Memorial Library Curie Exhibit

 

Next time you’re in Memorial Library, don’t just run past whoever’s checking IDs and head straight for the elevators!  Stop for a minute and enjoy this fascinating exhibit on Marie and Pierre Curie.  It’s right in the lobby, so you can easily check it out as you rush up to the stacks or to hunt out a study space.  Below is the official description from Robin Rider in Special Collections: “In conjunction with this year’s Go Big Read
selection, Radioactive
by Lauren Redniss, an exhibit in the lobby of Memorial Library
highlights both the scientific work of Marie and Pierre Curie and
articles about them in publications aimed at the general public. Marie and Pierre Curie — together, separately,
or in collaboration with others — produced scores of scientific
articles and longer works, some of which are on display. The dates
stamped within the volumes of such publications show that the
University of Wisconsin library received many of them quite
quickly, sometimes within just a few weeks of their publication in
Europe – this, at a time when such European publications reached
Madison by a combination of ship and rail. The exhibit also includes a sampling of mainly
American publications from the 1920s and 1930s illustrating the
place of Marie and Pierre Curie in the public eye (and the public
imagination). All of the volumes on display are from the holdings
of Memorial Library.” The image featured above comes from Marie Curie’s book Pierre Curie. Avec une études des “Carnets de laboratoire.” Paris: Denoël, 1955.  Full citation here. Brooke Williams, Go Big Read grad student