"If I had to Live my Life Over Again, I would Be a Botanist": John Cage’s Mycology Collection

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Center for Archival Research and Training fellowship for funding this project. I owe a lot to Alix Norton (Center for Archival Research and Training Archivist) and Jessica Pigza (Outreach and Exhibits Librarian for Special Collections and Archives) from Special Collections. They both sent me primary resources for research and to use in this exhibit. Further, their edits, suggestions, and guidance played a significant role in the development of the project. Without this collaborative process, the digital exhibit would not have been possible. 

Dr. Kristy Golubiewski-Davis (Director of the Digital Scholarship Commons) and Daniel Story (Digital Scholarship Librarian) from Digital Scholarship provided invaluable assistance. Kristy (who I am convinced is a genius code writer and teacher) helped me understand some basic concepts of writing CSS as we both traversed the unknown world of the Scalar platform which hosts the exhibit. 

Thank you to my advisor Dr. Amy Beal (Clandestine Librarian and Cage scholar) who is always supportive of my various endeavors and continues to champion my exploration of new topics and ideas while encouraging me to elaborate on old ones. Dr. Tanya Merchant for her insightful comments on ethnographies versus histories. Larry Polansky (Composer and former Professor of Music at UC Santa Cruz), Gordon Mumma (Composer and former Professor of Music at UC Santa Cruz) and Jeffery Slayton (Dancer, Professor, Choreographer, and Author) all shared their time, ideas, and documents which I have used in this exhibit. Monica Ambalal (Professor at Merritt College and UCSC Colleague) was very kind and spent time translating archival documents from Italian to English, I miei ringraziamenti. My former advisor Dr. Sabine Feisst (Professor at Arizona State University, Tempe), Dr. Rob Haskins (Professor at the University of New Hampshire, Durham), and Dr. David Patterson (Independent Scholar, Chicago) are all musicologists and Cage scholars who remain important friends and influenced this project in various ways.

Last but certainly not least, Rita Bottoms the founder and former head of UC Santa Cruz's Special Collections, played a pivotal role in the development of this digital exhibit. Thank you for spending time with me this past summer 2020 where we discussed the Cage Mycology Collection and for loaning me important books and documents that are still largely inaccessible during the COVID–19 pandemic.

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