A Day of Celebration of The New Magnes Home in Downtown Berkeley

January 22, 2012
12pm - 4pm
2121 Allston Way, Berkeley

The big day is here! We?ll start the day with a ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially welcome the entire Berkeley community to the new Magnes. Exhibiting artists and Magnes staff will be on hand at the street festival-inspired event that will feature continuous musical performances by local bands and university choral and instrumental groups. Local restaurants will be serving up delicious eats and treats. Come see what The Magnes has to offer!

INTERSESSION HOURS

January 2nd -15th
Open from 1pm - 5pm

Normal hours will resume on January 17th. Please plan your research accordingly.

"The inch-high Help Wanted ad was placed in a Bay Area newspaper sometime in the early 1970s by a 'small, successful, innovative Restaurant' in Berkeley seeking an 'inspired energetic CHEF to plan and cook single-entree 5-course dinners weekly, Fernand Point and Elizabeth David style.'

That scrap of newsprint, taped casually to the center of a vintage sheet of Chez Panisse notepaper, sits in a folder labeled 'Staff: miscellaneous' within the Chez Panisse manuscript archives at the Bancroft Library. Possibly it?s the very one that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1973. It may indeed be the one that, as foodie legend has it, brought only a handful of applicants to the kitchen at 1517 Shattuck Ave. But none were satisfactory to the overworked but committed young Alice Waters ?67 and her comrades in cuisine, who?d converted the old house to a restaurant just two years earlier. Only then did an unknown Jeremiah Tower stride in, 'fix the soup' by adding salt and a bit of cream and white wine, and instantly land the job. It?s been said that Tower?s glittering career, the enduring reputation of Chez Panisse, indeed California cuisine itself?whatever that may prove to be when all is said and done?were all born at that historic moment.

That story, though long since debunked by all participants (apart from Tower himself), persists as a creation myth?a challenge to either confirm or rebut on the strength of primary documents from the Bancroft?s 'Chez Panisse, records, 1966?2011.' Donated to the library a decade ago, and continuing to grow with periodic infusions of paper from the still-thriving restaurant, the archive?s patchiness is perhaps its most striking characteristic." - Jonathan King, CAL Alumni Association

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"A new book from the University of California, Berkeley?s Bancroft Library now hitting the holiday bookstore shelves gives fresh meaning to the term 'dog days' by celebrating the powerful connections between people and their canine companions.

The idea for 'Everyday Dogs: A Perpetual Calendar for Birthdays and Other Notable Dates' (Heyday Books) arose unexpectedly in 2005 when Mary Scott and Susan Snyder were sifting through the vast Pictorial Collection at The Bancroft for images for an exhibit on California women.

'By chance we began finding some wonderful photos of dogs with their people,' said Scott, graphic designer for the campus?s Doe and Moffitt libraries. And they found more, and more.

Among the hundreds of photos discovered by Scott and Snyder, public services director at The Bancroft, those chosen for the 152-page book had to relay 'a still palpable connection between the people and their dogs,' said Scott. 'That?s what a photo needed to make the final cut ? be it a crusty old prospector or a famous newspaperman,' she said.

The cover is a professional photo by noted 19^th-century California photographer Carleton E. Watkins, of a dog named Guardian peering alertly from a wicker carriage, but the book contains snapshots, too.  Altogether, the book contains 75 evocative black-and-white photos taken between roughly 1870 and the 1940s." - Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations

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Our own Susan Snyder's recent publication for Bancroft has made Oprah's Book of the Week! Congratulations, Susan!

Read the article here!