UNLV Libraries Special Collections & Archives

We’re proud to share that this photograph from the Robert Woodruff Photograph Collection has been selected to represent UNLV in the Society of American Archivists’ 250 for the 250th initiative, a national digital repository highlighting materials that tell the story of the United States through its archival record.

This striking 1934 photograph by Robert Woodruff captures the construction of Hoover Dam (then known as Boulder Dam), showing an enormous pipe being moved across Black Canyon while the dam rises below. The image documents one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the 20th century and a development that forever transformed Southern Nevada.

The 250 for the 250th initiative explores the many stories preserved in archives that help us better understand our shared past and its continuing impact on the present. Learn more: https://td52e01bc4f4b6253.starter1ua.preservica.com/portal/en-US

What do great buns and fast-pitch softball have in common? Deborah Morelli.

Today we welcomed the Great Buns Bakery Vice President of Operations to Special Collections & Archives for a tour and oral history interview. We learned that before joining the family business, she pitched fast-pitch softball at William E. Orr Middle School and Basic High School.

Thank you, Deborah, for helping us preserve Southern Nevada's history.

Special Collections & Archives has officially transitioned to summer hours!

The Reading Room is open Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. for researchers, students, faculty, and community visitors.

Planning a visit? in advance. We encourage you to check our hours and prepare in advance. Reference questions can be sent anytime to [email protected].

Learn more: https://www.library.unlv.edu/whats-new-special-collections/2026/2026-05/special-collections-archives-summer-hours.html

You may not know Robert Scott Hooper by name, but his gaze has shaped impressions of Sin City for decades.

For more than 40 years, the prolific photographer documented the city’s entertainers, architecture, spectacle, and visual culture. His images appeared in magazines, newspapers, and playbills, and on billboards, postcards, taxicabs, and other pieces of visual commentary on the city’s cultural landscape.

Now, that legacy has found a permanent home at UNLV. The Robert Scott Hooper Photograph Collection preserves decades of material documenting both the photographer’s career and the evolving identity of Las Vegas.

Read more about this new collection.

The Photographer Behind Las Vegas’ Image The Robert Scott Hooper Photograph Collection at UNLV preserves decades of celebrity portraiture, commercial imagery, and the changing visual culture of Las Vegas.

Please join us for Sunday research hours this May 10 from 12-5 in Special Collections and Archives. If you can't make it in - please check out our new website at https://library.unlv.edu/sca

This is a small portion of books from our Mavis Eggle Books as They Were Bought Collection (MS-01144).

Thanks for going on this 2026 Preservation Week journey with us! We are grateful to our conservator Jay Tanner for making these posts possible!

Sometimes objects suffer losses. Here, our conservator was able to fill the loss with a printed color fill on Japanese repair tissue. This fill was done so that it can be reversed in the future if needed, but helps blend the aesthetics of the cover. -week

It’s preservation week! One of the ways our conservator gets things in the lab for treatment is if we get a digitization request. Here, our conservator is preparing this map for flattening so it can be safely digitized!

Sometimes old repairs are evidence of an objects past. These old repairs often call for difficult decisions. In the case of this book, it has been decided to leave this book as an artifact of its past.