Past Exhibitions

Down a Sunny Dirt Road: A Visit to Bear Country

April 2025–December 2025

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Located in what is affectionately known as "Pop Culture Corner," a collection of Berenstain Bears material provides a welcome reset for students studying in the library or families visiting the Bizzell Memorial Library. Many of OU's faculty, staff, and students bring their children to campus, and this exhibit kicks off our new series of summer reading and family fun with highlights from our Children and Young Adult Literature Collection. Pairing generational nostalgia with recent research, this area will spark your curiosity, bring back memories, and maybe even prompt some new discoveries. Did you know that the Berenstain Bears cartoon aired dubbed in the ancient language of the Sioux? Watching "Mathó Waúnsila Thiwáhe," (which is Lakota for the "Compassionate Bear Family") helped young Lakota children learn and preserve their endangered language! We also want to remind everyone that any of these library materials are available for check-out with a valid OU I.D. 

Hoaxes and Humbugs: Fraud, Entertainment, or Social Commentary?

January 2025–September 2025

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This exhibit examined but a few of the significant hoaxes and frauds that have plagued scientific communities. Featured prominently were "Beringer's Lying Stones" from his 1726 book held in the History of Science Collections. Other hoaxes included the 1835 Moon Hoax, which reported John Herschel's discovery of life on the moon, P.T. Barnum's 1835 exhibition of Joice Heth and his later FeeJee Mermaids, Albert Koch's Hydrarchos sea monster, and Missourium behemoth tours of the 1840s. Both of these creatures were fashioned from real fossils, though they were creatively assembled. One of the most famous hoaxes in American history was the stone giant "discovered" in Cardiff, New York in 1869. The Cardiff Giant became an overnight sensation. Not relegated to the 19th century, the exhibit included the Piltdown hoax, which was the 1912 unearthing of an alleged human ancestor in England that was later revealed — and even argued at the time — to be a fraud. These instances serve as a reminder of the need for critical thinking and assessment, as well as the self-correcting nature of science.

Periodicals as Primary Sources

January 2025-September 2025

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OU Libraries Newspapers & Magazines Guide

The University of Oklahoma Libraries maintain a robust collection of periodicals ranging from popular magazines to peer-reviewed journals. Available in physical, digital, or a combination of both formats, several collections span well over a century. A large part of this exhibit was dedicated to celebrating the 100th anniversary of The New Yorker magazine in February 2025. It showcased enlarged covers depicting various artistic styles used for The New Yorker's covers over the last 100 years, as well as some of the earliest Addams Family cartoons drawn for The New Yorker by Charles Addams. Cover features from available collections material included National Geographic, Popular Mechanics, Time, Life, Vogue, Saturday Evening Post, Discovery, Scientific American, and Country Living, to name a few.

120 Years of the Pride of Oklahoma Exhibition

August 2024–June 2025

This exhibit in Bizzell Memorial Library spans over 2,500 square feet and features scores of artifacts, including band jackets dating back to 1904 and a collection of both current and historic band photos. Visitors will experience the band’s history through video displays and physical artifacts such as buttons, pens, tickets, programs, uniforms, and even the prestigious Sudler Trophy for Marching Bands! Many other pieces of Pride of Oklahoma memorabilia celebrating 120 years of the Pride of Oklahoma marching band make up the exhibition and celebrate all those who have a connection to the Pride of Oklahoma. This multimedia approach will immerse visitors in the Pride of Oklahoma’s storied past with performance videos linking the past and the present, while physical items, such as historic jackets and retired uniforms, bring the history to life, turning it into something a bit more personal. This exhibit was co-curated with Marc Mueller and Chauvin Aaron.

