UT Treasures at LBJ

Paul Cret's campus master plan. Alexander Architectural Archives.
Paul Cret’s campus master plan. Alexander Architectural Archives.

Great universities have great libraries, and great libraries have great collections, so it follows that great universities have great collections. In the case of The University of Texas at Austin, those collections extend far beyond the walls of the Libraries, a fact made plain by the publication of the significant tome “The Collections” in 2015 by the UT Press, and more recently by the opening of a new exhibition at the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum.

Deep in the Vaults of Texas” brings together rarely presented artifacts from archives, museums and repositories across the university representing a cross-section of areas of scholarship at UT in a modest but wide-ranging exhibit on the entry level of the presidential library. Collections as disparate as the Blanton Museum of Art and the Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sport commingle in a fascinating juxtaposition that provides the public with a sampling of what lies hidden on shelves and in drawers mostly behind closed doors — though largely accessible — in collections that serve a distinct research and learning purpose for the UT community.

letter from F.Scott Fitzgerald to Blanche Knopf in which he lists all the tenses of a made-up verb "to cocktail." Harry Ransom Center.
 Letter from F.Scott Fitzgerald to Blanche Knopf in which he lists all the tenses of a made-up verb “to cocktail.” Harry Ransom Center. Photo by Jay Godwin.

Featured highlights of the exhibit include journalist/writer Dominick Dunne’s notes from O. J. Simpson trial (Briscoe Center for American History), Tom Landry’s iconic fedora (Stark Center) and painter Peter Dean’s 1982 interpretation of the Oswald assassination, “Dallas Chaos II” (Blanton Museum) and crayon drawings by Caroline and John Kennedy, Jr. (LBJ Presidential Library). “Deep in the Vaults” also includes samples from our own holdings in the Fine Arts Library (A Brief History of the Ukulele, housed within an old soprano ukulele

A Brief History of the Ukulele. Fine Arts Library. Photo by Jay Godwin.
A Brief History of the Ukulele. Fine Arts Library. Photo by Jay Godwin.

(“A Brief History of the Ukulele,” housed within an old soprano ukulele), the Alexander Architectural Archives (Paul Cret’s masterful architectural drawing of UT’s Tower clock) and the Benson Latin American Collection (Santa Anna’s memoirs from exile, which partners nicely with the Briscoe’s Secret Treaty of Velasco).

Visitors can view these and other items from the aforementioned collections as well as the Harry Ransom Center, the John L. Warfield Center for African & African American Studies, the Tarlton Law Library and th eTexas Archeological Research Laboratory.

The exhibit runs through September 6 and is included with admission to the LBJ.

See more images from “Deep in the Vaults” on the LBJ’s Flickr page

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