ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Salt Lake City—culture and entertainment

By Blaine H. Hall Humanities Librarian Brigham Young University Basketball, history, and Marie Osmond are a few of the entertainment opportunities you’ll find in Salt Lake City.

For leisure hours Salt Lake City offers awide variety of activities to suit every taste—sports events, concerts, ballet, opera, museums, art galleries, theaters, shopping. So while you are in Salt Lake City for the ACRL National Conference, try to find some time to enjoy the entertainment and culture of the city.

For sports fans, block seating has been arranged on Monday night, April 13, for an exciting basketball game between the league-leading Utah Jazz and Oakland’s Golden State Warriors. You will see “the Mailman” Karl Malone and “little” John Stock- ton, both selected for the U.S. Olympic team, work their magic on the court of the new Delta Center, a two-block walk from the Convention Center. Order your tickets by March 15 on the Local Arrangement Tours form in your conference “Preliminary Program. ” The game starts at 7:30 p.m., so you’ll have time to eat something before the game, or you can get something at the Center.

Plan to attend a Utah Symph- ony concert at the Symphony Hall on April 11 or 12.

Unfortunately, the ballet and opera seasons end just before the conference, but you can attend a Utah Symphony concert on Friday or Saturday evening, April 11 and 12. Marie Osmond, singing country music, will be appearing with the sym- phony in one of their Entertainment Series concerts at 8 p.m. Also drop in at the Salt Lake Art Center next door to the Symphony Hall and see the Utah Arts Council Fel- lowship Exhibit of 80 to 100 paintings by the ten finalists for the Council’s 1992 Fellowship Award. Also showing during the conference will be a video exhibit called “Framed,” de- picting the Japanese-American internments in the U.S. during World War II. This traveling exhibit, created by the Long Beach Museum of Art, features archival footage taken in the camps. The Center is open Monday-Saturday, 10-5 and Sunday, 1-5. Free admission, but donations accepted.

As might be expected in a city with a strong sense of its past, Salt Lake has a number of historical museums, several a short walk from the Salt Palace. The Utah Historical Society Museum is housed in the old Rio Grande Railroad Station at the west end of300 South Street on Rio Grande Street (455 West). A newly mounted exhibit, “Utah at the Crossroads,” will be featuring photographs and artifacts showing the contributions various ethnic groups have made to the building of the state.

See Karl Malone and the Utah Jazz play Oakland’s Golden State Warriors on Monday, April 13.

You will also enjoy a visit to the Pioneer Memorial Museum across the street from the State Capitol at the north end of Main Street, a two-block walk up the hill from Temple Square. Operated by the National Society of the Daughters of the Utah Pio- neers, the cream-colored replica of the original pio- neer Salt Lake Theatre con- tains one of the largest and finest collections of authen- tic pioneer relics in the West. On display are paint-, ings by noted Utah artists, guns, quilts, furniture, books, historical manu- scripts, handmade clothing, dolls, and artifacts and memorabilia documenting the history of the militaiy and railroading in Utah and the West. The carriage house directly behind the museum displays larger artifacts including an original pioneer wagon, sleighs, surreys, handcarts, bicycles, and a blacksmith shop. Open Monday-Saturday, 9-5. Admission free, but donations accepted.

Less than a block north of Symphony Hall on the comer of North Temple and West Temple streets the L.D.S. Museum of Church Histoiy and Art features dioramas and other displays depicting the history of the Church. Paintings, manuscripts, photographs, and historical artifacts document and illustrate its growth and movement from New York to Utah and its worldwide proselytizing. A diorama of Salt Lake City in 1870, recreated in miniature, provides a striking contrast to the urban metropolis of today. The museum also displays fine art sculptures and paintings of 19th- and 20th-century Mormon artists and Mormon Indian weaving, basketmaking, kachinas, and other Indian arts. During April a special exhibit on “Religious Symbols” in art will be on display. Open daily, Monday- Friday, 9-9 and Saturday-Sunday, 10-7.

A mile or so east of downtown on the University of Utah campus, you can view the state’s major collection of world paintings at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, where the paintings are integrated with furniture and decorative arts to represent more completely a culture’s or period’s artistic heritage. Also on the campus is the Utah Museum of Natural History, with outstanding exhibits of dinosaurs, fossils, and other displays of geology, biology, and anthropology. Or if you are more interested in living animals, you can travel a mile or so fur- ther south and east of the university at the mouth of Emigration Canyon and across the street from the Pioneer Trail State Park and visit Hogle Zoo, where you can see 1,100 animals from all regions of the earth displayed in an ar- ray ofhabitats from dens to tropical forests. The zoo is open from 9-5:30 daily. Adult admission $4.

These are only a few of many cultural and en- tertainment opportuni- ties in the city that might fit into a busy schedule. For further information on what to do and where to go in the city, visit the Hospitality Booth in the registration area or drop in at the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau at the southeast corner of the Salt Palace block, 180 South West Temple Street.

Next month, in the final article about Salt Lake City, we’ll feature some of the 1,100 eating (and drinking) establishments in the city, where you can find food and atmosphere to fit almost any taste, pocketbook, or time schedule.

Put C&RL News on your mailing list

C&RL Newslikes to include short, practical ideas of interest to our readers. Many of these items are picked up from brief notices read in library newsletters, e.g., the ideas for the notices about Post-its I (page xx) and the information about confidentiality of library records (page xx) were found in library newsletters. Many of the personnel changes we report are also picked up from these newsletters. If your library or institution has a newsletter please be sure C&RL News is on your mailing list. Newsletters should be sent to: Editor, C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.