Bibliosaurus! Dinosaurs in the Popular Imagination

Sixty-six million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs became extinct. Yet look around, and they are everywhere: on billboards, company logos and cereal boxes. They leap out of the pages of children’s pop-up books, appear in editorial cartoons, and dominate comic strips, television and film. They are the subject of countless books, journal articles, toys and video games. Bibliosaurus! Dinosaurs in the Popular Imagination draws on the recent gift to the University of Chicago Library of the Edward Valauskas Collection of Dinosauriana to explore how dinosaurs transformed from objects of intense scientific inquiry into outsize figures in everyday life.

Using children’s books, field guides, journal articles, movie posters, lobby cards, original artwork and even Barbie dolls, Bibliosaurus! investigates subjects from the enduring legacy of Godzilla to the lasting contributions of amateur fossil hunters. The exhibition also illustrates how paleontology has been presented to and captured the public imagination during the past two hundred years.