Author: Lee Anne Titangos

September 10, 2012 – March 31, 2013
The Brown Gallery, The Doe Library
Open during the operating hours of The Doe Library

A citizen of Berkeley for all his life, David Ross Brower is celebrated for shaping the modern environmental movement. An authentic sage and activist trailblazer, Brower fought to heal the Earth, to save the Grand Canyon, and to enlarge the national park and wilderness systems. He was a tireless advocate for clean water, free-flowing rivers, roadless wilderness, protected habitat, and a nuclear-free society. David Brower trod the world’s stage with wit, diplomacy, and generosity of spirit, recruiting others from all walks of life to the international cause of conservation of our common resources. A dynamic, engaging, compelling speaker and writer, Brower was a true believer in the transformative power of words. This salute to his life and his monumental contributions to the preservation of the natural world is organized around memorable words from his written legacy. The Library joins with other organizations around the Bay Area in celebration of the centennial of his birth.

This exhibition is part of the year-long Brower Centennial celebration. For more information visit www.browercentennial.org or browercentennial@gmail.com.

40 Years of Title IX

August 2012 – TBA
The Bancroft Library Reading Room Exhibit Cases
Open during the operating hours of the Bancroft Reading Room

On June 23rd, 1972 the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act was signed into federal legislation. The “Title IX” section of this Act states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Many people equate Title IX as having to do with equal opportunity for women and girls to participate in athletics, but as the Act reads it has a much broader reach and includes classes, facilities and extra-curricular activities of various types.

Illustrating Allegory
William Kent’s Engravings for Spenser’s Faerie Queene

August 2012 – TBA
The Bancroft Library Reading Room Exhibit Cases
Open during the operating hours of the Bancroft Reading Room

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the language. The poem is deeply allegorical and allusive: many prominent Elizabethans could have found themselves — or one another — partially represented by one or more of Spenser’s figures. Elizabeth herself is the most prominent example: she appears most prominently in her guise as Gloriana, the Faerie Queene herself.

This 1751 edition of The Faerie Queene is chiefly notable for its “endearingly peculiar” illustrations by William Kent. William Kent was most famous as an architect, rather than an illustrator, and he included pictures of some of his own architectural designs in several illustrations. As scholar Hazel Wilkinson has pointed out, “As well as giving his architectural work a bit of free advertising, I think Kent was trying to point out the continuing relevance of The Faerie Queene to his audience by setting it in a modern landscape: During the eighteenth century, people delighted in adapting The Faerie Queene‘s allegory to reflect on current political events — satirists often imagined their opponents as unsavoury characters from the poem, like Archimago the deceptive wizard, for instance.”

March 8th – August 29th
The Brown Gallery, Doe Library

This exhibition explores the lives of students at the University of California, as told through the clothing they once wore. From junior plugs (top hats) and lettermen's jackets to charm bracelets and African American graduation stoles, from cashmere sweater sets to denim jackets festooned with anti-war buttons, Cal students have always made fashion, political and gender statements through their choice of clothing and accessories. This exhibition draws from the University Archives, and from numerous other campus collections, and includes many items never before on display.

September 14, 2008 – February 28, 2009
Bernice Layne Brown Gallery
Doe (Main) Library

The vast photographic archives of the San Francisco Examiner were donated in 2006 to the University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. Numbering over four million items, the archives constitute an unparalleled visual record of the San Francisco Bay Area through the 20th century.

This exhibit in Doe Library is the first public display from the archive’s treasures, focusing on historic events from 1935 through 1960: migrant worker camps, labor unrest, the Japanese American internment, women in the war effort, the signing of the UN Charter, the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, the Marilyn Monroe-Joe Di Maggio marriage, the execution of Caryl Chessman, and much more.

The exhibit was developed by Jack von Euw, Curator of The Bancroft Library Pictorial Collection.

Amazing Gate: Rescuing a Campus Icon

May 18 – December 23, 2009
Rowell Cases, Doe Library Corridor

When a close inspection revealed that Sather Gate had sustained
substantial damage from rust and corrosion, the campus launched a major
restoration effort for the century-old landmark. In an exhibition
co-sponsored by the University History Museum Project and The
University Archives, “Amazing Gate” looks at the history of Sather
Gate, gives details of the restoration process, and displays actual
pieces of the original gate showing how it had deteriorated over the
years. The exhibition also tells the story of the eight nudes featured
on the controversial bas-relief panels, from censorship to celebration.

The exhibit is open during the operating hours of the Doe Library.

California Gold: The Nobel Tradition at UC Berkeley

The Helen Kennedy Cahill Reference Center, The Bancroft Library

Nobel gold has been "mined" by twenty members of the Berkeley faculty and twenty-four alumni. Four of these are alumni and faculty. Fifty-five Nobel medals have been awarded to faculty and researchers affiliated with eight UC campuses and laboratories, twenty-two of these since 1995.

Berkeley’s Nobel tradition reflects the distinguished culture of creativity flourishing in the Bay Area, where dozens of laureates have been affiliated with the three major universities and with industry, government, and independent laboratories. UC Berkeley is particularly notable for the large number of chemistry, physics and, more recently, economic laureates, and for the very first Nobel laureate from a public university, Ernest O. Lawrence.

The Bancroft Library has also developed its own Nobel tradition, collecting the papers of fourteen Nobel Laureates, including two who were not Berkeleyans: Emil Fischer (Chemistry, 1902) and Otto Stern (Physics, 1943).

Featured in this exhibit are the Nobel medals of William F. Giauque (Chemistry, 1949) and Gerard Debreu (Economics, 1983).  Also on display are facsimiles of photographs and letters drawn from The Bancroft Library’s Nobel Laureates collections.

Darwin and the Evolution of a Theory

An exhibition of rare books, manuscripts, images and scientific specimens from the collections of UC Berkeley’s Libraries and Museums.

The exhibit is open Monday through Friday, 10AM – 4PM.