editions from the Schaffer Library collections of two centuries of literary works from England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States, including Union’s first editions of “Pride and Prejudice” and Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”

September 1st - December 31st, 2013 in the Lally Reading Room
This exhibit showcases traditions and innovations that combine Humanities and Engineering perspectives in Union’s curriculum, student and faculty research, campus structures, and co-curricular and student activities.

August 1st - September 31st, 2013 in the Lally Reading Room
This exhibit exhibit honors John Bigelow (Union College Class of 1835). Part of a larger project at Union College celebrating the accomplishments one of its most distinguished alumni, the exhibit took its name in tribute – but also in answer – to Margaret Clapp’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Bigelow, Forgotten First Citizen (1947).

Digital Exhibit: April 15, 2013
This website is an historic guide to Union College as it stood at the turn of the twentieth century. It is based upon information and stories gleaned from the recent donation to the College of a treasure trove of over 700 letters written between 1895 and 1904 by Anne Dunbar Potts Perkins, beloved campus resident, creator of Mrs. Perkins’ Garden, and wife of Maurice Perkins (Union College Professor of Chemistry, 1865-1901).

January 21st - May, 2013 in the Lally Reading Room
This exhibition showcases the wide variety of material held in Schaffer Library's Special Collections. It includes samples of the treasures collected throughout the many decades of Union's history - among them, plates from John James Audubon's Birds of North America , purchased by the College from the artist himself in 1814 - as well as rare works and historic material acquired as recently as December 2012.

October 19th - February 11th, 2013 in the Lally Reading Room
Schaffer Library Gallery exhibits North-African Postcards depicting Jewish women, children, & families dating from the early twentieth century.

May 30, 2011 in the Lally Reading Room
Jewish Women in Image and Word.

March 14th - April 15th, 2011 in the Lally Reading Room
Series II of the Graphic Novel series, LOOK!

February 9th - March 31st, 2010 in the Lally Reading room.
The exhibit featured first editions of Dickens’ fiction and non-fiction writings on the United States as well as archival materials from the papers of John Bigelow (Union College Class of 1835), who became personally acquainted with Dickens during his “public readings” tour of the U.S. in 1867/68.

July 2nd - July 17th, 2009 in the Lally Reading Room
This new exhibit series is an investigation into the distinctive ways in which graphic novelists/artists construct a narrative. The first installment focuses on the use of color as a storytelling device and showcases sample images from graphic novels in Schaffer Library’s collections.

April 1st - May 31st, 2009 in the Lally Reading room.
This exhibit celebrated the conjunction of three events: the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth in 1809, the 150th anniversary of the first publication of his On the Origin of Species in 1859, and the gift to Union College of a first and sixth edition of On the Origin of Species as well as the first volume of Darwin’s The Descent of Man (1871), all donated to the College by Aaron J. Feingold, Union College Class of 1972.

April 7th - May 18, 2008 in the Lally Reading Room
Display presented in conjunction with LGBT: A Union Perspective, Wikoff Student Gallery, Nott Memorial. This exhibit features print, audio, video, and online resources related to lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual issues, on the Union College campus and beyond.

On display from 2008 - 2010
According to The Encyclopedia of Union College History, Union College’s first vegetable garden may have been that of Professor Thomas McAuley (1805-1822). While at Union, McAuley lived at the north end of North College in what is now Bronner House, and the later, undated photograph seen here shows a view of where the garden may have originally stood. Isaac Jackson (Professor, 1831-1877) moved the plot in the early 1830s to make space for his flower and shrub garden, though his personal diaries provide evidence of continued vegetable plantings.