Around the World with Tisch Library: Unveiling the “World’s Largest Puzzle”

Sat, Jul 05th 2025 - Mon, Aug 11th 2025

Brought to you by the User Experience and Student Success (UESS) Department in collaboration with the Digital Design Studio (DDS), Special Collections, Tufts Archival Research Center (TARC), the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) Library, and the Lilly Music Library.

Four women smile as they stand behind a very large puzzle on display.
The User Experience and Student Success (UESS) Librarians posed proudly with the complete puzzle.

During the 2024-2025 academic year, Tisch Library embarked on a quest to complete a 60,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, dubbed “The World’s Largest Puzzle,” as a community. We set out the first of sixty 1,000 piece sections of the puzzle at our First Year Open House, Around the World with Tisch Library, in August 2024 and were off to a great start, with groups of first year students enthusiastically completing several sections.

At the top, a partially completed puzzle lays on a wooden table. On the bottom left, Two students work on a puzzle. One sits on top of the white table while the other leans over the other side to look at the pieces. On the bottom right, Six students work on a puzzle while one plays a handheld game. Two are sitting as they sift through pieces while one stands and points at a section of the puzzle on the left side of the table. On the right side, three students look on intently.

Throughout the academic year, groups of students and community members huddled around puzzle stations which librarians carefully replaced with uncompleted puzzles all over Tisch Library. They worked at a quick pace, with puzzles often being completed faster than staff could replace them! 

On the top left, A brown-skinned woman with braids stands behind a fold out table and points to a half completed puzzle on top of it. On the bottom left, a pale-skinned woman with glasses presents a partially completed puzzle on a white table. On the right, the same woman places paper puzzle pieces on a board that reads, "How much of 'the world's largest puzzle' have we completed?"
Student Success Librarians Gabby Womack and Joanna Gray pose with the last two puzzles to be completed. Joanna also updated the puzzle tracker in the Tisch lobby.

By April 2025, all sixty 1,000 piece sections were complete! The only thing left to do was to assemble it into an enormous  8’x29’ image of Earth and celebrate with the Tufts community. Ultimately, over 100 students worked on this massive project with us!

A crowd of students stand and walk through a corridor framed by library tables. Librarians and library staff sit and stand at each table with snacks and swag on display.
The students flocked as librarians and library staff shared snacks from around the world and map-themed swag at "The World's Largest Puzzle" Unveiling Party.

While a few sections of the puzzle will be displayed throughout the library, the rest will be available for assembly again in the 2025-2026 school year at the Front Desk along with the rest of our Board Game and Puzzle Collection! You can also listen to this fantastic playlist that Research Librarian Patrick Quinn, from the Lilly Music Library, curated for the event.

 

Curated by

Gabby Womack, Student Success Librarian and Liaison to MA Leadership.