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Tuesday 9am - 4am Wednesday 9am - 4pm Thursday 9am - 4pm Friday 9am - 4pm

South Caroliniana Library

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South Caroliniana Library

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Regular hours for viewing exhibits and quiet study are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and the first Saturday of each month. Follow us for updates.

Check hours from our website for holidays & exceptions. Research is by appointment--contact us at sc.edu/libraries/scl. We are CLOSED in order to move back into our newly renovated historic building.

10/19/2026

South Carolina Political Collections supports the study of contemporary government and society, primarily after World War II, by collecting and making available archival materials documenting South Carolina government and political activities at the local, state and national levels. The mission of South Carolina Political Collections is to document the wholistic history of modern politics in South Carolina.

Our curators and archivists inventory material as it comes in and always enjoy finding interesting and fun realia like this Coke bottle from the recently acquired papers of Congresswoman Nancy Mace.

10/15/2026

The South Carolina State Fair begins today! Take a glimpse into what the opening day looked like 100 years ago in 1926.

This program for the fifty-seventh annual State Fair includes schedules for each day's activities and contests, as well as ads for local businesses and sponsors. The various days coincided with certain themes including Children's Day, Veteran's Day, Athletic Day, and Agricultural Day.

Every day at 6pm the price of tickets dropped to 25 cents. What events catch your eye?

10/14/2026

Did you ever wonder how the came to be located where it is today?

A postcard in our collection details a notice of a meeting for the
State Agricultural and Mechanical Society of South Carolina. Needing room for expansion by 1911, the officials who planned the SC State Fair called a meeting for 10 August 1911 to discuss options for relocation from the northern border of Columbia (on Elmwood at Gadsden) to the southern edge of town.

Members of the Society gathered at the Council Chamber of the City of Columbia in order to take "such action as may be necessary to borrow such... money... to make bonds... and to secure the payment... by giving a mortgage... covering the tract of land of said Society, containing one hundred acres... near the southern limits of the City of Columbia."

The image below is from the Library of Congress and details a bird's eye view of the location of the current fairgrounds in the city of Columbia in 1872.

10/12/2026

Interested in learning how to preserve you family papers and photos? The South Caroliniana Library is collaborating with the Richland Library to present Archiving 101: Organizing and Caring for your Family Collection, to teach you how to preserve your family's history with practical guidance on organizing, identifying, storing, and caring for family papers and photographs.

The presentation is on Wednesday, October 14th from 12 - 1:30pm!

10/08/2026

The South Carolina Oral History Collection is a general collection of over 200 interviews conducted by faculty and staff from the 1980s to the present on numerous topics relating to South Carolina communities, education, civil rights, art, music, military service, politics, university history, and more.

Keith Derting was interviewed in 2012 as part of an effort to document some of the history of SCIAA (South Carolina Institute of Archeology and Anthropology) through interviews with current staff members. Keith describes his early life growing up in the mountains of Virginia where his maternal grandparents owned farmland. Keith was known to many at USC as SCIAA's Site File Manager and worked closely with South Carolina's archaeologists and anthropologists. Keith passed away earlier this year, but his voice lives on in this interview, which you can listen to below.

https://bit.ly/4hwoZZU

10/07/2026

We have all different types of materials in our collections from panoramas to comic books and even slides!

Yesterday, Joseph Alewine, Director of Museums for the City of Seneca, was looking through some slides from the Willie Lee Buffington Papers. Buffington was a Methodist minister, textile mill worker, and founder of the Faith Cabin Libraries, a program that provided donated books to African Americans living in rural areas throughout South Carolina and Georgia. One of the last standing Faith Cabin Libraries is in Seneca, SC.

10/06/2026

We are looking forward to our upcoming events in October and November! Be sure to mark your calendars for these free events.

October 22: "Disorder Here Rages": Sickness, Slavery, and Resistance in Revolutionary South Carolina with Dr. Sean Gallagher, History Department in the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. Learn more here: https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/university_libraries/exhibits_events_news/calendar/index.php?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D1423231836

November 10: Our Columbia: The Photographs of Richard Samuel Roberts Roundtable. Tickets can be found at the link below:

https://tinyurl.com/OurColumbiaRSR

10/05/2026

October is American Archives month where we promote the importance of Archives and the work of Archivists. In celebration, Heather Potter, assistant director of the South Caroliniana Library is collaborating with curator Chiara Cox on her new exhibit, BELONGINGS: A Collection of Things Nelson Left Behind at the Richland Library. The exhibit closes at the end of the month.

The exhibit explores an immigrant’s life and the things he treasured. What stories do they tell of their owner and his sense of identity? Heather Potter, Assistant Director of SCL, will be offering a program called Archiving 101: Organizing and Caring for your Family Collection, in conjunction with the exhibit, to teach others how to preserve your family's history with practical guidance on organizing, identifying, storing, and caring for family papers and photographs.

10/01/2026

On Tuesday, University Archivist Elizabeth West hosted a class for a tour of our new exhibit "Open to All: The Reconstruction Era at the University of South Carolina, 1868-1877."

Tom Brown, Professor of History, brought his History 214: The Practice of Public History class to hear about the exhibit, USC during Reconstruction, as well as what a career as an archivist looks like.

Address

910 Sumter Street/University Of
Columbia, SC
29208

Opening Hours

Tuesday	9am - 4am
Wednesday	9am - 4pm
Thursday	9am - 4pm
Friday	9am - 4pm

Telephone

+18037773132

Website

http://sc.edu/libraries/scl, https://forms.office.com/r/gU2vsgk2HU

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