The Archive of Documentary Arts monthly blog post highlights work in our holdings that has been digitized. This month, we remember the work of photographer Hugh Mangum (1877-1922), currently on exhibit at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. Graduate student Sarah Stacke curated the exhibit Keep All You Wish: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum as her final project for the Graduate in Liberal Studies degree, Spring 2012. The exhibit can be viewed at the Lyndhurst Gallery at the Center for Documentary Studies until October 20, 2012. Keep All You Wish will be viewable online through the Library’s exhibit site shortly.
Hugh Mangum primarily photographed in small towns between Durham, North Carolina, and southern Virginia. The collection is comprised of unidentified glass plate negatives. The images in this blog are jpegs of photographer Bill Bamberger’s inkjet prints created for the exhibit from the Library’s scans of the glass plate negatives.
Post contributed by Karen Glynn, Photography Archivist, Archive of Documentary Arts.
Special Collections Library reading rooms often require special equipment to view non-traditional record formats such as VHS players, cassette players, microfilm readers, etc. The Rubenstein Library recently welcomed a new piece to the set: a desktop computer.
Rubenstein Library Research Services staff check out the reading room's new e-records computer work station.
Though public computers have been available in our reference room for a long time to assist in finding and requesting physical materials in the reading room this new machine has been designed to support providing local access to electronic records and audio/video materials.
Some of the materials you can explore on the computer include:
This month the Archive of Documentary Arts highlights the work of Frank Espada. The images were selected from Nation on the Move – the Puerto Rican Diaspora: Photographs by Frank Espada, 1963-1990, an exhibit currently on view in the Rubenstein Library. The exhibit presents images from Espada’s photographic survey of the Puerto Rican diaspora, with a focus on rural migration in Hawaii and Pennsylvania, and urban migration in New York City and Hartford, Connecticut.
The Rubenstein Library’s Archive of Documentary Arts acquired the Frank Espada Photographs and Papers Collection in 2011. Collection materials include exhibit prints, work prints, contact sheets, negatives, oral history interviews, transcripts, and papers.
Washington, D.C., 1973Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, 1984Pentecostal preacher, East New York, Brooklyn, NY, 1964The cook's boy, mushroom farm, Kennett Square, PA, 1981
According to Wikipedia, “finding aids are a concept dating back to ancient clay tablets.” While I certainly didn’t learn that factoid in library school, I suppose that if you’re writing on tablets, then you probably need a special tablet (a finding aid?) that tells you where you put all of the other tablets, right? Maybe…
Whatever their origins, finding aids are an important tool for locating material in archival collections and last month the Rubenstein Library’s online finding aids got a major facelift. We’ve brought them out of the Stone Age by completely overhauling the layout and introducing some new functionality. With these improvements, we hope our finding aids are more attractive and usable for both researchers and staff.
What box is my stuff in? Requesting the wrong box is frustrating. With new color coding, repeating box numbers, and other visual cues, it’s now easier to determine which container to request. Container numbers have been moved to the right-hand side of the page so as not to interfere with description.
Navigation Box now on all finding aids
Boring stuff moved to the bottom. Finding aid usability studies indicate that administrative information, subject headings, and lengthy biographical notes are infrequently used, so we’ve relocated those sections to the bottom of the finding aid, keeping the most useful information at the top.
Floating navigation box. A navigation box at the right of the screen stays with you as you scroll, making it easy to navigate to other sections in the finding aid wherever you are. You can’t outrun it. Don’t even try.
Search this finding aid! A search box in the finding aid navigation box lets you search for keywords in the text of any finding aid. It’s just like your browser’s “Ctrl F” function!
Series Quick Links. The “Series Quick links” feature in the navigation box activates a small pop-up in the bottom right of the screen for quickly navigating through different series in a collection. Works great with really large finding aids with many series.
Expanding / Collapsing. Now you can control how much detail you want! By default, finding aids display in their entirety, but click a series/subseries title to expand or collapse content of that series or subseries. Also, an experimental “Level of Detail” slider in the navigation box lets you control how much detail you want. Sometimes you just can’t get enough.
Link to catalog records: At the bottom of the navigation box you’ll find a small “catalog record” link that will take you directly to the catalog record for that collection, no questions asked.
More prominent links to digital collections. Finding aids describing collections with digitized content now feature an icon above the banner with a link to the corresponding digital collection. Example: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/strykerdeena/
Finding aid for the Deena Stryker Photographs, with a link to the digital collection.
More prominent warnings for access restrictions. Look for the yellow boxes and yield icons.
Finding aids on the go! Using the principles of Responsive Web Design, we’ve redesigned finding aids to display appropriately on any size device—iPhone, iPad, IMAX, you name it. Just for kicks, open a finding aid in your browser, start narrowing the browser window, and watch the content adjust to fit.
Finding aids are now easily accessed by phone.
Take a moment and let us know what you think about our new finding aids site. We appreciate your feedback.
Post contributed by Noah Huffman, Archivist for Metadata and Encoding.
Now, the yearly catalogs, known as Bulletins, are being digitized thanks to the Internet Archive’s Scribe machine located here at the Duke University Libraries. These newly-searchable resources provide more and better access to historical information about Duke University. The catalogs include information like courses offered, of course, but they are also full of other useful facts.
