The Internet Archive just reached an important milestone by digitizing 5,000 books at Duke. The 5,000th book, The British Album: In Two Volumes, contains poetry by “Della Crusca, Anna Matilda, Arley, Benedict, The Bard” and other writers on themes including love, horror, jealousy, and death, and is part of the general collections of the Rubenstein Library. The “Ode to Death” begins “THOU, whose remorseless rage, Nor vows, nor tears assuage, TRIUMPHANT DEATH!—to thee I raise, The bursting notes of dauntless praise!” The second volume can be found here.
The Scribe Scanner. Photo by Rita Johnston.
The Internet Archive scanning center at Duke University has been in operation for one and a half years and has digitized materials from collections within the Rubenstein Library, including the University Archives, Utopian Literature, and Confederate Imprints. I scan about 450 pages per hour and around 50 books a week. Most books in the public domain under 11 x 13 inches in size can be digitized on the Scribe book scanner, as well as pamphlets and loose documents.
Books digitized through Internet Archive are usually available on the site by the next day, are full-text searchable, and can be read in a web browser or downloaded to a computer; e-book reader; or mobile device. You can find newly digitized Duke materials by clicking on the RSS feed link at the bottom right on this blog or by visiting the Duke University Libraries Internet Archive page. Patrons can request a book to be digitized by the Internet Archive by contacting Rubenstein Library staff.
Post contributed by Rita Johnston, Scribe scanner operator.
Tonight and on December 6th, the Duke New Music Ensemble will be performing new compositions written as soundtracks for films from the Rubenstein Library’s collections. We asked the dnme composers to tell us a little bit about the films they chose and how they inspired their compositions. For more details about the performances, visit the group’s Facebook page or click the poster at right to enlarge it.
David Kirkland Garner
The video I chose to use is from H. Lee Water’s “Spindale ’37” film (from the H. Lee Waters Film Collection). I chose the portions of the video having to do with the factory for Yelton’s Flour, opening with footage of the flour refining process from inside the building then turning to the procession of workers leaving the factory at the end of the day. The music I wrote is not meant to be closely synced with the video. Rather, it creates a singular mood for the film images. The music is created in two parts: a repeating groove in the keyboard, bass and 3 banjos and a slowly unfolding melody in the other instruments. At the beginning and end of the piece the ensemble uses percussion instruments to imitate the sounds of summer in rural North Carolina.
Jamie Keesecker
Margolin’s 1965 Hawaii film footage (from the Morris and Dorothy Margolin Film Collection) presents a challenge in that almost every moment captured in the footage comes from a performance that was originally accompanied by music, and the musicians themselves can be seen throughout most of the film. Seeing the musicians strumming guitars and ukeleles in unison is one of the aspects that attracted me to this film. But rather than attempting to recreate the music that would have originally accompanied the images in the video, I have written music that is merely meant to represent my own reactions to seeing the film. At the same time, I have chosen to write for a consort of mostly plucked string instruments similar to those depicted in the video. Musical gestures are at times intended to be synchronized with the musicians on film, and other times not, just as the musical material itself contains hints of Hawaiian tropes while remaining, on the whole, quite different from what would actually have been played by the musicians on film.
D. Edward Davis
My archival footage is of a student protest that occurred at Duke University in 1969 (from the Radio TV Services Records). Despite the “homemade” image quality (or perhaps because of it), the images capture the drama of the protesters in action, with the cameraman acting as a participant and not a spectator. I’m drawn to this film because of its connection with the University’s history, and I tried to mirror the intensity but also the sinister beauty of these images with my music. As students are presently (Nov 2011) involved in “Occupying Duke” in the same physical location as the 1969 protests, I love how the film has both a distant timeless quality and a captivating immediacy. Thanks to the staff of the Archives for preserving this footage and also for making it accessible to researchers and artists.
Vladimir Smirnov
The video I chose was footage of traveling down a river (the Chao Phraya, I presume?) in Bangkok from a collection of travel footage by former Duke Professor Margolin (from the Morris and Dorothy Margolin Film Collection). I myself have never traveled to Thailand, and the video drew me in with its images of a very exotic world and with its slow hypnotic pace. I tried to create a musical atmosphere that the video suggested to me with very gentle and exotic sounds—muted piano, bowed vibes, slow swells on the guitar and bass, flute that is sung into at the same time as it’s played, banjo, and very sparse strings. I didn’t really think too much that I was working with archive film when writing, I just focused on the images and atmosphere.
