Archivist's labor of love
Display of historic posters intended to spark memories

By Summer Howatt-Nab

If you attended Ohio University in the 1960s and '70s and are coming to Athens for Homecoming, Ohio University Archivist Bill Kimok has just the thing to spark some memories.

As part of a larger exhibit of University memorabilia, Kimok has prepared a display of posters from Alden Library's Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections that focuses on those turbulent times. He hopes the posters -- announcing speakers, concerts, meetings and the like -- will take viewers back and help them recall where they were, who they were with and what they were doing at the time. Posters from earlier and more recent days are included as well.

"I've found that when I do a display for a Homecoming weekend or reunion, people will look at the posters and they may not have attended the event, but they remember where they were when the event occurred," Kimok explains. "It gives them a point from which they can then think about the things they were doing around that time of their lives. So it's really a feel-good thing for alumni."

Kimok chose the '60s and '70s theme because he was in college in upstate New York at the time. "It's sort of a selfish, narcissistic look at my own memories of college life," he chuckles. "It's also because a lot of baby boomer alumni are returning either for Homecoming or because their kids are in college now."

The theme is political as well as personal. Kimok titled the overall exhibit "Range, Revolution and the River" because, as he notes, radical change was the only constant of the era, both locally -- President Alden's expansion of the University as well as the flooding and subsequent rerouting of the Hocking River, for instance -- and nationally.

Visitors can check out photos of everything from building and bypass construction to war and civil rights protests. There'll also be images of students rollicking in flood waters and campus guests such as Billy Preston (come on, you remember "Will It Go Round in Circles," don't you?) and Bob Hope. Event programs, a 1971 report on the status of women at the University and a variety of other items are sure to prod the memory.

If just one image could capture those times, it probably would be the photograph of a National Guardsman standing at the College Gate in 1970. It is such an iconic image that Kimok has enlarged it to poster size for displays. 

"It really stands out when I blow it up to almost life-sized," says Kimok. "I put it up in nearly every display I do, because people remember that turning point. It's not just symbolic of the University, but nationally symbolic of that time."

So recognizable is the image that several of Kimok's copies of the poster have disappeared. "I've turned my back," he says, "and they've come down."

As in previous poster displays for University events, Kimok has mixed glossy and matte posters to capture the look of a campus bulletin board. "I try to include slick, well-made, thoroughly planned posters with something on construction paper," he says, "because that's all part of the University environment." Kimok explains.

Check out Bill Kimok's displays, "Range, Revolution and the River" and "Posters Speak for Themselves" -- both in place throughout fall quarter -- at the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections on the fifth floor of Alden Library.

Summer Howatt-Nab, BSJ '04, was a student writer this summer for Ohio University Communications and Marketing.