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The Do List

The Oakland Library Wants YOU ... to Make Weird History Dioramas

It's easy! Choose an East Bay tale from an old newspaper. Turn that into a tiny model. Win respect — and maybe prizes too!
Rae Alexandra
A small figurine faces forward and lays bricks at the center of a diorama.
Needy figurines are lining up to be included in the Oakland Library's new history exhibition. (Getty Images)

We’ve all been there. One minute you’re casually browsing newspaper archives in the library, the next you’re stumbling across a story from yore that’s so bizarre, you just have to render it in miniature form.

Yeah, okay, so, no. We clearly haven’t all been there. But apparently, there are enough people who get overcome with a history-fueled desire to create dioramas that the Oakland Library is building an entire exhibition around it.

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All the News That’s Fit to Build: Local News Dioramas will take over the Oakland History Center on the second floor of the Oakland library’s main branch between early August and late November. The plan is for the show to be a creative and engaging way to bring stories from East Bay history into the present day.

Best of all? The Oakland Library is specifically requesting that participants get as weird as possible. Examples of newspaper story subjects that library staff think would make for good dioramas include: a cop who put a raccoon in jail for disorderly conduct, a man who got accidentally buried up to his neck in mud at Lake Merritt, and a 1940s Hayward highway that was blocked by 10 tons of tomatoes.

All clearly excellent suggestions, but we at KQED Arts & Culture would like to add some to the pile, if we may be so bold. Such as:

  1. The entire streetcar of witnesses in Fruitvale who saw a Victorian UFO one night in 1896
  2. The “City of Oakland” hot air balloon pilots who went on a mayhem-drenched near-death ride in 1909
  3. The San Antonio Spurs players who, in 2014, were terrorized by a ghost baby in a Berkeley hotel
  4. The dumb 1950s teens in Walnut Creek who stole some dynamite and shattered a square-mile’s worth of windows
  5. The seven West Oakland junkyard tweens who built themselves a functioning rollercoaster in 1915

Feeling inspired yet?

If you need some extra incentive, outstanding creations will be honored at a special reception on Oct. 4 with prizes provided by Kala Art Institute, Flax Art & Design, Fenton’s Creamery and East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse.

The Oakland Library is requesting that all dioramas — which must not exceed 6 inches in height — be delivered between July 21 and Aug. 2, 2025, along with a copy of the newspaper story it’s based on. (This should include important details like name of newspaper and publication date.)

Creators are welcome to access the library’s archives and newspapers.com account for inspiration. Finding ghost baby and/or raccoon figurines is entirely up to you.

‘All the News That’s Fit to Build: Local News Dioramas’ will be on display at The Oakland Library’s History Center (125 14th Street, 2nd Floor) between Aug. 9 and Nov. 29, 2025. Potential participants can find full instructions at the library’s website.

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