Exhibits, News and Events

Celebrating Darwin

From August 10 to December 20, 2009, San Diego State University's Library and Information Access will celebrate Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection with a pair of exhibits. “Darwin Now,” a traveling exhibit created by the British Council, explored Darwin’s life and the importance of the theory of evolution to the contemporary world and modern science. Numerous biological specimens from the collections of the SDSU Department of Evolutionary Biology will also be on display, including a Galapagos Island tortoise shell and a terrarium of live plants. "Darwin Now" has closed, but the specimens on loan from the Evolutionary Biology Department remain. This exhibit is located in the Donor Hall.

Concurrently, the library's Department of Special Collections is hosting the exhibit “The Book that Shook the World,” an exploration of Darwin's masterpiece On the Origin of Species, as well as several of Darwin's other books, many of which are first editions never publicly displayed before. Additional materials from the Special Collections Department also are on display in support of the exhibit.

For more information about the exhibit, please call the Special Collections Department at (619) 594-6791.

An Evening with Bill Berkson

Bill Berkson will present a reading on December 1 at 7 p.m. in Room LL430 of the SDSU Library as part of the Fall 2009 Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers Series. The event is free and open to all.

Berkson is an associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. He is a poet, art critic, editor and curator and has been active in the art and poetry worlds for many years. He is the author of 18 books, including most recently Gloria and Our Friends Will Pass Among You Silently. He is a corresponding editor for Art in America and a regular contributor to Modern Painters and American Craft.

The Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers Series is sponsored by the SDSU Department of English and Comparative Literature through an endowment from San Diego writer Hugh C. Hyde. For more information, call (619) 594-5318.