The goal of the library exhibition program is to provide a space for student work and campus research to be shared with the community and that our exhibition program provides an opportunity to present stories, voices, and work that otherwise may not be able to be shared.
  • A museum display case containing multiple stacks of small, historic printed pamphlets and books arranged upright and flat. An open book is positioned at the center. Museum signage in the background reads “You are on Level 4,” with informational panels and gallery walls behind the case.
  • A museum display containing several open books with handwritten and printed text. A small portrait image and placards are positioned at the front of the case, with additional books arranged behind.
  • A museum case displaying several open and closed historical books. One large book is open on a stand at the center, with smaller books open and closed around it. An informational placard is placed below the central book.
  • A close-up of an open historical newspaper displayed in a museum case. The masthead reads “Deseret News,” and the pages are densely printed with narrow columns of text. Additional books and placards are visible beneath the open newspaper.
  • A museum exhibit showing multiple open historical books displayed on angled stands. The pages contain dense text and illustrations. A small portrait image and descriptive placards are positioned near the books.
  • A museum display showing several nineteenth‑century primers and instructional books arranged upright and flat. Titles include variations of “Primer,” with worn covers in brown, green, and tan tones. Informational labels describing each book are placed in front of the items.
  • A display case featuring early printed books and documents. Two upright books with decorative covers stand on the left, an open book rests on a stand to the right, and handwritten notes and printed labels are displayed between them.
  • A display case showing an open book centered on a stand, with two smaller books placed in front. A portrait image and informational placards accompany the books inside the case.
  • A museum exhibit showing a book titled “English Hopi Vocabulary Written in the Deseret Alphabet” standing upright. In front of it are small handwritten notebooks and a printed portrait image displayed inside the case.
  • A display case featuring instructional manuals and textbooks related to phonography and shorthand. The books have worn covers in brown and beige tones and are arranged flat in rows with informational labels.
  • A museum case displaying media related to the film “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” including cassette tapes, printed cards, pamphlets, and labels arranged neatly on a dark display surface.
  • A framed artwork displayed in a museum case featuring a stylized illustration of a bearded figure and symbolic geometric elements. Beneath the artwork are smaller printed items and pamphlets arranged side by side.

Designing Deseret

Level 4

Step into the world of nineteenth-century Utah, where language, typography, identity, and imagination converged in one of the most ambitious printing experiments in American history: the Deseret Alphabet. Designing Deseret brings together scholars, printers, artists, and collectors to explore the alphabet’s origins, its evolving cultural role, and its enduring legacy in the history of the book.
Designing Deseret is an exhibition drawn from the Special Collections materials, created to promote and complement a two-day symposium dedicated to the DeseretAlphabet, to take place in early June.
This exhibition will encourage audiences to consider the alphabet not only as a linguistic system but as a material and visual culture shaped by faith, technology, and community-building. Serving as both an introduction to and an extension of the symposium, the exhibition will offer scholars, students, and the public a space to encounter the Deseret Alphabet through its surviving artifacts and printed forms.

The exhibition is FREE and open to the public.

Persistent Memory: Medievalism and the Art of the Book

Level 4, Reading Room

The European Middle Ages have been of enduring interest to artists throughout time; from the Gothic Revival of the 17th century, to the Pre-Raphaelites of the 19th century, to the mid-century medieval of the 1950s-1970s, we have seen this period captivate artists, musicians, authors, comedians, and more.

The fascination with the medieval, and more specifically, the medieval book, is certainly present in the artists’ books of the J. Willard Marriott Library Rare Books Collection. Here you will see the persisting nature of medieval aesthetics, techniques, conventions, and figures explored through a selection of artists’ books and fine press works that are situated alongside medieval facsimiles and manuscript fragments to demonstrate the connections across time.

Medieval books have a steadfast hold in our cultural memory. Frequently, medieval influences are combined with contemporary interests and book-making technologies, resulting in works that blur historical boundaries and present new and old visual languages in concert. When looking at these works you may wonder: Where are the significant medieval influences—in the structure, text, or visual elements? Or, How does the artist ask you to interact with the past and present?  

We Live Amid And As Archives

Level 2

We Live Amid and As Archives is a collaborative project created by students in WRTG 4950:Archives Beyond the West, taught by PhD Candidate Keolanani Kinghorn, in conjunction with the workshop series facilitated by Romeo García.

In this course, students engage the archive as both a site of inquiry and relation, shaping final projects around spaces, places, and communities meaningful to them. Drawing loosely from Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, this work invites participants to locate themselves within lived environments and trace cultural practices, memories, relationships, and material exchanges as forms of lived archival practice.

Grounded in the work of Jacqueline Jones Royster and Gesa E. Kirsch, Saidiya Hartman, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, students approach archives not as static repositories but as dynamic, embodied, and ethical practices shaped by storytelling, refusal, and relational accountability. This work culminates in public-facing projects, including rhetorical analyses of local murals and community-based visual archives across Salt Lake City.

This work was enriched through collaboration with community partners and knowledge-keepers. We are deeply honored to have worked with Darren Parry, an Elder of the Shoshone Nation, whose presence and insights grounded student learning in Indigenous perspectives on land, history, and relational responsibility. Students also worked closely with Rachel A. Ernst at the J. Willard Marriott Library, whose guidance supported critical engagement with archival materials, and with Allison Allred, whose support in printing and exhibition logistics made this public installation possible.

Image of Research: Capturing the Spark of Discovery

Level 1

They say an image is worth a thousand words. Whether the research explores the use of fungi in biomedical materials, neurorobotics to support stroke patients, the shaping of domestic violence policy or the legacy of Black cowboys in the American West, the Image of Research provides a platform to express scholarship in imaginative and unexpected ways, thereby expanding its reach.  

The 20 images in this exhibition were selected by a jury representing a wide variety of units on campus. First, second, and third place awards were given to the faculty/ post-doc group as well as the graduate student group. Attendees of the celebration held on March 31 voted for the People’s Choice award.