Spring Visuals: At the Nelson, C.N. Gorman and Design Museum

Shields Library unveils a new exhibition on Monday (March 26), celebrating the library's namesake — one of the founding fathers of UC Davis — on the occasion of what would have been his 150th birthday.

The exhibition in a lobby display case is scheduled to run through April 6, two days after Peter J. Shields' birthday. He died in 1962 at the age of 100.

The dream that would become UC Davis began in 1899 with a casual conversation at the state fair. At the time, Shields served as secretary of the State Agricultural Society, which ran the fair. A young dairyman gave Shields a primer on the many characteristics that must be taken into account when judging butter.

Shields, impressed, asked how the man how he had learned this. Pennsylvania State College, he answered, adding that California had no comparable institution. And from this, Shields would say later, "a great institution" was born.

He was passionate about the state’s need of a school that would provide the agricultural education that he, as a farm boy, had not received. He became, as he said, a zealot and a crusader for his idea. He corresponded with leaders at agricultural colleges in other states, and he spoke to anybody who would listen about his plan. He drafted a legislative bill for an agricultural college, and after several years of effort and anxiety, he saw it through passage and execution.

And he did this while serving as a Sacramento County Superior Court judge, having been elected in 1900 (and serving until his retirement in 1949).

He remained forever a friend of the Davis campus, which named the main library building in his honor in 1972. Other Shields landmarks: Peter J. Shields Avenue on the library's north side, and the Shields Oak Grove in the arboretum.

The Peter J. Shields Collection, held in the library's Special Collections, contains his personal correspondence and speeches, as well as the original draft of the legislation that would authorize the purchase of land forr the University Farm.

This small exhibit contains images of and quotations from Shields, as well as pages from his bill, titled, "An Act Providing for the Purchase of a University Farm, 1905."

Collections manager Sara Gunasekara prepared the exhibition. For more information, send an e-mail to Special Collections, speccoll@ucdavis.edu.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

• FORCE: The UC Policy — Using photos, policies and other documentation, Art History 401 addresses the question of whether UC campus police and the UC administration are upholding their stated missions to “prevent violence and protect student rights.” Co-curated by Giana Belardi, Liz Church, Ashleigh Crocker, Maizy Enck, Susan Fanire, Megan Friel, Cindy Gieng, Bianca Hua, Lizzy Joelson, Mitzi Matthews, Monica Mercado, Brayant Pereyra, Kyle Taylor, Jennifer Urrutia, Ariana Young and Kevin Zhou. Art History 401 is a class in curatorial methods, taught by Susette Min, an assistant professor in Asian American studies and an affiliate of the Art History Program. Through March 23, ArtLounge, Memorial Union (second floor).

• 2012 Student Exhibition — Screen prints from five quarterly workshops (winter, spring, summer and fall 2011, and winter 2012) at TANA: Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer, or art workshop of the new dawn, run by the Department of Chicana/o Studies. 1224 Lemen Ave., Woodland. Call for hours: (530) 402-1065.

AT SHIELDS LIBRARY

• The Ground Beneath Our Feet: The Nikola P. Prokopovich Papers on Land Subsidence — Manuscript archivist Liz Phillips prepared this exhibition on the papers of engineering geologist Nikola P. Prokopovich (1918-99), who worked as a geologist with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Mid-Pacific Region.

He worked out of the bureau's Sacramento office from 1958 to 1986, investigating the geology and geochemistry of statewide water projects, including the Central Valley Project and the Solano Project. He was an avid field geologist and spent as much time as possible on site, collecting his own data. Prokopovich was particularly interested in the engineering geology of the Central Valley Project's canals and dam sites, and in the effects of state water projects and field irrigation on the surrounding landscape.

The collection includes draft reports, memoranda and published writings, as well as nearly 25,000 slides and photographs documenting his work and the land around his work sites.

• Paper Takes: The Power of Uncivil Words — Materials from the library's Walter Goldwater Radical Pamphlets collection, part of the library's Special Collections. The exhibition debuted last fall as part of the campus's Civility Project, and now Paper Takes is on display in the Shields Library lobby through winter quarter.

Looking beyond the bounds of the campus, the exhibition explores the ways in which intolerant views are communicated and disseminated through pamphlets. Paper Takes explores the particular rhetoric supporting race-based hatred, gender and sexuality bias, and political divisiveness, to better understand the dominant discourses that frame some of our most uncivil exchanges. Displaying a selection from more than 17,000 items in the leading collection of “extreme” pamphlets in the United States, this exhibition provides historical depth to our understanding of the language of hate and intolerance, traces of which remain potent today.

Read more about Paper Takes and the Walter Goldwater Radical Pamphlets collection.

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Another exhibition in conjunction with the Distinguished Speakers series at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

is scheduled for Wednesday, May 9.

Shields Library describes Smith as "an important countercultural figure" since her seminal punk album, Horses (1975) — and notes that she has been active as a poet and writer as well as a musician. Just Kids, a memoir of her days with Robert Mapplethorpe, won the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Works of hers in the library collection include Seventh Heaven, Witt, Auguries of Innocence, Early Work, The Coral Sea and Ha! Ha! Houdini! (all poetry), Patti Smith Complete (lyrics) and Just Kids.

• The Spirit of New Orleans: Culture, Community, Community, Catastrophe, Construction — In conjunction with The Spirit of New Orleans series (film and music) at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. The exhibition, prepared by Michael Colby, features items from library collections representing scholarship on the history, music, architecture, culture, practices and, most important, the people of New Orleans.

• Words Take Wing — Selected works by Ying Chang Compestine, featured author for this year's Words Take Wing: Celebration of Diversity in Children's Literature.

The Shields Library presents its exhibitions in the lobby. Regular hours: 7:30 a.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, noon-6 p.m. Saturday and noon-midnight Sunday. Holidays and other exceptions.