Kenneth David Stewart
The footage I selected is of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens from 1937 (from the Radio TV Services Records). What moves me about this footage is how striking the color of the flowers appears as captured by the Kodachrome film. It is interesting how this footage from 1937 is just two years after Kodak made this kind of film commercially available—in fact, the famous color scenes in the Wizard of Oz were shot with this same film. This captured color, to me, almost has its own texture independent of the hue itself.
The written music for the instruments is based on the live ensemble playing the role of three choirs simultaneously ‘singing’ different music, but at the same time each contributing to a larger, composite texture. In addition to this, there is an electronic track with supporting harmony and the sounds of a typical journey in the rain from my home to the Biddle Music Building recorded onto microcassette.
The process used to construct the visual narrative is based on whether the camera shot is close to the flowers themselves or farther, panning across the gardens. At the same time a ‘chord progression’ of color directs the footage from yellow to orange to red to pink to white to ivory and back to yellow again to repeat the cycle. None of these textures are more important than another and in this way, the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.
My mother, a former professional horticulturalist, instilled in me a love of plants and flowers at a young age. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of my mother and I outside planting flowers and vegetables in our family garden. This piece is dedicated to her.
Post contributed by the members of the Duke New Music Ensemble.
Date: October 26, 2011-January 22, 2012 Location and Time: Rare Book Room cases during library hours Contact Information: Valerie Gillispie, 919-684-8929 or valerie.gillispie(at)duke.edu
Did you know that Duke hosted the only Rose Bowl played outside of Pasadena, CA?
Did you know that Duke chemistry students and professors created special bullets for training soldiers?
Did you know that Duke women played a pivotal role in wartime service and morale-raising?
Did you know that the Tarheels once liked the Blue Devils so much they were willing to loan them their football bleachers?
You can learn more about all these things (and even more!) by visiting “From Campus to Cockpit: Duke during World War II,” currently on display in the hallway cases outside the Rare Book Room.
The exhibit documents the academic, military, and humanitarian accomplishments of the Duke University community during World War II. Photographs, papers, artifacts, and archival film footage tell the story of the university’s spirited efforts to support the nation during a turbulent time of war—including hosting the 1942 Rose Bowl, expanding the possibilities for women in the academic realm, and cooperating with the city of Durham to host fundraising events.
Highlights of the exhibition include images of the first women engineering students at Duke, an original 1942 Rose Bowl ticket, a Red Cross bandage, memorabilia from “Rose Bowl Week” in Durham, and a variety of 1940’s-era military patches and insignia.
If you can’t stop by the display, you can also see many of the artifacts—along with Rose Bowl game footage, bonus materials and research resources—in our online exhibition.
Editorial cartoon from the Los Angeles Herald & Express, December 30, 1941.
Post contributed by exhibit curators Rosemary K. J. Davis, Isobel Craven Drill Intern, and Jessica Wood, William E. King Reference Intern.
Date: Halloween, Monday, October 31, 2011 Time: 11:00 AM-1:00 PM Location: Rare Book Room Contact Information: Rachel Ingold, 919-684-8549 or rachel.ingold(at)duke.edu
Have you ever wandered around a library’s stacks in the dark? Or wondered what might go bump in an archival box?
Stop by the Rubenstein Library’s Rare Book Room for a special Halloween “eeeks”-ibit and open house. We’ll be dragging out some of the creepiest and most macabre items from the shadowy depths of the library’s vaults—including the thirteen unlucky items below.
This event is free and open to the living and the dead. There will be candy. Lots and lots of candy.
49 Glass Eyeballs. From the History of Medicine Collections.
1. A travel diary written by John Buck, a young American who found himself face-to-face with Bram Stoker (before he wrote Dracula)
2. Letters to Duke University’s Parapsychology Laboratory describing the 1949 poltergeist case that became the basis for The Exorcist
3.Opera Omnia Anatomico-Medico-Chirurgica by 18th century Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch, featuring illustrations of fetal skeletons playing instruments among “trees” made of veins and arteries and “rocks and stones” that are actually organs, gallstones, and kidney stones
4. An entire box of glass eyeballs (49, to be exact)
5. “Jack the Ripper” and “Cthulhu by Gaslight,” two board games from the Edwin and Terry Murray Role Playing Game Collection
6. Artists’ books Mountain Dream Tarot by Bea Nettles and Femmes Fatales by Maureen Cummins. Tarot cards and pictures of medieval torture devices!
