The American Trust for the British Library’s (ATBL’s) Transatlantic Fellowship Program is an integral part of the ATBL’s mission to promote and support the work of the British Library, one of the world’s greatest research libraries. The ATBL seeks to promote transatlantic understanding through related events, lectures, and discussion in the United States and within the UK, as well as providing incremental financial and in-kind gift support for the British Library’s collection, preservation, and outreach activities.

The ATBL’s Transatlantic Fellowship Program supports research projects that make use of collections in any department in the British Library as well as those housed with a partner institution in the United States. The Program especially targets graduate students, recent PhDs, early career scholars, adjunct faculty, librarians, or curatorial staff who otherwise may not have access to departmental research funds.

The ATBL Transatlantic Fellows represent some of the most progressive and innovative young scholars in the country today. Their work underscores the value of engaging with special collections in conversation, indicating the depth of inquiry possible when a research question is explored across multiple institutional holdings—and in dialogue from one side of the Atlantic to the other.

This session highlights the recent research projects undertaken by our 2022-2023 cohort of ATBL Transatlantic Fellows. The 2022-2023 cohort represents partnerships between the ATBL and the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, and the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Book in the Renaissance at Johns Hopkins University. While the topics researched by fellows are varied, this panel gives attendees an opportunity to not only learn more about each fellow’s specific research area, but also to participate in a discussion about the special collections research process. Fellows’ papers engage with the “happy accidents” of research exploration, the particularities of working with the British Library’s holdings as well as those of the ATBL Transatlantic Fellowship partner organization, and the challenges and unexpected discoveries that support robust research projects in 2022.