Events and Engagement

EXHIBIT | PROMISING FUTURE, COMPLEX PAST: Artificial Intelligence and the Legacy of Physiognomy

January 6, 2025 – February 15, 2025
Health Sciences Library

Join us for a fascinating journey into the past, present, and future of AI and its impact on society provided by this National Library of Medicine traveling exhibit. Stay tuned for announcements about a special event related to the exhibit!

The exhibit presents the history of physiognomy – assessing one’s character or personality based on physical attributes – and explores its influence on the contemporary artificial intelligence and computer science technologies that gather and interpret bodily data. Now debunked as pseudoscience, physiognomy enjoyed periods of legitimacy and popularity over a history spanning millennia, influencing the fields of medicine, biology, philosophy, anthropology, psychiatry and criminology.

EXHIBIT | CELEBRATING THE ROCKET, Seattle’s music magazine

January 6, 2025 – February 15, 2025
Allen Library

Explore 20 years of music and culture as told through the pages of “The Rocket,” the influential Seattle publication that covered music venues and regional bands during the 1980s and 1990s.
More information about The Rocket exhibit.

EVENT | DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP SERIES AT TATEUCHI EAST ASIA LIBRARY

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26TH, 2025 from 3:30pm to 5pm
Gowen Hall, Seminar Room

Dr. Xu’s presentation, Unravel the Complexities of Children’s Moral Development: Human-Machine Analysis of Arthur Wolf’s Fieldnotes Collected in Taiwan 1958-1960, is based on her book that analyzed a rare archive of fieldnotes, including interviews, natural observations, and psychological tests. Her scholarship seeks to answer this central question: How do we become moral persons?
More information about Jing Xu and this presentation.

NEW HOURS | SENSORY-FRIENDLY STUDY SPACE

Winter Quarter – open Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm.
UW Tacoma Library, Room TLB 115

Your feedback has led to increased hours and new items. There’s now a second beanbag, weighted neck wraps, worry stones, coloring books and materials, and some (quiet) snacks for visitors. Though created with our neurodivergent community in mind, everyone is welcome to use the space to chill out, relax, and escape the sensory overload that can be school and life!
Learn more about the Sensory-Friendly UWT Library Space.

EVENT | DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP SERIES AT TATEUCHI EAST ASIA LIBRARY

THURSDAY, MARCH 6TH, 2025 from 3:30pm to 5pm
Gowen Hall, Seminar Room

Heekyoung Cho will discuss the process of developing an online, searchable database of English translations of Korean literature.
Details about this presentation.

EXHIBIT | ZEITGEIST! Seattle in the ’20s

September 25, 2024 – March 20, 2025
Special Collections Reading Room, Allen Library

Fall 2024 UW Libraries Special Collections will be exploring the zeitgeist of Seattle in the ’20s–100 years ago and today! Join us in exploring popular culture and current events of Seattle in the 2020s and 1920s.
More information about Zeitgeist.

EXHIBIT | Exploring East Asia’s Cultural Heritage Through Illustrated Works

September 19, 2024 – March 31, 2025

Tateuchi East Asia Library Reading Room, 322 Gowen Hall

This exhibit brings together a rich array of illustrated materials from China, Japan and Korea, highlighting the cultural, technological, and artistic achievements of each region.
More information about the exhibit.

EVENT | DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP SERIES AT TATEUCHI EAST ASIA LIBRARY

MONDAY, APRIL 14TH, 2025 from 3:30pm to 5pm
Gowen Hall, Seminar Room

Statistics, Machine Learning, and Classical Japanese Orthography
Paul S. Atkins, Professor, Department of Asian Languages and Literature
Herman Chau, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Mathematics
Michael R. Zeng, Doctoral Student, Department of Mathematics

Professor Paul Atkins and two of his lab’s students will discuss how they used statistical analysis of hiragana usage to determine whether a set of controversial medieval Japanese manuscripts was indeed inscribed by their putative scribe.

More information about this presentation.

EXHIBIT | THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS

September 25, 2024 – September 25, 2025
Special Collections Lobby, Allen Library
Enjoy the changing seasons with Special Collections through our annual lobby exhibit, The Language of Flowers. Each quarter will feature new material related to our botanical collections, local plants, and more. Launching September 2024 for the year. Details about Language of Flowers.