Andrea Wood joined Duke this September as Associate Director of Development for Duke University Libraries and Duke University Press. She previously served as Associate Director of Fellowships at Equal Justice Works, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. that runs the nation’s largest postgraduate legal fellowship program, placing early-career public interest lawyers at nonprofits to address pressing access to justice issues.
Andrea received her B.A. from Davidson College and her J.D. from Emory University School of Law. Outside of work, she enjoys pursuing her interests in oral history and restorative justice, exploring local bookstores and coffee shops, spending time outside, and planning her next travel adventure.
Welcome to Duke! Tell us a little about what drew you to this role.
Andrea Wood, Associate Director of Development for Duke University Libraries and Duke University Press
My background is in nonprofits, development, and law, but I have always had a deep and abiding love for books and libraries. I have wonderful early memories of walking with my grandparents to the public library and checking out a stack of books bigger than I could carry back! This started me on the path to becoming an avid library user in both my personal and academic life. Even when I travel, I try to visit a library if I can in addition to seeking out local bookstores.
Despite how central books and libraries have always been for me, I had never really contemplated the possibility of working with libraries as part of my career. When I saw this opportunity, it really ignited my imagination about the possibility of using my background and skills in service of libraries and an academic press. I went to Davidson for college and had long thought I’d like to return to North Carolina. In particular, the Research Triangle has always seemed like such a vibrant place to me. And as I learned more about the role through the interview process, I got more and more excited by the alignment with my own interests and seeing how I could contribute to the work. I was thrilled when the door opened to join the team here.
Over the last few weeks and months, you’ve been getting to know your new campus community, attending events, and learning more about initiatives currently underway here in the Libraries and at Duke Press. As a Duke newbie, what have been some of the more interesting discoveries you’ve made so far?
It has definitely been a period full of learning and activity in these first two months! My position is unique in having the opportunity to work with both the Libraries and the Press, and I’ve loved learning more about the critical work and impact of each. I’ve been so impressed by the rich collections in the Libraries and all the ways that our expert staff support students, faculty, researchers, and other users, as well as the Duke Press’s critical publications that advance emerging fields of scholarship and help make scholarly research widely available.
It’s been an exciting time to start a new job at Duke, coinciding with the beginning of the new semester. There’s so much energy on campus and lots of activities happening every day, including rich programming in the Libraries and in connection with the Press. As someone committed to lifelong learning, it is exhilarating to have so many ways to plug in. For example, I attended an artist talk here in the Libraries with the photographer Kris Graves, whose work was on display in one of our exhibit galleries. It was fascinating to hear him speak about his artistic trajectory and some of the work he’s done documenting shifts in public opinion about Confederate monuments in the South. I’ve also enjoyed participating in events jointly sponsored by the Libraries and Press, like our book talk with Coach K and the sportswriter John Feinstein during Duke Family Weekend to promote Five Banners: Inside the Duke Basketball Dynasty, which Duke Press just published this fall.
It’s been a couple of months since you moved from D.C. to Durham. Looking back, what have been some of the best parts of the transition?
I am really enjoying living in and getting to know Durham! I had passed through the area and visited campus on a number of occasions in the past, and I had a feeling it was a place I was going to love.
Coming from D.C., I hoped to find a place to live with some walkability, and I feel lucky to have found that. I’ve been impressed by Durham’s compactness and at the same time, how much is going on. There are so many events, incredible restaurants, and vibrant community groups, and I’m already a huge fan of the Durham Farmers Market! I don’t live far from the downtown public library, which is a great resource. I’m eager to continue to get to know and really plug into the community here.
It’s also been great coming to campus every week. The architecture and grounds, including the Gardens, are just beautiful. It’s an inspiring place call your “office.” The Libraries get such robust use, even from the very beginning of the semester, and it’s energizing to see the number of students who use and appreciate the great spaces in the Libraries.
Wood, who is always planning her next travel adventure, on a recent excursion.
Your come to us with extensive fundraising experience, but also a professional background as a lawyer with a passion for social justice. Can you talk a little bit about how that background dovetails with your interest in libraries, and how it prepared you for the work we do here?
I’ve spent much of my career in roles that focus on relationship building and development efforts in service of mission-driven work, and I feel fortunate to have worked on issues that are important to me from a legal and justice perspective. There are a lot of intersection points with my own interests and the Libraries’ collections, as well as recognizing the important role of libraries and archives. Just to give you one example, I’ve been fascinated to learn how the John Hope Franklin Research Center in the Rubenstein Library is collaborating with contemporary activists and grassroots organizations through the Movement History Initiative. As repositories, libraries can be places to preserve and confront our histories—and also help inform the charting of our future path as a society. Likewise, the Duke University Press is known for being at the forefront of helping shape emergent, interdisciplinary fields that facilitate thinking about the world in new ways and supporting scholars in learning, teaching, and effecting positive change in the world. I’m excited to be part of this important work happening at Duke!