For instance:
What was the Trinity College undergraduate tuition for the 1892-1893 academic year (the college’s first year in Durham)? ($25.00 per term)
How many bound volumes did the Library contain at the end of the 1923-1924 academic year? (71,520)
Who was the Director of Physical Education and Athletics for the 1947-1948 academic year? (Edmund “Eddie” Cameron)
In addition, there were specialized catalogs for graduate and professional education, so that someone researching the School of Medicine, for example, can learn more about that program in particular. There are even fun extras like aerial views of campus from the 1930s.
Virtually turning the pages of these historical catalogs provides a wealth of information. In the 1934-1935 Law School bulletin, for example, it lists the current students. One, Richard Milhous Nixon of Whittier, California, was a first-year student at the time. We can also tell from the catalog that school started on September 19 that year, and that “in addition to concert programs, recitals, and lectures, motion pictures are shown in the campus auditorium twice a week.” Sounds like a pretty interesting place to get an education!
Find links to Chanticleers and Bulletins at the Duke University Archives section of the Internet Archive. Additional Bulletins will be digitized in the near future, along with other Duke University resources.
Post contributed by Val Gillispie, Duke University Archivist.
Eastman Kodak announced yesterday that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company has had a long struggle to reinvent itself in the digital photography age, having been a pioneer in the industry. The 132-year-old business has had a long and colorful history using advertising to promote its products. Through its advertising, Kodak taught the world what was worthy of picture taking. Think about it: before there were cameras, there were only illustrations and paintings to visually document people, places, and events. With the advent of photography, things could be depicted much more quickly and easily, but people needed to be shown how to use the new technology and inspired to capture images on film. In the multitude of print ads created over the company’s life, Kodak showed us examples of what could be photographed: weddings, graduations, holidays, births, proms, etc. These ads are literally and figuratively “snapshots” of American life.
Due to Eastman Kodak’s bankruptcy declaration, these digitized ads have received quite a bit of attention this week. Here are a few links to articles using Kodak ads from the Hartman Center’s collections:
A monthly series highlighting the Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection Project and the woman behind the documents.
Diamonstein-Spielvogel
Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel is a fierce advocate for art in fashion, design and architecture and a leading voice on some of the defining urban issues of our time, including preservation of the historic built environment of the United States. The impact of her work is all around us. Have you been inside re-adapted buildings? Diamonstein-Spielvogel was one of the pioneers of adaptive reuse of buildings throughout the country. Have you seen “Historic neighborhood” medallions on street signs in numerous major cities? She pushed for those (and still does). As we start the New Year, we are excited to announce the Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection, a new addition to the Rubenstein’s Archive for Documentary Arts.
Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel helps to commemorate the inventor of Scrabble with an historic street sign.
Diamonstein-Spielvogel’s interest in the relationship among the arts, public policy, community and politics has charted the course of her career, fostered her involvement in national and local institutions and organizations, and earned her many awards and honors. As the first Director of Cultural Affairs for New York City, she brought the first public art to Bryant Park in 1987 and the first public performance by the Metropolitan Opera to Central Park. Diamonstein-Spielvogel was appointed by President Reagan to the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and by President Clinton to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, where she was elected its first woman vice chair in 2002. In 2010, Barack Obama appointed her as a commissioner of the American Battle Monuments Commission. She has written 20 books and dozens of magazine and newspaper articles and has served as interviewer/producer of nine television series for the Arts and Entertainment Network plus several programs for other national networks, many of which Duke has made available in the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Video Archive.
Diamonstein-Spielvogel's latest book, Landmarks of New York: An Illustrated Record of the City's Historic Buildings
As part of the two-year Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection Project, we will be processing the 200-plus boxes of manuscripts pertaining to her life and career. The project will culminate in an exciting exhibit in 2013. In our next post, look for information on Diamonstein-Spielvogel’s work with famous designers and artists including Calvin Klein, Adolfo, Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Nevelson, Jeanne-Claude and Christo, Roy Lichtenstein, and Sam Maloof.
Post contributed by Ruth Cody and Caroline Muglia, Graduate Interns for the Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel Collection Project.
The Archive of Documentary Arts continues its monthly series highlighting work in our holdings that has been digitized. This month we are spotlighting the Michael Francis Blake Photographs, 1912-1934. The collection includes 117 photographs of men, women, and children taken between 1912-1934 by Michael Francis Blake. Blake opened one of the first African-American photography studios in Charleston, S.C. and the photographs represent his work from the 1910s to his death in 1934. The images come from a photographic album entitled “Portraits of Members,” which might have been used by clients in the studio to select the backdrop and props they wanted in their photographs. To see more of Michael Francis Blake’s photographs, visit the library’s digital collection.
Post contributed by Kirston Johnson, Moving Image Archivist, and Karen Glynn, Photography Archivist, Archive of Documentary Arts.
Korean Man Reading, ca. 1917-19. From the Sidney D. Gamble Photographs.
Before we dive into another exhilarating semester, it’s high time we caught up on some recent articles about the Rubenstein Library and its collections.
Neil Offen wrote an article about the exhibit “From Campus to Cockpit: Duke University During World War II.” (The exhibit will be on display until January 29!)
