The University Record, December 5, 1995
Stumped for gifts? The answer may be right on campus
By Joanne Nesbit
News and Information Services
No crowded parking lots. No quarters for the meters. Holiday shopping on campus includes free transportation and is as easy as hopping a big blue bus.
Gift shops on Central Campus offer a variety of holiday treasures from stocking stuffers and tree trimmers to Hanukkah presents.
The University Library offers its “Keepsake Series” of facsimiles culled from the library’s collections, including a copy of James Jesse Strang’s Michilimackinac originally published in 1856 and telling the tale of Beaver Island and a separate Mormon kingdom. Also available is a full- color facsimile of “Mitchell’s Map of Michigan,” a pocket-sized map originally published in 1835 indicating communities, roads, rivers, and major stagecoach and steamboat routes.
Posters, note cards and postcards with botanical prints or illustrations from Aesop’s Fables also are available. Just inquire at the circulation desk on the first floor of the Graduate Library. Prices range from $3 to $10 including tax.
Need to know what to do when? The Museum Shop at the Museum of Art can supply a 1996 Metropolitan Museum of Art engagement calendar.
Whether it’s a calendar, an Asian teapot, notecards featuring images from the Museum’s sumptuous holdings in Japanese and Chinese art or a coffee mug, umbrella, necktie, T-shirt, or piece of jewelry, the Museum Shop just might have the item you’re looking for. It could be something “Made in Michigan,” a piece of hand-crafted Pewabic pottery, or one of many quilt-inspired gift items.
The shop also carries books, posters, and games and puzzles for children and adults, including magnetic poetry kits. The Museum Shop, located on the first floor of the Museum, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursdays and noon-5 p.m. Sundays It will be closed Christmas Day.
Just across State Street at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, shoppers can pick up catalogues of past and present exhibits, card games featuring Greek myths and legends, and T-shirts in a variety of adult and children’s sizes with graphics ranging from King Tut to “Archaeologists love their mummies.” Check in at the desk when entering the front door and ask to see the assortment. The Kelsey is open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday and 1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Cut through the Diag to get to the Exhibit Museum’s gift shop where you can find everything from the planets to dinosaurs emblazoned on T-shirts for grownups and little folks. Coloring books with fossils, rocks and minerals and Ojibway Indians are right beside books about dinosaurs and night skies. From mugs, rubber stamps, peacock feathers, puzzles, stuffed and plastic animals to key chains and earrings, the answer to your shopping quest may be at the Exhibit Museum open 9 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 1-4:45 p.m. Sundays. The Museum and the gift shop will be closed Dec. 23-25.
The gift shop at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, located on Dixboro Road between Plymouth and Geddes, can take you deep into the north woods with audio tapes that include “A Wilderness Sleighride.” From books about birds (especially those that call Michigan home), gardening and wildflowers, to those about natural food cookery and edible wild plants, to postcards, art umbrellas, sweatshirts, gift tags, earrings and gardening tools, the small but well stocked gift shop should allow you to cross a number of things off your list.
This also is where you can find living plants, door knockers, windchimes, gardening tools, and wild rice and wild rice soup mix. If you don’t see it, ask for it. The gift shop is open 10 a.m.-4:30 seven days a week and will be open Christmas Eve.