What motivated you to pursue a career in development work to begin with?
There are many issues about which I care deeply, and doing development work has allowed me to be involved in and help support a diversity of efforts, beyond what I’d be able to individually work on. I consider myself somewhat of a generalist, and I’ve always appreciated the role that fundraising plays in lifting up the work of people who are experts and specialists in their fields.
I also highly value collaboration and the relational aspect of what we do—building relationships with people, really getting to know them and what they care about, and working with them to help achieve their desired impact. Identifying and making those connections is a really rewarding part of the work.
I think that’s what initially drew me into development work right after college and kept me involved in a volunteer capacity when I was practicing law. Even when it wasn’t my job, it’s something that I’ve always found to be important and now I love doing it full-time!
It’s often said you can’t have a great university without a great library. But we would be merely good without the generosity of many individuals who believe in our mission and want to support us. What are your thoughts on the importance of philanthropy to our work?
It’s absolutely critical. Duke’s libraries are world-class in their offerings and what they’re able to provide students and faculty as part of their experience here, as well as researchers and the community more broadly. I don’t think that kind of impact would be possible without philanthropic support and the many, many people who have supported the Libraries so generously. It’s hard to overstate the value of donors to our vision and goals for where we want to be. We wouldn’t be able to get there without the partners who are walking alongside the Libraries to move us forward.
Last question. Because we work in a library, I have to ask: What’s the best thing you’ve read lately?
This is such a hard question! I’m not sure I can narrow it down to one book, so I’ll give you two. I recently read Hua Hsu’s memoir Stay True, which I found to be a really moving and powerful reflection on friendship, family and identity that focused on Hsu’s years in college and the impact of a tragic loss.
Although I generally read more fiction, I’d also highlight another nonfiction book that I recently revisited—Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, which looks at Northern Ireland during the period of the Troubles through the prism of one woman’s abduction and murder. I’m particularly drawn to these topics, having had the chance to study in Ireland for a semester during law school and participating in a conflict management training program in Northern Ireland earlier this year. Keefe’s work also shone a light on some of the complexities around the collection and use of oral histories (a significant interest of mine!) from periods of conflict and violence.
I’ll stop myself there for now but look forward to many more opportunities to discuss great books!
A new exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh—”Samurai: The Making of a Warrior”—invites visitors to consider the original purpose of Japan’s material culture of war and see its connections to history, art, daily life, and politics. Photos courtesy of Matthew Hayes.
This year’s Emmy-winning megahit Shogun reintroduced American TV audiences to the romantic legend of the samurai. But a new exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh—Samurai: The Making of a Warrior—presents a more historically accurate portrait of the life and times of the legendary Japanese warriors, and it came together with the help of a Duke librarian.
Matthew Hayes is the Librarian for Japanese Studies and Asian American Studies at Duke. He was also part of a team of scholars and experts who spent the better part of a year developing the new exhibit. The show features more than seventy samurai arms and armor from an exceptional private collection in Greensboro, North Carolina, along with a host of related artifacts associated with art, culture, and religion, including some borrowed from Duke’s Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library and a small collection of Buddhist books loaned by Hayes himself.
Hayes first learned of the collection from Chiyoko Lord, of the Japan-America Society of North Carolina, and Simon Partner, a professor of Japanese history at Duke. Hayes worked as an initial intermediary between the collector, Gary Grose, and Caroline Rocheleau, Director of Research and Curator of Ancient Art at NCMA, to establish a mutual interest in an exhibition. From there, Rocheleau expanded the team to include Morgan Pitelka, a professor and historian of premodern Japan at UNC-Chapel Hill, and Megan McClory, one of Pitelka’s Ph.D. advisees researching early modern Japanese sword culture.
What the team saw when they drove out to Greensboro in 2023 nearly floored them. Grose had amassed enough arms and armor to outfit an entire platoon of samurai, all of it historically authentic and meticulously well-preserved.
A small portion of the Greensboro collection owned by Gary Grose, from which over 70 historically authentic examples of samurai arms and armor were selected for the exhibit.
“What astonished me most was the comprehensive nature of the collection,” recalled Hayes. “It wasn’t just a few swords and a helmet, but nearly every bodily implement you can imagine, from tobacco pouches to religious talismans and everything in between. Taken together, it really communicates a full picture of the martial, social, and cultural lives of these warriors.”
