Halloween always brings out the worst in people. Garish pumpkin sweaters and sequined Walmart costumes. It was with that dejection about this commercial holiday that I discovered the ghost stories of a prominent art historian, the Cambridge manuscript curator Montague Rhodes James http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/jamesm.htm. James, provost of King’s College (1905-1918), wrote stories in his spare time, yarns weaving his knowledge of antiquities together with the aberrant personalities (which were apparently more common in the nineteenth century), into stories of the supernatural. They are not easy reading. The stories ramble, focusing on physical detail without additional effect, rather like a drunk Henry James or a G. K. Chesterton without a sense of humor. Still, it’s fascinating to see what constituted scary a hundred years ago. Without the popularly-held image of what a ghost looks like, M. R. James describes them anew (one is characterized as a visage with its facial flesh burned off). Doom doesn’t last forever, either. The haunted manuscript acquired by an unsuspected dupe only temporarily brings its owner ill fate.
If Halloween is the time to experience the odd within the confines of the familiar, then M.R. James’ Ghost Stories are truly that. A glimpse of ancient days written from those very long ago days.
James, M. R. (Montague Rhodes), 1862-1936. Collected ghost stories. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011. Perkins/Bostock Library. PR6019 .A565 2011
Day of Dead Altar, created by Carla Cella (MALS 2014). On display outside the International and Area Studies Office in Bostock Library, 2nd Floor.
Exhibit Opening and Day of the Dead Reception
When: Friday, November 1 Time: 3:00-5:00 p.m. Where: International and Area Studies, 2nd Floor Bostock Library (click for map)
There will be refreshments at the reception, including Pan de Muertos, in celebration of the Day of the Dead.
Two new exhibits will be opening November 1 in Bostock Library, both celebrating the traditional Mexican holiday the Day of the Dead. The first exhibit, assembled by Carla Cella (MALS 2014), is an altar built in the Day of the Dead tradition. Every year Mexicans create altars to honor the lives of those who have died. The altars include foods or objects that were meaningful to the deceased. The exhibit mimics the style of these altars, but is centered around themes of Diaspora and Indigeneity from the 2013 NC Latin American Film Festival. (Read a guest post by Carla about some of the influences behind the altar and those it seeks to honor.)
Part of the exhibit on printmaker José Guadalupe Posada
The second exhibit is titled José Guadalupe Posada: Printmaker to the Mexican People, and celebrates his contributions to Mexican art, politics, and society. His work inspired famous Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Posada is best known for his costumed calaveras (skulls) which were often designed as social commentary critiquing the upper classes. However, they have now come to be associated with the Day of the Dead celebration.
Come visit these two fascinating exhibits, while enjoying a taste of the Day of the Dead with some pan de muertos!
Free and open to everyone. Because lunch will be served, please register to help us estimate attendance.
In celebration of International Education Week, please join us for a special international buffet lunch and panel discussion on Duke’s global initiatives at home and around the world. Hear from university leaders across campus and learn more about Duke’s exciting endeavors in global research, study abroad, Duke Kunshan, DukeEngage, support for international students on campus, and more.
Lunch begins at 11 a.m., and the panel discussion starts at 11:30. The event will conclude with a Q&A and open conversation.
Speakers
Welcome:Eve Duffy, Director of Programs and Initiatives, Office of Global Strategy and Programs Moderator:Li-Chen Chin, Director of Intercultural Programs, Center for Multicultural Affairs
Guest post by Carla Cella (MALS 2014), creator of the Day of Dead altar and exhibit on display outside International and Area Studies on the 2nd floor of Bostock Library. Read on as she explains and describes some of the influences behind the altar and those it seeks to honor.
Detail of the Day of the Dead altar on display outside the International and Area Studies offices in Bostock Library.
In a world of growing global migration, indigenous tribes are often thought of as static relics of a past time, stewarding territories passed down for centuries. However, indigenous people are not exempt from global migratory trends. Although most indigenous groups in Latin America still live in rural areas, an increasing number are becoming urbanized. Some drivers of this diaspora are militarization, land dispossession, natural disasters, deteriorating environments, poverty, and a dream for a better life in the big city. By 2000, a third of Mexico’s indigenous people, approximately 12% of the country’s total population, had migrated to cities. Oftentimes, whole communities are displaced in the global push for energy and development. Such is the case with Brazil’s Belo Monte Dam, which will displace between 20,000 and 50,000 people who live adjacent to the Xingu River.
