Star Trek Lives Long and Prospers at the Rubenstein

On May 16, 2013 By

With the opening of Star Trek Into Darkness this week, it seemed like a good time to check out what our collections have on Star Trek.  As it turns out, Star Trek’s long history before becoming a star-powered summer blockbuster is well represented in our collections.

I found a number of Star Trek comic books in the Continue Reading →

The Accidental Archivist

On May 8, 2013 By

Issues involved with the handling and preservation of ephemera—campaign buttons, stickers, scrapbooks, photo albums, brochures and pamphlets and such—have been an ongoing concern among curators and archivists, as many of our procedures and best practices concern materials commonly recognized as “important artifacts” such as art, works of prominent photographers, rare manuscripts and books. Many modern [...]

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Take a Nap, Doctor’s Orders

On April 12, 2013 By

Recently the Rubenstein Library received an inter-library loan request that was quite appropriate for a drowsy Friday afternoon: Fatigue: What It Is and How to Overcome It, by Dr. Donald Anderson Laird. This short pamphlet, collected as part of the John W. Hartman Center for [...]

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Before Game of Thrones

On March 29, 2013 By

Before Game of Thrones, renowned fantasy author George R. R. Martin was a fan of all things nerd, just like you (and me)!  Check out this 1965 fan letter written by a 16 year-old Martin to Batwing, a fanzine published in Texas  by prolific fanzine writer Larry Herndon (and now included in our [...]

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Down the Rabbit Hole with a Book about Popes

On March 14, 2013 By

Vatican history is not something the Rubenstein Library actively collects, but it is always fun to discover how our materials relate to current events, like the election of a new pope. Over lunch one day last week, several of us archivists began wondering what sort of collections we have related to popes. A quick search [...]

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Fascinating Finds in the Stacks: Women’s Lib?

On March 13, 2013 By

In the wake of our collections move, I came across a board game, “Women’s Lib? A Game of Women’s Rights.” As a child of the seventies, the box’s Bob Fosse-esque cover image caught my eye, as did the oh-so-1970 line drawings that reminded me of Schoolhouse Rock and other educational cartoons of my youth. However, [...]

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The Lovers, the Dreamers, and the Rubenstein Movers

On January 30, 2013 By

Hi Rubenstein Library move diary readers! We’re into Week 4 here at Rubenstein Library Move HQ. And one of the fun things about moving our collections out of our soon-to-be-renovated stacks has been marveling at the expanses of empty shelving. We have a lot of stuff!

Our stacks weren’t always, well, ours. A [...]

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Happy 100th Birthday Doris Duke!

On November 22, 2012 By

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The Titans of Commerce and Industry

On November 15, 2012 By

The History Channel recently aired “The Men Who Built America,” a docu-series about the titans of the early industrial age featuring Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, J. Pierpont Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller. As a self-described history junkie, I was immediately hooked. So imagine my delight when I came across a poster [...]

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What’s that Ringing in Perkins Library?

On November 5, 2012 By

Shortly after Duke’s football win over the University of North Carolina on October 20th, the Duke University Libraries’ Communications and Development Departments and the Duke University Archives had an idea: why not bring the Victory Bell to Perkins Library? The University Archives has tons of historical material about Duke’s football team and the [...]

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