Category Archives: Events

Event: Galveston County History Round-Up 11/7

Mark your calendars for the second annual Galveston County History Round-Up happening next Saturday, November 7th at the Texas City Museum! Community members are invited to bring photographs, letters, documents, and other meaningful items for this in-person digitization event. Collection experts will give you tips on how to care for your keepsakes and make sure you walk away with a flash drive of your digitized items. Bring family members along and with your cell phone, and create a short, interactive family oral history interview! Don’t forget to sign up for our raffle to win some goodies to help you protect your family keepsakes!

This event is FREE, but registration is required. Register here:

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/g/Xsw84Us3qA

Event: “Traces of Encounter: The Rothko Chapel and Its Visitors” Thursday 11/19 @ 11:00

 Join the Rothko Chapel for a scholarly presentation exploring visitor experience from an international perspective, followed by a panel discussion and an opportunity to tour the new Rothko Chapel Archives, whose construction was completed one year ago.

About the Event: What do visitors bring to the Rothko Chapel and what do they leave behind? This program brings together two international scholars whose research approaches that question from complementary directions: one through the Chapel’s own archival record of visitor response, the other through a comparative theory of how contemplative artworks invite viewers into relation. The event opens with presentations by Beatrice Fellegara (Milan) and Thomas Bieker (Eichstätt), followed by a moderated panel discussion led by Rothko Chapel Director of Research & Education, Carolyn King, and an audience Q&A. Guests are then invited to an open visitation of the Rothko Chapel Archives, where materials related to the presenters’ research will be available for viewing, and a closing reception. Together, these two projects illuminate the Chapel not simply as a site to be seen, but as a place that is continually practiced, felt, and co-created by those who enter it, collectively forming a living archive of encounter spanning more than five decades.

About the Presenters:

 Beatrice Fellegara is a curator and art critic from Milan affiliated with ICONE UniSR. She is the first scholar to study the Rothko Chapel’s guest books, more than fifty years of visitor reflections, using them to explore how people around the world experience the Chapel. This landmark research will be published in an upcoming dedicated monograph.

Thomas Bieker is a doctoral researcher at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt in Germany. His work asks why certain artworks, from Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings to the Rothko Chapel to James Turrell’s light installations, invite quiet contemplation and leave visitors feeling changed.

 

Featuring: scholars Beatrice Fellegara & Thomas Bieker, Moderated by Carolyn King (Director of Research & Education)

Cost: Pay What You Can $0-25 

Type: In-person with chair seating

Registration Links: For in-person attendance, register here.

                                  For remote option, please register here.

Date: Thursday, November 19, 2026 at 11:00 AM

Location: Rothko Chapel Administrative & Archives Building, 1410B Sul Ross

Event: End of Year Party and Potluck hosted by Prairie View A&M SCAD 12/5 @ Noon

AHA! members are invited to join us for our End-of-Year Potluck + Tour on Saturday, December 5th at noon, hosted this year by Prairie View A&M Special Collections & Archives Department (SCAD)! We are super excited to collaborate with an institution in the greater northwest quadrant of our service area, which has historically been underserved by AHA! programming. If you know a colleague in the area, please send this message their way!

RSVP here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FOwQOy1sIctiqOU01x1CKCCm4RNsfZV-vlAgu_AwAPE/edit?usp=sharing.

We hope to see you there!

Date: Saturday, December 5, 2026
Time: 12 PM
Address: John B. Coleman Library, Prairie View A&M University (30 L.W. Minor St, Prairie View, TX 77446)
Parking Information: All vehicles parked on the campus must display a valid PVAMU parking permit. Once visitors enter the campus, please stop at the Thomas E. Gray Information Center, located on the right side after the Prairie View A&M University entrance. All visitors must pay to obtain a visitor pass. The pass is only valid for one day. Parking is limited to designated parking areas (i.e. general lots or metered parking spaces are valid only for dates written on the passes, but shall not exceed four weeks or thirty days).