Aside from representing the incorporation of indigenous groups into a contemporary globalized and mobile way of life, Indigeneity on the Move also aims to keep the memory of past indigenous diasporas alive. The United States’ Indian Removal Act of 1830 was responsible for the Trail of Tears, a cultural trauma that was the Native American’s eviction from tribal lands and consolidation into designated reservations in the mid-west.
This altar honors the efforts of original peoples across the Americas to maintain a connection to their traditional culture, and pass it on to their progeny, as they uproot, pack up, and move away from their ancestral lands.
Join the Libraries for a special exhibit opening and Day of the Dead reception on Nov. 1. Click on the image for more details.
The photobook, Iris Garden, combines forty-four photos by Gedney with twenty-two stories written by legendary avant-garde composer John Cage. It was edited by Alec Soth, designed by Hans Seeger, and published by Little Brown Mushroom. Both the Rubenstein Library and Kirston Johnson, curator of the Archive of Documentary Arts, are acknowledged for their help in providing the photographs which beautifully illustrate the book.
The cover of Iris Garden (2013), edited by Alec Soth and designed by Hans Seeger.
The layout of Iris Garden is a complicated arrangement of segments folded and layered inside and around each other. There is no one proper way to read through it. By opening and unfolding different pages, the reader enjoys a new order and experience every time. The structure parallels Cage’s interest in the idea that “all things—stories, incidental sounds from the environment, and, by extension, beings—are related, and that this complexity is more evident when it is not oversimplified by an idea of relationship in one person’s mind.”
The Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards are held annually to recognize photobooks of superior quality and content. The ten books that were named to the short list represent, according to judge Vince Aletti, “a particular attention to the book as an object, in which selection of images, sequence, scale, typography, and materials are all carefully considered.”
The Great Hall of the Library of Congress. Photos courtesy of Ashley Young.
This past Thursday morning, I headed to the City Archives Division of the New Orleans Public Library as the sun’s first rays skimmed over the Mississippi, knowing that I wanted to get in a full day of research before venturing to Washington, D.C., for the National Collegiate Book Collectors Contest awards ceremony. As I pored over documents at the archive, I couldn’t help but daydream about my impending trip to the Library of Congress (LOC), where my fellow awardees and I were likely to take a tour of the special collections as part of the NCBCC event. Our families were also invited to partake in all of the celebrations, and my parents were planning to drive down from Pittsburgh for the weekend. I was looking forward to hearing Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the LOC, speak about some of the library’s most precious and unique documents. I was also eager to see the complete replica of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library and the celebrated architecture of the LOC’s Great Hall with its marble columns, jewel-toned stained glass ceiling, and brilliantly painted ceiling panels. Although undeniably enthusiastic, I had no inclination as to how memorable and inspiring this trip would be for my parents and me.
The main reading room at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
The partial government shutdown necessitated some changes in the traditional proceedings of the NCBCC awards ceremony. Instead of heading to the LOC for the special collections tour as originally planned, we visited the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill. The library, which was originally built by the Folger family in the 1930s, is known for possessing the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare materials. Additionally, it houses a rich and deeply fascinating collection of early modern books, manuscripts, and artwork. One of my favorite aspects of the Folger is its main reading room, which is modeled after an Elizabethan-era great hall. The ornate wood, rustic chandeliers, and vaulted ceilings create an environment that undoubtedly inspires the privileged scholars who research there on a regular basis.
Exploring some highlights from the Folger’s rare book and manuscript collections.
After the guided tour of the library, an extremely kind and animated archivist shared a few highlights of the rare book and manuscripts collection with us. These materials were awe-inspiring, ranging from 16th-century cooking manuscripts to an original printing (c. 1623) of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works. Other treasures included a law signed by Queen Elizabeth I and an encyclopedia of herbs accompanied by the original wood block that was used to print the image of the plant on the displayed page. We could not help but fall into animated conversations about the practices of book printing and binding in the early modern era. Before we knew it, our time with these amazing materials was up and we were being ushered out of the Folger to go to the NCBCC award ceremony.