Grose’s collection was so extensive and diverse, it practically begged to be shared with the public. The NCMA had prime exhibit space to offer. Rocheleau had the curatorial insight. Hayes, Pitelka, and McClory each had expertise to contribute and an interest in working together. And so a collaboration was born.
Grose’s collection wasn’t just “a few swords and a helmet,” says Hayes, “but nearly every bodily implement you can imagine, from tobacco pouches to religious talismans and everything in between.”
Months of prep work followed, including translating and romanizing Japanese texts and inscriptions, answering questions from museum staff about exhibit loans, writing labels and workshopping each other’s drafts, finalizing the exhibit’s overall flow and organization, and working with local cultural organizations like the Japan-America Society of North Carolina to develop public programs that would draw in community audiences.
With Rocheleau serving as lead curator, each team member focused on their own area of expertise—Pitelka on the historical and cultural context of the samurai, McClory on the material history of the arms and armor, and Hayes on the role of Buddhism in the lives of the elite warrior class. (Hayes and Pitelka are also giving a public lecture at the museum on November 24 about how the samurai engaged in new forms of cultural and religious patronage during the seventeenth century.)
“Samurai: The Making of a Warrior” offers a counterpoint to the stereotypical image we tend to have of samurai, which is largely the product of pop culture and entertainment.
Samurai: The Making of a Warrior opened to the public in mid-October and will run through February 2, 2025. It’s the first exhibit on East Asian material culture at the state’s flagship art museum in over thirty years, and it came together through the collaboration of community partners, including Duke and UNC. (Athletic rivalries aside, the two schools regularly partner across a range of formal and informal initiatives, to the benefit of both campuses.) The exhibit has also already benefitted individual students at both schools; Hayes has since shared the rest of his collection of Buddhist books with interested interns at Rubenstein Library, while Pitelka’s own undergraduate lab students participated in creating the chronology for the exhibit. The NCMA has even ensured learning opportunities for younger generations in The Triangle by including an interactive game, coded especially for this exhibit and available within the exhibit space, that allows players to test custom armor configurations to see if they’d be successful on the battlefield.
Asked what he hopes people take away from the exhibit, Hayes says it offers a counterpoint to the stereotypical image we tend to have of samurai, which is largely the product of pop culture and entertainment—Shogun being the most recent example. “While it may be the case that samurai were sword-wielding warriors trained in combat, there was much more to their lives off the battlefield,” he says. “They were culturally trained, religiously devout, and crucially supported by women within their family units. In fact, this exhibit even offers a glimpse into the lives of women who were samurai in their own right.”
Matthew Hayes (right) at the opening reception for “Samurai: The Making of a Warrior” with Chiyoko Lord (left) of the Japan-America Society of North Carolina, and Caroline Rocheleau (center), Director of Research and Curator of Ancient Art at NCMA and lead curator of the exhibit.
Not only that, but visitors will appreciate the rich educational offerings that can be found in their own backyard. “What is also remarkable about the exhibition is the collaboration with local collectors, museums, scholars, cultural groups, students, and librarians to showcase the material culture of Japan from our immediate community,” says NCMA’s Rocheleau. “Amazingly, 96 percent of the objects in the exhibition are from the Triangle and Greensboro!”
But even if you go just for the swords and armor, you’ll come away with a new appreciation for these multidimensional warlords, and for the pleasures of studying other cultures from around the world—many of which are represented here in the Triangle and throughout North Carolina.
Sunday, November 24
2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
North Carolina Museum of Art
East Building, SECU Auditorium
How did early modern samurai reconcile their martial ethics with religion? How was this reflected in the rule of military government? Join Morgan Pitelka (UNC–Chapel Hill) and Matthew Hayes (Duke University Libraries) as they discuss examples of how samurai in seventeenth-century Japan reconciled their martial practice with Zen Buddhism, against the background of a strong warrior government and highly stratified social structure.
We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2023-2024 library writing and research awards. Every year the Duke University Libraries offers these prizes recognizing the original research and writing of Duke students and encouraging the use of library resources. Congratulations to this year’s winners!
Recognizing excellence of analysis, research, and writing in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
First Year Award: Tanner Buck, Alice Chen, Justin Park, and Maria Alba for “Counting to ‘101’: Tracing the History and Development of the Introductory Writing Course at Duke University,” nominated by Dr. Rhiannon Scharnhorst
Undergraduate Award: Veronica Sanjurjo for “A Diary’s Purpose: Sarah J. Ewing’s Portrait of Domestic Abuse in Victorian London,” nominated by Dr. Simon Partner
Recognizing outstanding creative writing by juniors and seniors.
