In conjunction with its current exhibit, the Eberly Family Special Collections Library is hosting a Gallery Talk from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday (June 29) in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, University Park.

Arts Festival Executive Director Rick Bryant comes to Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium at noon this Wednesday (June 29) to discuss the past and present of the festival, in conjunction with the Special Collections Library’s exhibit on display through July 29.

Featured speaker Rick Bryant has served the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts for more than 32 years, first as a volunteer picking up trash in 1984, as an employee since 1999 and now as its executive director.

From the festival’s early days through today, his talk reviews how the Arts Festival has changed yet stayed the same.

The festival, like his talk, emphasizes fun! In Bryant’s words, “It’s not a 50-year-old calculus test!”

The Special Collections Library’s exhibit “Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts at 50: Making Lasting Memories” is on display with artifacts from the CPFA archives, including programs, photographs, newspaper clippings, T-shirts, buttons, brochures and reports, through July 29. The 2016 Arts Festival is July 14-17 in downtown State College and on the University Park campus, with its annual Children and Youth Day on July 13. BookFest, sponsored in part by the Arts Festival and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 16, in and outside Schlow Centre Region Library. This year’s BookFest explores the comic book as a graphic medium of storytelling.