The ceremony was a wonderful celebration of the three student collections that were awarded prizes for their creativity and deep scholarly approach. John Cole, the director of the LOC, personally introduced each of our collections and presented us with our award. Then Mark Dimunation interviewed each of us at the podium, asking thought-provoking questions as to why we originally became interested in the focus of our particular collections, how these collections are changing the way scholars understand our nation’s history, and what materials we are eager to include in our collections in the future. I was grateful to have an opportunity to voice my passion for historical cookbooks and the ways in which these sources are so much more than just repositories of recipes. Rather, their pages contain significant historical themes such as American transatlantic ties to Europe; racial tensions in the Jim Crow era; women’s roles in the postbellum South; and New Orleans’ transatlantic cultural exchange with Europe, West Africa, and the Caribbean.
Being interviewed by Mark Dimunation at the awards ceremony.
After the official ceremony, there was a two-hour cocktail reception—a wonderful opportunity to meet passionate bibliophiles whose collections are as interesting and eccentric as my own. For example, one collector has amassed thousands of copies of Alice in Wonderland in dozens of languages. He even wrote a satirical cookbook based on the fantastical world of Wonderland, and is going to share a copy with me. (That is a cookbook I never expected to have in my collection!) By the time the event had come to a close, I felt as though I had found a new community with which to share my research and collecting interests—one that will inevitably enrich the ties I have already established with my tight-knit scholarly community at Duke.
Now I am settled back into my life in New Orleans with another day of satisfying research under my belt. My evening routine has changed slightly after my weekend in D.C.—instead of drinking my customary cup of tea out of a nondescript mug, I am happily slurping from one I purchased as a keepsake this past weekend. Its words replicate those that grace the Great Hall of the LOC: “Knowledge Comes, but Wisdom Lingers.” As I prepare for another day in the archives, I enjoy the small reminder that my pursuit of a Ph.D. reflects my ultimate dream of being a life-long academic. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to continue to cultivate my historic cookbook collection in the coming years and hopefully turn some of that accumulated knowledge into lingering wisdom.
At the Library of Congress with fellow book collector Thomas Jefferson.
Duke parent Deborah Norville will speak in Perkins Library on Oct. 26 as part of Duke Family Weekend.
Inside Edition’s Deborah Norville When: Saturday, October 26 Time: 3:30-4:40 p.m. Where: Perkins Library, Room 217 (Click for map)
As part of Duke Family Weekend, the Duke University Libraries are pleased to present our annual event, “The Library Presents Duke Moms and Dads,” this Saturday, October 26, at Perkins Library.
The event showcases a parent of a first-year Duke student, providing them with a venue to discuss their career, life, and being a Duke parent.
This year’s featured speaker will be Deborah Norville, long-time anchor of television’s top-rated news magazine, Inside Edition. Norville is a two-time Emmy Award winner, best-selling author, and lifelong craft enthusiast with her own line of yarns. Her new book—The Way We Are, released October 22—commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of Inside Edition and the fascinating stories that defined it.
Norville and her husband Karl Wellner have three children: Nick, a 2013 Duke graduate; Kyle, a first-year student at Duke; and Mikaela, aged 16. She will talk about her experiences as a news anchor, the challenges of balancing work and life, and what it’s like to be a double-Duke parent.
The event is part of Duke Family Weekend and open to everyone. For more activities on campus that weekend, check out the Duke Family Weekend website.
Persepolis: The Story of A Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi
Book Discussion of Persepolis: The Story of A Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
First Session: When: Sunday, October 20 Time: 2:00 p.m. Where: The Nasher Museum of Art (click for map)
Second Session: When: Tuesday, October 22 Time: 7:00 p.m. Where: Respite Café, Durham
The Nasher Museum will be hosting a series of book discussion in connection with the current exhibit Doris Duke’s Shangri La: Architecture, Landscape, and Islamic Art. The books will focus on explorations of Islamic art and culture. The first, Persepolis: The Story of A Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi, tells the author’s story of life growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. The critically acclaimed graphic novel was also adapted into an animated film which was then nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.
My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk
Book Discussion of My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
First Session: When: Wednesday, November 13 Time: 11:00 a.m. Where: Nasher Museum of Art (click for map)
Second Session*: When: Sunday, November 17 Time: 2:00 p.m. Where: Nasher Museum of Art
* The second session will begin with a talk from the translator, Erdağ Göknar, followed by a discussion of the book.
