Conference Schedule

Birds of a Feather Gallery Stroll

Mike Goates, Maggie Kopp, & John Murphy, BYU Library

The BYU Library's newest exhibit celebrates humanity's close relationship with our feathered friends through the eyes of scientists, naturalists, artists, and writers. During this gallery stroll, exhibit curators will highlight primary sources and campus collections focused on birds—from medieval manuscripts to ornithological specimens to the work of current researchers and artists.  Attendees will also be able to explore some of Special Collections’ 19th century ornithological prints and books (including a recently-acquired Audubon octavo) and discuss strategies and considerations for collecting vintage bird prints.   

Jed Johnston

Come use new technologies such as 3D printing to make traditional media. This workshop takes place in the BYU Library’s Makerspace where turn-of-the-century cast iron equipment sits comfortably alongside modern, computerized machines. The session is a mixture of lecture, demonstration and participation with attendees taking home their product.

Images of Prejudice and Discrimination in the 19th Century: Race, Rights, and Religion

Greg Seppi, 19th and 20th Century Americana Collection Curator, Harold B. Lee Library

In late 2021, Gary L. Bunker, co-author of The Mormon Graphic Image, 1834-1914 (1983), donated a large collection of original printed illustrations of marginalized American communities, including Native Americans, Black Americans, Chinese and Japanese immigrants, Latter-day Saints, and Woman suffragists. The collected images form a powerful testament to the prejudice and discrimination experienced by so many in the 19th Century. In this hands-on session, we will examine many of these images, assess their significance, and discuss the publications, authors, and illustrators that produced the images. Because we will be looking at rare images of Latter-day Saints and many other marginalized 19th-Century communities, this session should have value to those who are primarily interested in Mormon history and those who have wider interests in graphic art. Collectors and booksellers should enjoy exploring the fruits of Bunker’s decades of collecting, while students and professors may find images that could be used to enhance papers and publications on related topics.

The History and Publications of the Juvenile Instructor Office

Presented by Craig S. Smith

The Juvenile Instructor Office located in Salt Lake City was the leading publisher of faith promoting and inspirational works for Latter-day Saints from the late 1870s to 1891. The firm eventually became through several name changes and ownerships the LDS Church’s Deseret Book Company in 1920. Members of the George Q. Cannon family, the owners of the firm, supported by their close relationship with the LDS Church, grew the concern from just the publisher of a semi-monthly magazine for the young, the Juvenile Instructor, sharing facilities with the Deseret News, to the largest printer of books and literature for the LDS Church market with its own building and substantial presses by the end of the 1880s. After the incorporation of the firm as “George Q. Cannon & Sons Company” in March 1891, the corporation switched to this new imprint until August 1890 when the business was sold to the LDS Church. The rise in the prominence of the Juvenile Instructor Office in the 1880s coincided with the transition to Salt Lake City from Liverpool as the major LDS Church publishing hub allowing for the production of a wider variety of publications for Latter-day Saint consumers beyond the standard works and missionary tracts. One popular and best-known series for young people published by the Juvenile Instructor Office was the Faith-Promoting Series, which totaled 14 volumes through 1887. Despite its pivotal role in the transition in the publishing LDS Church materials during the 1880s, most LDS Church printing histories covering this period fail to even mention the imprint.

Hurry, Hurry, Sign the Guy Up! An Adventure in Writing a First Book

By James V. D’Arc, Author,

When Hollywood Came to Town

One of the results of James D’Arc’s varied 41 years as a curator in Special Collections in the Harold B. Lee Library was When Hollywood Came to Utah (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith), a history of a century of Hollywood moviemaking in the state. D’Arc will look back at the unusual circumstances that led to its first publication in 2010, all the way to its current fourth—and final—enlarged Centennial Edition that coincides with Utah’s yearlong celebration. Hardly expected by its author to endure beyond its first edition, the book has since inspired a major exhibit at the Utah State Capitol and an upcoming PBS documentary on Utah’s moviemaking centennial, both involving the author as a consultant. However, D'Arc has been an inveterate book collector for more than 60 years with interests not only in signed actor and film director biographies, but in Latter-day Saint history as well as American history and culture. D’Arc also sports a collection of vintage movie posters.