News:

• KOKH Fox 25: Pride of Oklahoma band celebrates 120 years with Bizzell Library exhibit
• City Lifestyle: The Pride of Oklahoma
• OU News: Pride of Oklahoma Celebrates 120 Years with Exhibit at Bizzell Memorial Library
• OU Daily: 'Bring the history to life': Pride of Oklahoma celebrates 120-year legacy with multimedia exhibit
• Sooner Magazine Shorts: A Display of Pride

March MADness

March 2025

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The University Libraries' Special Research Collections also contain other periodicals, including a very large run of MAD Magazine, which can be found in the John and Mary Nichols Rare Book Collection. We first exhibited our copies of MAD back in 2019 when the magazine announced it would no longer be printing new content. In March 2025, we brought them out again to coincide with our Periodicals as Primary Sources exhibit. This selection of MAD Magazine featured the first Spy vs Spy comic, a host of movie poster parody covers, as well as numerous covers and content lampooning the election campaigns through the years. The brief duration of this material was to preserve the original newsprint material held within the collections. The magazines are available for research and reading by appointment on the fifth floor of the library.

Leaving Olympus: The Rick Riordan Universe and Beyond

August 2023–May 2024

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With the reboot of the Percy Jackson television series just months away, the Bizzell Memorial Library shared its holdings of young adult literature, showcasing not only Percy Jackson, but the other mythological series written by Rick Riordan. The exhibit also included the recently released The Chalice of the Gods, and books from the growing collection of Rick Riordan Presents titles which, in partnership with Disney's Hyperion imprint, has the underlying mission to “find, nurture, and promote the best storytellers for middle grade readers,” with the focus on diverse, mythology-based fiction by new, emerging, and under-represented authors.

John Marsh Davis: An American School Legacy

January 2023–December 2023

OU Libraries American School of Architecture Guide

Under the leadership of Bruce Goff (1904-82), Herb Greene (b. 1929), Mendel Glickman (1895-1967), and many others, OU faculty developed a curriculum that emphasized individual creativity, organic forms, and experimentation. This radical approach to design drew students to Oklahoma from as far away as Japan and South America and later spread the American School influence to their practices in California, Hawaii, Japan, and beyond. The physical exhibition materials are now collected in the library's ever-growing American School of Architecture Archive, while its digital assets can be found in our Digital Repository. This exhibit was co-curated with the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture.

Rust on a Razorblade: Mickey Muennig's Post Ranch Inn (1987-92)

January 2023-December 2023

The highly idiosyncratic architecture of Mickey Muennig (1935-2021) contributed much to the built landscape of Big Sur, California in the last three decades of the Twentieth Century. An apprentice of Bruce Goff and student of OU, Muennig’s approach to design has visible foundations in the pedagogy of the American School; however, the California coast’s natural and social climate acted as a testing ground for the architect to develop organic architecture as a new, unstable hybrid. His recently acquired archive housed at OU’s Western History Collections reveals the vast media deposits of an architecture and practice shaped in and through the geological and cultural constraints of an apparently pristine yet highly managed landscape and the rigorous tectonics of these quietly radical buildings. This exhibition probes the archives to reveal the tensions between indoor and outdoor, nature and culture, and the utopian and the prosaic. This exhibit was co-curated with Marco Piscitelli, an Herb Greene Teaching Fellow in the Gibbs College of Architecture.

Egyptomania!

August 2022–March 2023

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November 2022 marks a full century since Howard Carter's initial discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamen. A century before that (1822) Jean-François Champollion broke the code to reading and understanding Egyptian heiroglyphs. This exhibit celebrates the decipherment and later discoveries of historical and modern Egyptologist. As well as showcasing some of the Bizzell family photos on their own trip through Egypt in the 1930s. 

Our Storied Collections

September 2021–May 2022

Highlighting OU Libraries' Special Research Collections, this exhibit showcases a wide assortment of material chosen by our curators and archivists. Some represent recent acquisitions, while others were favorite projects OU Libraries staff worked on. This material, from six of our major collections within the library, is only a small sample of the kinds of materials available to researchers at the University of Oklahoma Libraries.

From Tragedy to Triumph: Race Massacre Survivor Stories

September 7, 2020–June 30, 2021

Introduction Video with Dr. Karlos Hill

Interactive Virtual Exhibition

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From Tragedy to Triumph tells the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre through a combination of compelling photographs and vivid eyewitness accounts from survivors. In emphasizing the experience of the victims and survivors, the exhibit will demonstrate the resilience of Tulsa's Greenwood District, highlighting how Black residents courageously responded to the destruction of their historic community. This exhibit was co-curated with Dr. Karlos Hill, Chair and Associate Professor, Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies and Michelle Brown, Program Director, Greenwood Cultural Center.