The second series of book discussion hosted by the Nasher will focus on Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk’s book, My Name is Red. The novel, which was translated by Duke professor Erdağ Göknar, explores the conflict between Islamic and European principles in a 16th-century setting. The book provides an excellent opportunity to delve into the complex topic of cultural conflicts.
Award Ceremony for Aptman and Middlesworth Prize Winners When: Friday October 25, 2013 Time: 3:30 – 4:40 p.m. Where: Thomas Reading Room, Lilly Library (Click for Map)
The Middlesworth Awards were established to encourage and recognize excellence of research, analysis, and writing by Duke University students in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. This year the awards were presented in three categories: first-year students, non-first year undergraduates, and graduate students. The winners include:
First-Year Student: Ashley Gartin for her paper, “Unity and the Duke Vigil: Civil Rights Challenges at Duke University”
Undergraduate (non-first year): Chantel Liggett for her paper, “Divergent Priorities, Diverging Visions: Lesbian Separatist versus Gay Male Integrationist Ideology Surrounding Duke in the 1970s and 80s”
Graduate Student: Tessa Handa for her paper, “The Orientalist Reality, Tourism, and Photography: the Parrish Family Albums in Japan, 1899-1904”
The Lowell Aptman Prizes recognize undergraduates’ excellence in research, including their analysis, evaluation and synthesis of sources, and encourages students to make use of the general library collections and services at Duke University. These prizes are also awarded in three categories, one for first and second year students, another for third and fourth year students, and a final category reserved for fourth year students submitting an honors thesis. This year’s winners are:
First/Second Year: Theodore Leonhardt for his paper, “Finding a Role: The Decision to Fight in the Falklands and the Redefinition of British Imperialism”
Third/Fourth Year: Mary Tung for her paper, “Engraving the Nation: The Decimal Coinage Bill of 1959, the Mint and Coinage Act of 1964, and the Creation of White South Africa”
Honors Thesis: Jocelyn Streid for her thesis, “The Salvation Project: The Secularization of Christian Narratives in American Cancer Care”
All are welcome at the award ceremony, to be held October 25 during Duke Family Weekend. Help us celebrate and congratulate these students on their magnificent work!
An architectural drawing of Duke University’s East Campus
Outrageous Ambitions: How a One-Room Schoolhouse Became a Research University
On exhibit: October 13, 2013- February 17, 2014
Public Hours: Monday-Friday, 8am–7pm; Saturday, 9am–7pm; Sunday, 10am–7pm. Hours may vary of the holidays; please check the library hours page for more information.
About the Exhibit
Today’s Duke University, a premier research institution with global reputation, came from the humblest of beginnings: a tiny schoolhouse in Randolph County, NC. From there the organization shifted through many manifestations, ultimately transforming from Brown’s Schoolhouse into Duke University.
A new exhibit on display in Perkins Library, Outrageous Ambitions: How a One-Room Schoolhouse Became a Research University, traces the history of Duke University as it evolved and grew over the past 175 years. The exhibit showcases a selection of events that were fundamental in the creation of University, and focuses on several key themes: foundations, academics, student life, student activism, athletics, presidents, the Duke family, women at Duke, and the architecture of campus.
Brown’s Schoolhouse, the humble predecessor of Duke University
The materials for the exhibit, which include photographs, documents, ephemera, and other objects, were drawn from the University Archives (unless otherwise noted) and vibrantly illustrate the history of the school. Viewers can further explore Duke history by visiting the recently created online timeline, which highlights other key moments in Duke’s past. An online version of the exhibit is also available.
The title of the exhibit, Outrageous Ambitions, references a speech made by former University President Terry Sanford, in which he expounds on the seemingly impossible ambition that was responsible for creating Duke University. The exhibit seeks not only to remember the incredible aspirations that have supported Duke in the past, but also to inspire the continuing work of Duke students, faculty, staff, and alumni as they craft their own extravagant ambitions.
The exhibit was curated by Maureen McCormick Harlow, 175th Anniversary Intern in University Archives, and Valerie Gillispie, University Archivist. Special thanks to Meg Brown, Mark Zupan, Beth Doyle, the University Archives staff, and the staff of the Conservation and Digital Production Departments in the Duke University Libraries.
Our newly redesigned website will be right back after this short break!
Good things come to those who wait. For those who appreciate a little delayed gratification, we’re pushing back the launch of our redesigned library website by a couple of weeks.
