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Accessing our collections
The resources of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library may be used by all scholars and researchers, whether or not they are members of the University of Toronto community. A University of Toronto Library card is not necessary to access the collections, but onsite registration is required.
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120 St. George St.
MapPrevious Exhibitions
2019
May to August
This exhibition will feature the covers or the bindings of books as a reflection of their production and consumption – or, in other words, the material book as witness to its manufacture, use, and survival.
January to April
The Fisher Library's Victorian natural history exhibition provides a unique opportunity to trace the ways in which the medium of print stimulated and sustained the 19th century appetite for natural history.
2018
September to December
This exhibition explores the textual and visual sources at the centre of the stories of monsters recounted in the pages of books and manuscripts. Please note: there will be two free tours held on Thursday Dec. 6: one at noon, the other at 6 pm
May to August
This exhibition takes a look at how the culinary culture of Toronto and surrounding areas was made and shaped by those who participated in or were excluded from the making and using of culinary materials. A feast of rare material is on display!
January to April
This exhibition features photographs – some well known, others more obscure – from the Fisher’s Ginsberg Photography Collection, the largest collection of Ginsberg prints in the world.
2017
September to December
The year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church. This exhibition will examine the importance of the printing press to the Reformation movement.
March to September
We celebrate 150 years of Canada at the Fisher with a wide array of materials from our extensive collection of Canadiana, including books, personal letters, photographs, maps, and prints.
2016
October to February
Drawing on the magnificent Michael Millgate collection donated to the Fisher Library, this exhibition will include Hardy’s first editions, correspondence, manuscripts, photographs and ephemera.
June to September
Highlights will include a selection of rare propaganda posters from the seminal phase of the Cultural Revolution.
January to May
The year 2016 marks four hundred years since the death of William Shakespeare. To honour this milestone, this exhibition will explore how Shakespeare's works shaped ideas of the world beyond England.
2015
September to December
Features books and journals published from the turn of the nineteenth century to the late 1940s with examples ranging from the beautiful bibliophile movement to works by avant-garde artists and writers centered around the literary association Devětsil.
May to September
This exhibition explores how aviation touched the University of Toronto and the city itself in the closing years of the Great War and the 1920s.
January to May
This exhibition will feature items that were produced every century from the 10th to the 21st, including biblical manuscripts, works of Jewish law and liturgy, incunabula, rare Constantinople imprints, and much more.
2014
September to December
This exhibition focuses on the words and images of those who served in the Great War – individuals like Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Erich Maria Remarque; but also on that of writers born decades after 1918.
May to August
We are commemorating the five-hundreth anniversary of the birth of one of the great figures in the history of medicine, Andreas Vesalius. His monumental De humani corporis fabrica is celebrated for its splendid woodcuts that introduced art into anatomy.
January to May
This exhibition draws on the extensive and diverse holdings relating to the War effort in the University of Toronto Archives, the wider University library system, and elsewhere on campus.
2013
September to December
This is the first major exhibition in North America on George Barbier, one of the great French illustrators of the early 20th century.
May to September
Showcases some of the finest examples of the book-making craft in Canada from the country's leading small and fine press publishers.
January to May
Showcases a selection of utopian and dystopian visions ranging from Plato’s Republic to Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, to H. G. Wells War of the Worlds and Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale
2012
October to December
Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the G.G. Awards
October to December
Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the G.G. Awards
April to September
An exhibition of British and Canadian works on horticulture.
2011
October to April
This exhibition highlights a broad selection of original archival material from the Fisher's Derek Walcott Papers, from O Babylon! to Omeros, as well as other aspects of his life and work, including his painting and drawing.
July to September
This exhibition features books donated over a couple of decades by Ralph Stanton, including Portuguese and French literature.
2010
October to January
This exhibition drew upon the Fisher Library's collections of Ucrainica - books, maps, documents, photographs, etc. - to situate Ukraine, to illustrate the diversity of its peoples, and to show the depth of Ukrainian political activity abroad.
May to September
The exhibition highlighted the finest part of the Mu Collection, a major and significant Chinese rare book collection in North America that contains about 2,300 titles and 40,000 volumes, spanning the period from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty.
January to April
The Fisher Library's outstanding collection of prints and book illustrations by printmaker Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) is highlighted in this exhibit, curated by Anne Thackeray.
2009
September to December
This exhibition of books and manuscripts celebrates the accomplishments of Darwin’s rare and inquisitive mind.
May to September
As this exhibition demonstrates, John Calvin's life and legacy can be told through books. Books shaped him and his age, and in the end he and his followers used the medium of print to bring about one of the greatest revolutions the world has ever known.
January to May
This exhibition, the first travelling exhibit of the artist books and book-objects of Werner Pfeiffer, features 39 objects made by Pfeiffer using real books. The intention is to comment on censorship and to provoke reactions from his audience.
2008
September to January
This is an exhibition about the men and women who answered their country's call when war was declared in August 1914. It brings together a range of material that highlight different aspects of this response.
June to August
This exhibition includes poetry, fiction, drama, 'zines, photos, and artwork, celebrating a rich history across the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries.
January to April
This exhibition brings together the concerted practical efforts of two philosophers, John Slater and Michael Walsh.
2007
September to December
Bruce Rogers (1870-1957) designed about five hundred books between 1892 and 1957. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his death, the exhibition presented not only Rogers’ prized ‘Thirty’, but a selection of his other works.
May to August
This celebration of the remarkable achievements of Canadian explorer, trader and cartographer David Thompson (1770-1857) forms part of the North American David Thompson Bicentennials initiative.
January to April
This exhibition is about travellers, and the exhibits are for the most part accounts of their travels. There are few restrictions: the journeys will be to anywhere in the world, at any time from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries.
2006
September to December
This is the first time we have attempted a joint, collaborative exhibition to display in one venue a selection of the treasures throughout the whole university.