HPL & TAMI: “Linking Queer Houston History Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon” 10/10 @ 11 am

Presented by Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI), Art + Feminism, and the Houston Public Library, the Linking Queer Houston History Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon takes place on Saturday, October 10, from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM CDT in the Meeting Room at the Freed-Montrose Neighborhood Library. Celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month, this free, hands-on event (for ages 18+) invites participants of all experience levels to learn how to create and update Wikipedia entries highlighting Houston’s queer history using archival media from TAMI’s KPRC-TV Collection—part of the CLIR and Mellon Foundation–funded Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives: Amplifying Unheard Voices project. Training, reference materials, and refreshments are provided, but attendees must register via Houston Public Library in advance and bring their own laptop, charger, and a pre-created Wikipedia account.

Archives Month 2026: Spooky Stories from the Stacks 10/30 at 12 PM

Join us for the second iteration of Spooky Stories from the Stacks, a virtual roundtable where archivists share our encounters with haunting histories, creepy collections, mysterious materials, eerie repositories, and anything else that’s sent a shiver down our spines while working in the stacks! We’re excited to be joined by special guest Megan Rosenbloom, author of Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin, for a Q&A about her research on anthropodermic bibliopegy. We also invite YOU to submit your own spooky story through our submission form — you can share it yourself during the event, or ask one of our AHA! hosts share it on your behalf. We hope you’ll join us to close out Archives Month 2026 and welcome Halloween!

Submit your story here: https://forms.gle/nLRU9523YbsXBrfYA

Add the event to your calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/event?eid=NmprcjM1a2Iwamt1NDhyanU0MGYwNXMwb28gOGQxMzNkNmViN2MyNDNlNjk5ZjA4MjE0MjY3YTgzN2NkZDg3ZmFmYjQyOWE4OGMxMmQ2MDE1MGU0NzhmMzhkOUBn

Event: HHRC- Rare Books Room Showcase 11/21 @ 2pm

Explore rare books, historic children’s literature, and unique archival materials from HPL’s Houston History Research Center’s collections. This interactive showcase invites visitors of all ages to get an up-close look at special items, discover the stories behind them, and learn how library and archival collections are preserved and made available for research.

For more information visit https://calendar.houstonlibrary.org/event/17374394

Event: HHRC- Voices from the Texas Gulf 11/21 @ 12pm

The Houston History Research Center invites you to join us as we welcome Five Rivers Council Representative and scholar, Absolem Yetzirah! In honor of National Native American Heritage Month, Absolem Yetzirah will discuss the cultural landscape surrounding the contemporary Karankawa people and explore how historical ancestry narratives shape the present context on American history.

For more information visit https://calendar.houstonlibrary.org/event/17365074

Event: HHRC Sanborn Maps Workshop 10/1 @4:30

Discover how Sanborn maps reveal the history of Houston’s buildings and neighborhoods while learning to confidently read and interpret these unique resources with guidance from Houston History Research Center’s Architecture Archivist. Whether you’re researching a historic property or exploring the city’s past, this workshop will equip you with practical tools to get started.

For More Information visit https://calendar.houstonlibrary.org/event/17219708

Archives Month 2026: Archives on Tap at St. Arnold’s Brewery 10/22 @ 6:30 PM

Join us at Saint Arnold Brewing Company — the oldest craft brewery in the state of Texas — to soak up the remnants of Oktoberfest and Archives Month together! We are thrilled to be joined by Travis Williams, Archivist & Special Collections Librarian at St. Edward’s University, who will be speaking about the Texas Craft Brewing Collections, which aim to capture the history and culture of Texas’s craft brewing scene by documenting over 200 breweries across the state. Join us in the beer garden to learn about this fascinating collection while enjoying a brew or a bite with folks who share a passion for both history and hops! And for our AHA! members — your first one’s on us. Cheers!