Here’s why. After soft-launching on October 14 during Duke’s Fall Break, we quickly discovered some unexpected problems with people accessing their library accounts through the new site. Rather than cause any undue delays or frustration for our patrons, we decided to leave the old site in place until we could do more extensive testing and resolve the technical issue. We will re-launch the new site by the end of this month, once the problem is fixed.
During this brief intermission, you can still explore the prototype of the redesigned library website on our development server and let us know what you think. We want to thank our library users again for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience to those who reported trouble accessing their library accounts yesterday. Everything should be working normally now.
For more about the library website redesign, check out some of our previous blog posts. And keep an eye out for the unveiling of our new and improved (and fully functioning) website later this month.
This fall the source code for Fantasy Collecting, a pedagogical and research tool inspired by Fantasy Football and developed at Duke University, became publicly available on GitHub.
You may think you “know good art when you see it,” but this online art game will test your mettle as a tastemaker. Art fans, hackers, educators, and economists everywhere can now use Fantasy Collecting to both become the proud owners of masterpieces and attempt to mint new ones.
For those new to the notion of “fantasy art collecting” (which likely includes most of us), the Fantasy Collecting game is a classroom teaching and research tool that uses the pulse-pounding, high adrenaline activity of a virtual art market to teach art history and economics. Students try their hands at strategically increasing their collections’ value by promoting, acquiring, and trading works of art while performing micro-scholarship in the process.
Game co-designers Katherine Jentleson (Ph.D. Candidate in the Art, Art History, and Visual Studies department and member of the Duke Art, Law and Markets Initiative) and William Shaw (Duke University Libraries’ Digital Humanities Technology Consultant with the Humanities Writ Large initiative) developed and tested the game with art history and economics classes before preparing the code for public release under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Thanks to a collaboration with Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art, students were able to play first with works from the world-renowned contemporary art collection of Duke alumni Jason Rubell and later with the 1,000+ permanent collection works that the Nasher has digitized as part of its eMuseum.
Built as a teaching tool with many potential applications, the game can now be used by others as a supplement to classroom and book learning, as a basis for research studies on topics like art preferences and auction behavior, or even just for casual play. The flexibility of the code allows new users to populate the game with images relevant to his or her teaching or research goals, determine the length of desired rounds of the game, and customize game events that incentivize players to meet challenges like writing “vision statements” about their collections. Documentation and explanatory videos provided along with the code offer instruction on how the game and game play work, and specifically how it was used for art history instruction.
The three videos below explain the concept and purpose behind the Fantasy Collecting game, the rules of game play (including video captures), as well as educational outcomes and student engagement.
The Forum for Scholars and Publics will be hosting a panel discussion on Open Access, Oct. 18.
Open Access Panel Discussion When: Friday, October 18 Time: 3:30- 5:00 p.m. Where: Old Chemistry Building, Room 011 (Click for Map) Registration: No registration is required
There will be a reception following the panel discussion.
In celebration of Open Access Week, the Duke Forum for Scholars and Publics will be hosting a panel on Open Access as part of their open house event. The discussion will explore how the push for Open Access to academic journals and other scholarly publications, along with the rapid rise of MOOCs, is reshaping the image of the university in the broader world.
The panelists represent a diverse group of opinions. They include Ken Wissoker from Duke University Press, faculty members Cathy Davidson and Mohamed Noor, and Paolo Mangiafico from the Duke University Libraries. The discussion will be moderated by Mark Anthony Neal, and opening remarks will be made by Dean Laurie Patton.
Free lunch will be provided for participants before the event in the Schiciano Lobby from 12:00-1:00pm.
Come join us on October 22 and learn how to best use IEEE Xplore, one of the premier resources for scientific and technical content.
The IEEE Xplore digital library is a powerful resource for discovery and access to information published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and its partners. IEEE Xplore provides Web access to more than 3-million full-text documents from some of the world’s most highly cited publications in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics. The content in IEEE Xplore comprises over 160 journals, over 1,200 conference proceedings, more than 3,800 technical standards, over 1,000 eBooks and over 300 educational courses.
The training session will teach attendees to use this invaluable resource more efficiently, and will focus on several key points of interest.
But before we launch the new site, we thought it would be fun to take a little trip in the Wayback Machine and reminisce about just how far we’ve come. This isn’t our first redesign rodeo, after all.
