Special Collections - Anteater Antics

Archives for December 2009

Star Trek Association of Irvine

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The Star Trek Association of Irvine, known as STAI by its members, was a UCI student organization dedicated to “alternate realities.” No founding documents were found in the collection, but materials indicate that the association was active from 1977 to 1991. The interests of STAI members went beyond the television program, Star Trek and extended to animation, fantasy, horror, and science fiction. The club met the first and third Fridays of every month. STAI had a library of over 2,000 books and a video library that included nearly all of the Star Trek episodes.

Guide to the Star Trek Association of Irvine Publications, University of California, Irvine.  PS-007

Johnny Hart’s Anteater

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Most anteater aficionados know that the UCI mascot was inspired by a character in the Johnny Hart comic strip “B.C.”  Few know that Mr. Hart liked the anteater mascot concept. He even completed an original drawing of the anteater, which he sent to  UCI… apparently later than expected!

"To my patient friends at Irvine, best wishes from Johnny Hart."

Trimming Ansel Adams’s Beard

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Ansel Adams took close to 2,000 photographs of the U.C. campuses in the mid-1960s as part of the U.C. centennial celebration that took place in 1968. For that project, Adams took over 100 photographs of the new UCI campus.  The photographs are currently housed in UCR’s California Museum of Photography. A sample of the Adams photographs was published in the book Fiat Lux: the University of California, by Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967]. UCI Special Collections and Archives has a small collection of  interesting photographs taken of Ansel Adams during this period.  Two examples below include a photo of Nancy Newhall trimming Adams’s beard and Adams outside what is now Langson Library.  The first was taken by Liliane De Cock ca. 1966-1967, who was Adams’s assistant throughout most of the 1960s. Richard Schlesinger took the photograph of Adams on the back balcony of Langson during the same period. Schlesinger accompanied Adams while he took the photographs of the UCI campus.

AS-061.  Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes filmed on campus in 1972

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