7. Brochures and advertisements for coffins and other funeral-related paraphernalia from the Advertising Ephemera Collection
8.Two copies of Henry Milner’s 1826 melodramatic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with the very first illustration of (the actor portraying) “the Monster”
9. Bela Lugosi’s signature
10. Maps and photographs of the Rigsbee Graveyard (yes, the graveyard in the Blue Zone)
This year, the Duke University Archives participated in the Duke University Union’s 2nd Annual Homecoming Scavenger Hunt. The hunt was a great opportunity to bring new students into the RBMSCL and share a part of their university’s history with them.
The clue: “Take a picture with the first issue of the Chronicle.”
Answer: Vol. 1, no. 1 of The Trinity Chronicle was published on December 19, 1905, and is one of the highlights of the University Archives’ collection. It’s only recently returned to us from the Verne and Tanya Roberts Conservation Lab, where it underwent a little conservation work and acquired a new box.
Here’s our photo album of scavenger hunters!
Good luck to all of the teams and we can’t wait for next year’s hunt! E-mail additional photos of your team and The Trinity Chronicle to amy.mcdonald(at)duke.edu and we’ll share them on our Facebook page.
We’re wrapping up our celebration of this first week of classes with a final look at one of the wonderful student (well, recent graduate) employees who help make this place run. We wouldn’t know what to do without them, and we’d have a lot less fun, too. Thanks, y’all!
As Drill Intern in the University Archives, a lot of the work I do for the RBMSCL is behind the scenes. Since starting my position in June, my recent projects have included helping establish the University Archives social media presence and co-curating an exhibition of archival materials for the fall, but the bulk of my time has been spent processing archival collections.
And what does that even mean? Well, it means I’m the person who receives boxes full of sometimes completely jumbled records, papers, notes, journals, and ephemera. It then becomes my goal to take this mish-mosh and make it accessible through arrangement and description. I get to figure out what’s in a collection, why people want to use it, and how to make the organization logical so that researchers can actually find the items and objects they’re seeking. Or maybe even better, so that researchers can find items and objects they never expected to find in the first place.
Truth be told, I really enjoy this work. I get to play detective a little bit: researching subjects, poring over their collected history, picking out clues. Then, I get to make the collections available for others to use for scholarly research, creative projects, and simple personal edification. Plus, since the collections I’m working with pertain directly to the history of Duke University, I am getting to learn more about the buildings, traditions, and fascinating hidden stories surrounding me every day. Having just moved to Durham from Brooklyn, I feel lucky to be working in an environment where connecting with the past is part of my everyday experience.
Post contributed by Rosemary K. J. Davis, University Archives Drill Intern.
Julian Shakespeare Carr. From the Picture File, M671.
At his summer home in Hillsborough, Trinity College trustee (and donor of much of the land that is now East Campus) Julian Shakespeare Carr built a model farm that became nationally-known for its innovative farming practices.
The dramatic presentation—which will feature Tom Stevens, Hillsborough’s mayor, as Carr—is based on Carr’s farm journal, part of the RBMSCL’s Julian Shakespeare Carr Papers. Additional stories and photos from the farm in its heyday will also be shared.
Early last week, friend of the RBMSCL and James B. Duke Professor of Economics Dr. Craufurd Goodwin came to us with an exciting discovery. He has kindly shared a few words about it, noting that “archives are where you find them.”
When my wife and I moved from Durham in 1977 to a property called Montrose on the edge of Hillsborough, a venerable green 1961 Chevrolet pickup truck was included. Legend had it that the truck had mainly gone once a week to a garbage dump on the edge of town and spent the rest of its life in its garage. It had 18,000 miles on the odometer.
After moving most of our possessions from Durham, the old truck reverted to its traditional role and has today only 33,000 miles. But last week, on the old truck’s fiftieth birthday, it seemed appropriate to let someone else play with this toy and I sold the truck. Soon after it left the driveway, I heard from the young man who bought it that he had discovered a photograph taken by a professional studio in Durham called “Miss Johnson, Durham, N.C.” of a person described on the back as “Holland Holton, 1922.”
Holton was one of the first professors at Duke University and an administrator in various capacities; his papers are now at the Duke University Archives. There was no dated photograph of Holton in the RBMSCL’s collections until this week, but now there is.
It is a complete mystery how this picture ended up on the floor of the old truck for at least 34 years, and perhaps 50. My predecessor at Montrose and in the truck was A. H. Graham, a prominent figure in the state (Lieutenant Governor, Highway Commissioner, etc.) but Carolina all the way. How a picture of a pioneering Duke professor ended up in his farm truck we shall probably never know.
Post contributed by Dr. Craufurd Goodwin, James B. Duke Professor of Economics at Duke University.
Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University