The Game is On

September 25, 2020

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Numerical curiosities, brain teasers, tangrams, palindromes, and magic squares seem to be as old as time itself. From brain teasers written in Latin, “The Tower of Hanoi” problem in German, through the flights of fancy in Flatland and Alice in Wonderland, this exhibit explored the connections of recreational mathematics across multiple disciplines. It traced mathematical games and puzzles through time and culture, showcasing items from the History of Science Collections and the John and Mary Nichols Rare Book Collection, including works from recreational mathematics contributors with local connections such as Martin Gardner, and former OU professor emeritus of mathematics, Nathan A. Court. This exhibit was co-curated with Cassondra Darling.

Native Voices Over the Airwaves: The Indians for Indians Hour Radio Show

November 14, 2019–August 3, 2020

The Indians for Indians Radio Show Recordings

Broadcast over OU’s WNAD radio station, the Indians for Indians radio show aired from 1941 through the mid-1970s. The show was created and originally hosted by Don Whistler, chief of the Sac and Fox tribe, and continued by OU’s Sequoyah Indian Club. The Indians for Indians Hour was a vibrant blend of Native music and speech on an incredible array of topics, including community life, military service, religion, education, and advocacy for Native rights. It represents an incredible snapshot of United States history as told through the Native American experience. A smaller portion of this exhibit, featuring programs dedicated to the topics of sports and recreation, was on display in Monnett Hall through January 3, 2020. This exhibit was co-curated with Lina Ortega.

News:

• Sooner Horizon, Fall 2019: The Indians for Indians Radio Hour

'Wild Little Honker' and Birds from the Special Collections

January 15, 2020–May 15, 2020

Although the title comes from a 1951 children’s book by Dorothy Childs Hogner which tells of the migratory adventure of a goose named Wild Little Honker, the exhibit featured a wide variety of books from the collections. The exhibit included bird books from the Lois Lenski Collection of Children’s Literature, the Jackson Rinn Pope III History of Ornithology Collection, and the general History of Science Collections. Many of the books had not been displayed before and are not widely seen by the public. Such books include guides for bird identification, bird stories for children, ways of describing bird song with words and notation. There were also amble selections filled with information about bird watching. This exhibit was co-curated with Dr. Melissa Rickman.

The Academy of the Lynx and Natural History: Old Science, New Discoveries, and Strange Creatures

Red Dust Oklahoma: A Poetic History

October 9, 2018–June 30, 2019

Red Dust Oklahoma: A Poetic History describes a “complex, vibrant Oklahoma previously unimagined” through the poetry and poets in Oklahoma from pre-statehood to 1941. Drawing from the Western History Collections’ unexpectedly rich resources about Oklahoma’s poetic past, the exhibition celebrates the achievements of Oklahoma poets, featuring published works and unpublished manuscripts, revealing history rich with authors, editors, and educators whose work shaped the state’s narrative and features themes of national impact. The poetry of Oklahoma through the 1930s evoked the entirety of its landscape from the prairie sky, to the earth, even down to its roots. This exhibition was co-curated with Dr. Todd Fuller and Dr. Crag Hill. It was sponsored by the Mark Allen Everett Poetry Series and the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education.

News:

• In celebration of National Poetry Month, Metro Library Podcast invited curator, Todd Fuller, to speak about the exhibition.
• New OU exhibition to explore Oklahoma history through poetry

Poetics of Invention

August 1, 2017–August 6, 2018

Exhibit Introduction Video

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Virtual Exhibition Video Tour

The Poetics of Invention explored the process of invention from ideation, to fabrication, and to commercialization from the perspective of an OU professor, inventor, and entrepreneur as he attempts to make English more accessible to the 350 million Chinese learners through merging the world’s two most-spoken languages at the level of their phonetic DNA. This exhibit was co-curated with Dr. Jonathan Stalling.

News:

• Sooner Horizon, Fall 2017, page 3: The Poetics of Invention