Libraries Celebrates Homecoming with Annual Display

Homecoming is a highly anticipated time during the fall semester for students, alumni and faculty members alike. This cherished occasion is celebrated with a week-long roster of events happening around campus, including the Libraries annual Homecoming display.

The 2018 display will consist of 19 tables filled with original, primary historic materials that depicts 200+ years of Ohio University life and history. Photographs, sports programs, maps, catalogs, student newspapers and other student publications, yearbooks, scrap books, student handbooks and numerous OHIO memorabilia will be featured in the display, as well as posters representing over 90 years of University events.

“For the people who have visited us every year since we have been doing this display, there always seem to be things within the display that interest them, jog their memories, and bring them back the next year,” said Bill Kimok, Ohio University archivist and records manager.

Although the tradition of hosting the display in Alden Library is still relatively new, it has quickly become an integral part of the Homecoming plans in Athens. Kimok said that although the focus for most OHIO students and alumni continues to be the parade and football game, the Libraries has worked hard to make the display part of the annual Homecoming tradition.

“For the present-day students…we hope to educate them about the differences and similarities of their lives here today and the lives and times of college students of the past.  It often gives the current students a sense of familiarity with­­­—and belonging to—something that is larger than just the four or so years that they will spend here as students,” Kimok remarked.

The Homecoming display will begin a day earlier this year—on Tuesday, Oct. 16 and end on Saturday, Oct. 20. The exhibit will be held on the fourth floor of Alden Library and will be open for visitation from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. Kimok said he anticipates a good turn-out and hopes that opening the display a day earlier will give more people the opportunity to visit.