In the summer of 2013, CAS Library staff took the initiative and started to rearrange the display cabinets in the large conference room in the Smithers building. All objects on display are from the collection of the CAS Archives or from the Summer School, integrated into a full exhibit on the history of the Center.
The display is meant to demonstrate the five pillars of the Center in five display cabinets. In the center on the top is the original, hand-written Yale poster with the five original missions of the Center: research, publication, education, therapy, and special services. Historic research-related items below feature various research devices and their use pictured.
On the far left is the Journal (QJSA-JSA-JSAD) with a full run bound in blue and its various covers over time. The next cabinet highlights the Center’s efforts in alcohol publication and dissemination of information with representative pamphlets and other materials published at the Center. The Classified Abstract Archive of the Alcohol Literature (CAAAL), the archetype of organizing alcohol and substance abuse information with 20,000 abstracts collected from 1939 through 1977, is represented with its manual, a sorting needle, and a replica McBee punch card. The shelves above are dedicated to the documentalist and editor Mark Keller highlighting some of his achievements.
The first cabinet on the far right focuses on education with a display of the Summer School’s famous and eye-catching t-shirts on the top and educational materials on the shelves below. The second cabinet from the right highlights further CAS publications and memorabilia, such as the alco-calculator and classic glass slides. Above is a small tribute to E.M. Jellinek with the “Bunky”, the bust of Jellinek awarded to Mark Keller as the Jellinek Memorial Award, a few representative publications, a sketch of Jellinek drawn by Vera Efron, and a few screenshots from the 10-minute educational cartoon Jellinek supervised for the World Health organization – with himself as one of the characters.
Four of the original twelve Yale Plan Clinic posters are also displayed on the walls. The conference room exhibit was completed with a large display highlighting notable people in alcohol studies, Summer School group photos, the Journal, and the history of the Center in the form of a modular mural on the wall opposite the cabinets.
–Originally published in the October 2013 issue of the CAS Information Services Newsletter