It all started with a third-grade homework assignment.
In 1963, Jim Liversidge clipped out a news article documenting then-President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Since that day, he has saved about 7,000 items related to pop culture.
After about five decades, the collector decided to hang up his self-dubbed guilty pleasure and donate everything to UF's Smathers Libraries.
About 40 people examined his collection at a reception Monday at Library East, poring over items related to John Lennon, PBS icon Mister Rogers, comedian Bill Cosby, Neil Armstrong and other history greats.
Liversidge, curator of the library's Popular Cultures Collections, donated his collection in June.
The exhibit, which ended Monday, included items such as trading cards, bobblehead dolls, autographed photos, news clippings, movies and a George W. Bush jack-in-the-box.
All items are still available to view by request.
Liversidge created an online inventory that students can browse on the Special and Area Studies Collections Web site.
The official name is "The Passing Parade: A Baby Boomer Collects: The Jim Liversidge Collection," but Rich Bennett, chairman of the department that oversees the collection, said Liversidge joked about calling the exhibit "Get a Life."
Over the years, Liversidge's collection spanned a spectrum of categories beyond the original scrapbook fixation to include such pieces as figurines, campaign pins, books and autographs from a range of well-known politicians, filmmakers, TV stars and musicians.
"It just kind of became a (passion) after a while, and a compulsion actually," Liversidge said.
"The last couple of years, I realized I needed to move on."
Liversidge said his favorite moment as a collector came when he obtained an autograph from actor Larry Fine of the television program "The Three Stooges."
Mixed in with the items from major historical events are pieces reflecting Liversidge's personal interests, including an entire section dedicated to the film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."
Politics is the largest genre in his collection, but he also has categories encompassing space exploration, comedy shows and sports.
Bennett even contributed an original Carl Yastrzemski baseball card from his youth to Liversidge's collection.
"For all of us who have been through this period, it's a wonderful walk down memory lane," Bennett said.
