Highlights from past Library Displays
January 2025
Looking for a good book to start the New Year? Our Ground Floor display featured a selection of books from our Leisure Collection (Library Cafe), Third Floor
Fiction section and our Junior Fiction/Young Adult Collection.
The Library commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day by exploring a selection of books reflecting on the Holocaust. The day is an annual global day of observance held in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex, and the 2025 theme is 'For a Better Future'.
We also celebrated neurodiversity with a display curated by students from UR's Autism Association.
September 2024
The Library featured books from the AVaTAR (the Archive of Victorian Translations from Asia and their Readerships) project. In the 19th Century, a vast quantity of literature from Asian languages was translated into English. Popular editions were created to make classic texts like the Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita and the Qur’an accessible to the general public. AVaTAR is a collection of these books put together by Alexander Bubb, Associate Professor in English at Roehampton. His research is detailed in his book Asian Classics on the Victorian Bookshelf: Flights of Translation, published by Oxford University Press (and available as an eBook via the Library).
January 2024
In the Library Foyer we celebrated the work of the late Benjamin Zephaniah, British Poet, actor, musician and professor of poetry. Zephaniah was awarded Honorary Doctor in Letters by University of Roehampton in 2019.
A display was curated by First Year History students on the Fragility of Freedom to mark Holocaust Memorial Day (27th January).
November/December 2023
On the First 
Floor (at the top of the stairwell) we marked UK Disability History Month. 2023's theme was Disability, Childhood and Youth, Our Featured Collection on Disability & Neurodivergence has more inspiration on the theme.
To celebrate the launch of Southlands College's London Life project, the Library Foyer featured a selection of our London themed books. The project focused on a different aspect of London's rich cultural heritage each month, and one of the themes was London museums.
As part of the project we featured our collection of exhibition catalogues from a wide range of London museums, including the British Museum, Imperial War Museum, Museum of London, Wellcome Collection, V&A and many more. Have a look at our Featured Collection Resource List or pop into the library to browse the collection.
October 2023
October is Black Hi
story Month, and this year's theme, Saluting our Sisters, paid homage to black women who had contributions ignored, ideas appropriated and voices silenced. The Library's display celebrated the work of black women writers. For more inspiration on the theme, our Black Lives Matter Resource Lists are full of suggested Fiction and Non-Fiction titles from the library's collections.
July 2023
5 July 2023 marked 75 years of the National Health Service, the first health system to be available to all, free at the point of delivery. Our display gave an insight into the training and learning of UR nurses (items kindly on loan from the Roehampton nursing department)
June 2023
In 
June we celebrated Pride Month with a themed display. For more inspiration have a look at our LGBTQ+ Resource Lists which promote resources across a variety of academic disciplines from our print and online collections.
On the First Floor we featured books liked to the contributions and sacrifices of the Caribbean community as part of Windrush 75 (the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush in Britain).
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The Library foyer hosted the second exhibition of material from the Wandsworth Borough Collection. In a partnership between Wandsworth Council and the University of Roehampton, the material was selected and researched by 2nd year Applied Humanities students under the guidance of Dustin Frazier Wood, Senior Lecturer at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and our archivist Kornelia Cepok. The exhibition engaged with processes for the creation of imagery.
May 2023
On the First Floor we showcased items from the Whitelands and Froebel College Archives from previous coronations to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III.
April 2023
We celebrated Hedgehog Awareness Week (30th April-6th May) with some hedgehog themed books from our collections!
Wetlands Trust mural - In April we were delighted to host an interactive @WWTLondon mural in the library. The mural was created to help people learn more about the role of wetlands in fighting the climate and nature crises.
March 2023
Our main display this
month celebrated Women's History Month in March and International Women's Day on 9th March. The theme for 2023 was Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories, recognising women, past and present, who have been active in all forms of media and storytelling including print, radio, TV, stage, screen, blogs, podcasts and more.
We curated an online Resource List to accompany the display and highlight our e-book collections, as well as a Snapshot from the Archives highlighting some notable women who feature in our Special Collections.
February 2023
The Library marked LGBT+ History Week 2023 with a display and Resource List to highlight our collections. This year's theme was #BehindTheLens, which celebrates LGBT+ peoples’ contribution to cinema and film from behind the lens. Directors, cinematographers, screen writers, producers, animators, costume designers, special effects, make up artists, lighting directors, musicians, choreographers and beyond.
January/February 2023
A month of picture books! The Library marked Lunar New Year with a selection of picture books for the Year of the Rabbit. For more illustrated picture book inspiration, we showcased the Library's wonderful collection of Alice in Wonderland books in the lobby.
