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Greetings~
Today I wanted to remember Dennis Copeland, our retired Museums & Cultural Arts Manager. I first met Dennis when I took the role as your Library & Museums Director. Dennis had returned out of retirement to help provide consultation and direction of the California History Room and archival collections, and continued this role for the past 3+ years. He worked closely with our Local History Librarian Kathy Lo recently on a number of projects. Dennis passed away unexpectedly at home on Sunday, February 8th.
He contributed immensely to different authors, periodicals, historians, movies, journalists, and artists who were interested in the Monterey Peninsula. Personally, I respected his opinions and wealth of knowledge and saw him as a mentor of how we could celebrate and learn from our history. We often would find little pieces of history and share them in each other's inboxes. Recently Dennis shared with me an audiotour cassette of Big Sur (with intro by Clint Eastwood) to be digitized and I shared with him a 1904 Monterey's Bagby Opera house playbill - found during my weekend trips to thrift stores and antique shops. We communicated often through our love of interpreting local history stories - sharing notes or trivia pieces like we were history explorers. Whenever I prepared to do a talk or presentation on local history, I'd get feedback from Dennis first. We had our own unique ways of telling stories, our own pacing, and which pieces of the story to focus on. That's the beauty of storytelling.
I've often heard "but everything is already online." No, it is not. What you search, read, view and listen to online is due to people creating and curating content. Content online can range in quality - Dennis was a master at curating content and sharing community stories to make them accessible for the public. A single postcard, photo, or bill of sale can help us better understand the past. Great archives and archivists contribute to our shared cultural identities. Originally Dennis worked for the National Park Services at the Presidio in San Francisco and UC Berkeley before being recruited by Monterey to manage the archives here. His work in making our content organized and accessible has elevated Monterey history and stories for future generations. We had extensive conversations on how we can continue to improve our collections, preserve historic buildings, and celebrate artwork for our next generations. Although you may not have known Dennis personally, at one point you probably saw some of his influence in the research of a newspaper article you read, a specific photo chosen for a book cover, interpretive panels around Cannery Row, or history content that AI is now scrubbing online. He worked over the years to highlight heritage tourism and to create a regional Local History roundtable to share information countywide.
Dennis will be dearly missed, but his chapter in the history of Monterey will not be forgotten. He was working here at the Library until the day before he passed, working diligently on curating content from our photo and document archives that will one day be used by a researcher or historian. He influenced many historians and librarians throughout Monterey County; personally he will always be a part of me and fueling my appreciation of the unique stories we have here in Monterey. I hear his chuckle now as I type this.
Warmly,
Brian
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