So join us as we surf back in Internet Time and explore…
Our Library Website Through the Years
(with real archived links!)
1997
J. K. Rowling publishes first Harry Potter book, Titanic hits theaters, Hong Kong becomes part of China again, Princess Diana dies—and our website wins a “Best of the Web” award!
Click on the image to go straight back to 1997!
2001 Gladiator wins Best Picture, Ravens win Super Bowl, Duke Men’s Basketball wins NCAA Championship, 9/11 attacks, Enron files for bankruptcy—and we get Wifi in the library!
Click on the image to go straight back to 2001!
2004 Facebook launches, Ronald Reagan dies, Lance Armstrong wins sixth Tour de France, Red Sox win World Series, Richard Brodhead becomes president of Duke—and we launch a redesigned library website!
Click on the image to go straight back to 2004!
2008 Large Hadron Collider begins operations, U.S. Stock Market plunges, Coach K leads U.S. men’s basketball to gold in Beijing Olympics, Barack Obama elected President—and we released the first mobile version of our website!
Click on the image to go straight back to 2008!
Stay tuned for the next chapter in our online history, going live October 14!
Photographs by artist Bill Anderson (1961-2013) are on display at Lilly Library through Dec. 15.
Smoke Signals: An Exhibit of Photographs by Bill Anderson (1961-2013) On exhibit October 1 – December 15, 2013
Lilly Library, East Campus (Click for map)
General Public Hours: Monday-Friday, 8am–7pm; Saturday, 9am–7pm; Sunday, 10am–7pm
Hours may vary during academic breaks and holidays. Please check our posted library hours for more information.
About the Exhibit
Lilly Library is displaying a new exhibit for the fall semester entitled Smoke Signals by Bill Anderson. The exhibit consists of 17 untitled photographs portraying sinuous patterns and swirls of smoke in a myriad of colors.
The artist, Bill Anderson (1960-2013), had a rich history with the arts. He was involved in the founding of the Athens Poor Theater in college, participated as a member of the Wee Scottie Collective in Atlanta (a group that produced a series of short and feature length films). He also had a career in academic libraries at such institutions as Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. At Georgia Tech, Anderson served as the lead digital library developer. All of his technical skills were self-taught, making his art even more remarkable. The exhibit celebrates Anderson’s art and honors his memory.
Gallery Talk and Reception: Please Join Us!
Date: Friday, October 18 Time: 4 p.m. Location: Thomas Room, Lilly Library, East Campus (Click for map) Light refreshments will be served.
Before his death, Bill Anderson intended to title the pieces in the Smoke Signals exhibit. Join the staff of Lilly Library in fulfilling his intention by titling the photographs and enjoying his creative vision!
Viewers have responded to Anderson’s “Smoke Signals” images as floral, sensual, and calligraphic.
Click on the screenshot to see the new Duke University Libraries website.
As we’ve mentioned here before, we’re getting ready to launch our redesigned Duke University Libraries website on October 14, during Duke’s Fall Break.
We’ve been documenting and testing our process for the better part of a year, and we greatly appreciate all the helpful feedback and comments our users have given us along the way. Your participation has made the process smoother and helped us make better-informed decisions about the design and functionality of our new site. Thank you!
With October 14 less than a week away, we’re ready to let the Duke community take our new website for a spin. We’re still tweaking some things and ironing out a few glitches, but we think it’s ready to share. Here’s a preview link on our development server: http://libcms.oit.duke.edu/
(Note: This is a temporary link. Our new site will publicly go live at library.duke.edu on October 14. All old URLs will be redirected to new ones.)
In our last post about the website redesign, we covered some of the major search and navigational differences between the old site and the new one. Here are a few additional improvements you may notice.
1. More emphasis on the search box. Library websites are different from other university websites. This isn’t just our virtual face to the world. It’s a multifunctional tool, as well as the primary way most of our users “go to the library” and get to our resources. You’ll notice that the search box is larger and designed in a way to help you get the information you need more quickly, with fewer distractions on the page.
2. Easier access to important functions. We’ve added a “Quick Links” section on the homepage to emphasize important information and answers to frequently asked questions. You’ll also notice that “My Accounts” is linked consistently in the header throughout the site. This takes you to a page where you can login to all of your library accounts in one place, from renewing books and viewing hold requests, to interlibrary loan and document delivery, to requesting materials from the Rubenstein Library.
