The UC Berkeley library system is one of the largest in the United States, so it is no wonder that treasures are often forgotten and buried inside the rare collections. Case in point: a massive collection of signed prints by Ansel Adams have been discovered in one of the library archives, just sitting around in a box.

The prints -- totaling 605 in number -- were part of a project Adams had been hired for in the 1960s, that involved photographing the UC system. The images were slated to be part of a coffee table-sized book celebrating the university system's 100th anniversary in 1968.

Adams photographed the landscapes and buildings over a four-year period while touring nine of the university's campuses, research stations and agricultural outposts.

But, when the man who hired Adams, University of California President Clark Kerr, was fired, the project was canceled.

The prints were discovered recently by UC Berkeley theater and dance professor Catherine Cole after she had been combing through documents in the school archive for an unrelated project.

"I kept seeing the name Ansel Adams and thought 'what the heck is he doing all over the UC archives,'" says Cole.

Her search led her to the school's Bancroft Library, where she found the Adams prints in a box among the university's rare collections.

Fifty of the prints are now on display at the library.

In addition to the museum exhibit, the book with the photographs is being reissued through the university's "On the Same Page" program.

Adams' photographs of the University of California make up his second largest body of work.