BEAR IN MIND
The Many Lives of a Library Exhibit
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Exhibits at The Bancroft Library highlight important and interesting collections, inform and entertain a wide spectrum of visitors, encourage scholarly research, stimulate new acquisitions, and contribute to the growth and development of the library and its programs. A recent exhibit, “Bear in Mind: The California Grizzly at The Bancroft Library,” achieved these goals in a variety of ways. |
Oski at The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, for the Opening reception of "Bear in Mind...," December 12, 2002. |
This exhibit allowed the co-curators, Susan Snyder and Bill Brown, to highlight a wide spectrum of materials, including paintings, photographs, lithographs, maps, and other visual materials. Other items on display included handwritten transcriptions of interviews with early California settlers and pioneers, documents from Berkeley biologists, and a wide range of advertising and commercial publications. Loans from Cal’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology provided a California grizzly bear skull and claw, and California Indian artifacts. A wealth of rare books, journals, musical scores, posters, and other materials enhanced the visual and textual documentation of the bear’s extinction. Consideration of the California Grizzly Bear as the symbol of the State of California and as mascot for the University of California, Berkeley provided the opportunity to explore the “re-creation” of this animal in our contemporary culture.
In the course of creating the exhibit, Bancroft staff located and acquired rare and unique historical documents central to the exhibit’s theme. Most notably, Bancroft acquired the original manuscript for Theodore Hittel’s The Adventures of James Capen Adams: Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter, of California, published in 1860. The 600+ pages, Hittel’s written record of interviews with Adams, a noted hunter, trapper, and showman, provide a detailed glimpse into the life and times of one of California’s legendary figures.
"Bear Brand Strawberries, A Lusk & Co.," a fruit can label from the Schmidt Lithographic Company Records. |
The Friends of The Bancroft Library hosted an overflow crowd at the opening reception on December 12, 2002. More than two hundred guests dined on many favorite foods of the California Grizzly Bear as Director Charles B. Faulhaber offered welcoming remarks. Exhibit co-curators Susan Snyder and Bill Brown discussed the process of identifying, selecting, and displaying the more than one hundred items on view.
"Bear in Mind..." Web site at: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/bearinmind/ |
Publicity efforts for the exhibit began with the distribution of a two university press releases to Bay Area media outlets, including newspapers, radio and television stations, and UC Berkeley publications. One press release promoted the exhibit while the other highlighted a companion effort, the creation of “Bears of Berkeley” a map that identifies some twenty-seven grizzly bear statues and artforms in and around the Cal Campus. With the support of the University Relations Office a digital slide show of selected images and the text of the two press releases appeared on the university’s home page. In subsequent days area newspapers contacted The Bancroft Library and articles appeared in such papers as the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune and Marin and Contra Costa County newspapers.
"Go Bears," this banner, prepared by the Cal Student Pep Club, hung from the Bancroft Library, on of many factors that helped the Cal football team defeat Stanford in "The Big Game." Bancroft staff member and Cal grad Mary Elings (Class of 1989) was particularly proud to have this banner hanging below her office window. |
San Francisco radio station KQED FM, also intrigued by the unusual exhibit and the array of materials gathered for display, broadcast an interview with exhibit curators. UC publications also publicized and promoted the exhibit. The Berkeleyan (August 21, 2002) printed a lengthy, illustrated article and Bene Legere (Fall, 2002, No. 61), the University Library’s newsletter published a two-page color story. California Monthly, the journal of the UC Berkeley Alumni Association, published a cover story on the exhibit in the November, 2002 issue. “Bear in Mind” also proved to be an attractive option for visitors and guests during Homecoming Weekend, October 18-19, 2002. Some 550+ individuals visited Bancroft to view the exhibit and collect exhibit posters, buttons, and the “Bears of Berkeley” map. Web site at: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/bearinmind/tour/ |
Big Game Football Program, 1920. |
As news of the exhibit traveled, exhibit curators reviewed inquiries from such diverse organizations as the Oakland Zoo, the Smithsonian Institution, and the California Exhibition Resources Alliance (CERA), a consortium of museums and historical agencies across the state. The latter organization is interested in securing funding to allow facsimiles of these exhibit materials to travel throughout California in future years. The Oakland Zoo has received funding to create a “California Wilderness” habitat display, and our information on the California Grizzly Bear may prove useful in this important project. The popularity of this exhibit will continue long after the actual exhibit is removed. A digital version of Bear in Mind (http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/ bearinmind/) is now available, and Heyday Press of Berkeley, California is pursuing publication of an illustrated volume, expanding upon the images and text provided in the exhibit. |
—William E. Brown, Jr.
Associate Director, Public Services
Volume 122
Spring 2003
Table of Contents
Reading Papyri, Writing History
From the Director: A Bancroft Library for the 21st Century
California Children's Books at the Bancroft Library
Hazards of the Forests fo Watsonville-- as reported by Regent Arthur Rodgers
Bear in Mind: The Many Lives of a Library Exhibit
The Last Portrait of Mark Twain