3. Better integration with our physical space. This is one new addition we think our students will really appreciate. Duke’s campus libraries are popular places. Study space is in high demand. With that in mind, we’ve created a new “Places to Study” page featuring a comprehensive list of library study spots on both East and West Campus. There are photos of study rooms and descriptions of their features. You can even filter study spaces by location, electrical outlets, nearness to coffee, etc. We’ve also made it easier to reserve a study space or meeting room with the click of a button.
Screenshot of the new Rubenstein Library homepage.
5. Easier access to international research and services. Want to find materials on specific countries, like France, China, or Canada? Or perhaps schedule a one-on-one consultation with a subject or language expert? Click on our interactive International Resources map and see what resources and services we have available for different regions of the globe.
New interactive International Research page.
6. More personalized help. We’ve revamped our list of librarians and subject experts to make it easier for you to find someone who knows your field and can answer questions about particular topics.
7. Enhanced searchability. We’ve already talked about the redesigned search box on the homepage. But we also added some functionality to the website search in the header on every page. By using the drop-down button, you can search for books, articles, or all library materials without having to go back to the homepage.
8. Less jargon. We’re librarians. We love acronyms, proper names, and technical terminology. But we recognize that not everyone else speaks librarianese. To that end, we’ve made a conscious effort to edit all of our site content for greater clarity, simplicity, accuracy, and web-friendliness. We hope it helps.
Again, take it for a spin and let us know what you think! And mark your calendar for October 14, when our new site officially goes live!
The Class of 2017’s summer reading book: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
The summer before they arrive on Duke’s campus, every incoming freshman is sent a copy of the yearly summer reading book. Once they have settled into their new dorm, the students will spend time discussing the book in small groups.
This yearly tradition provides the diverse class of freshmen a piece of common intellectual ground. It helps to spark discussion and conversation among a group of unfamiliar faces. It makes the awkward, halting conversations with near strangers just a bit easier, helping to transform those encounters into meaningful friendships.
The Duke Summer Reading Committee is currently seeking book nominations that will facilitate all of these experiences. The book should stimulate debate and discussion among students, encourage thought and personal reflection, engage the intellect of the student population, and grab the attention and interest of the reader.
Past summer reading titles have included The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, My Sister’s Keeper by Judy Picoult, and most recently Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. All nominations will be reviewed by a committee of faculty, staff, and students.
The deadline for nominating a book is October 15, 2013, so if you know of the perfect book—one that will engage, puzzle, and fascinate the Class of 2018—be sure to submit if for consideration using the online nomination form.
After months of development and user testing, we are making final preparations to launch the new Duke University Libraries website on October 14, during Duke’s Fall Break. More user-friendly, easier to navigate, and intuitively organized, our redesigned site comes with additional features we think our patrons will appreciate—because they asked for them! You can take a peek at our new homepage design now.
Notable differences from our current website are based on usage data and patron feedback. They include:
My Accounts link at the top of every page
Updates to the tabbed search box on our homepage
“Books & More” becomes our default search tab scoped to a search of our catalog
We are bringing back the “Articles” tab
The “All” tab is still there for those who want to search our collections broadly, but it’s no longer the default
Our website search box is now included as a tab on the homepage
Other key search tools are in the ribbon just below the tabbed search box
Site navigation via drop-down menus at the top of every page
The drop down menu provides quick access to links throughout the website. Click to enlarge.
We are also adding search pages that will make it easier for you to find your favorite items in our collections, such as film and video or eBooks.
New search pages make it easier to find some of your favorite items. Click to enlarge.
Content throughout the site is being updated to be more current and easier to read. Also new: the entire website has been responsively designed, so it automatically adjusts to different screen sizes, from large computer monitors to smart phones.
We began this group effort a year ago with over 70 library staff plus countless undergraduates, graduate students and faculty who use the Duke Libraries website. It would take a long time to thank everyone who has made contributions to this project through their feedback, research, user assessment, data analysis, planning, designing, coding, and content writing and editing. Their thoughtful work will result in a library website that is just as welcoming and easy to use as our physical stacks and reading rooms.
Next week, we will provide a link with preview access to the site along with a more detailed description of how the new site is different from the old one. So stay tuned…
News, Events, and Exhibits from Duke University Libraries