Nima Babajani-Feremi for “After Spicer”
Skijler Hutson for “ Twenty-Two”
Join Us at the Awards Reception!
We will be celebrating our winners and their achievements at a special awards reception coinciding withDuke Family Weekend. All are invited to join us for refreshments and the opportunity to honor the recipients.
Date: Friday, October 18 Time: 3:00 – 4:00 p.m
Location: The Edge Workshop Room (Bostock Library 127)
Main Library on Roxboro Street in downtown Durham. All Duke students are eligible to use your local public library, even if you’re not a permanent NC resident.
It’s the start of the fall semester at Duke, and we’ve got a quick and easy way you can level up your library game!
Stop by Perkins Library on Thursday, Aug. 29, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m., and sign up for a Durham County Library Card.
It’s free and easy. All you need is your Duke ID (if you’re a Duke student) or other photo ID and proof of Durham residency (everybody else).
That’s right! ALL DUKE STUDENTS ARE ELIGIBLE to get a free Durham County Library Card*. Even if you’re not a permanent North Carolina resident, you can still use your local public library, and you don’t even have to leave your dorm room once you sign up.
Not to mention popular streaming services like Hoopla (Kids TV, popular movies, comics, e-books, and more) and IndieFlix (classic films, award-winning shorts, documentaries).
The Durham County Library consists of six branches spread throughout Durham County including the Main Library in downtown. It’s one of the Bull City’s most recent architectural points of pride. If you need a break from studying in our campus libraries, check out their quiet study spots with inspiring views of downtown Durham. You can thank us later when you ace those exams.
* If you only have a Duke ID when you sign up, you’ll get a Student Card, which lets you check out 10 items at a time, plus access all electronic resources. If you also can show some proof of NC address (can be electronic, photo of a utility bill, piece of mail, etc.), you’ll get a full Library Card, which lets you check out up to 50 items.
As the fall 2024 semester gets underway, we want to remind students that you can check out copies of textbooks for some Duke courses from the library.
The books include required texts for some of Duke’s most popular courses in Chemistry, Math, Computer Science, Biology, Psychology, and other subjects. They can be checked out for three hours at a time and are available at the Perkins Library Service Desk.
We also have a number of semester-loan textbooks available to check out for an entire semester at a time. Students can find these on the main floor of Perkins Library near the New & Noteworthy Collection.
Semester-loan textbooks available in Perkins Library, near the New & Noteworthy Collection on the main floor.
Top Textbooks is one of our most popular library services, and students regularly tell us how much they appreciate it. And no wonder, when the cost of a single textbook can often exceed $300. We also encourage students to donate their textbooks to us at the end of the year, so that future students can check them out. It’s just one small way we’re working to make a Duke education more affordable for all.
Please note: The Top Textbooks program is not intended to take the place of students purchasing textbooks for their courses. Due to budget limitations, the Libraries are unable to purchase textbooks for every course at Duke.
Find Out More
For more information about our textbook donation program, please contact Jeremy Martin, Reserves Coordinator in Perkins Library.
Post by Haley Walton, Librarian for Education and Open Scholarship
Image courtesy of _FXR/Flickr.
In 2018, Duke joined the Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) pilot, a five-year collaborative effort between the Association of American Universities (AAU), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and Association of University Presses (AUP) to make scholarly books open access. Over the past six years, the Duke University Libraries has seen fifteen Duke-authored monographs to publication as both traditional print runs and digital open downloads through the Open Monograph Award.
What is open access to scholarly books?
The open access movement has historically been focused on scholarly journal articles—flipping the publishing model to remove paywall barriers of subscriptions and allow anyone with an internet connection to access current research. Book-length works in the humanities and social sciences have tended to fall by the wayside in the OA movement due to their format and the manner in which they’re published through university presses…
Until now.
Celebrate 5 years of TOME authors!
At a lunch event on Tuesday, May 7, sponsored by Duke University Libraries and the Franklin Humanities Institute, three authors of TOME-funded books will share their experience and the outcomes of publishing their books openly.
For the last several years, the Duke University Libraries has purchased copies of the assigned texts for a wide range of Duke courses and made them available to check out for free. It’s one of our most popular services, and students regularly tell us how much they appreciate it. And no wonder, when the cost of a single textbook can often exceed $300.
Now there’s a way you can help us make the program even better and do something about the ridiculous cost of textbooks at the same time. At the end of this semester, donate your textbooks to the library. We’ll make them available for other students to check out for free.
Don’t you wish someone had done that for you? Be that someone.
Look for the textbook donation bins in Perkins, Bostock, Lilly, and Divinity libraries starting this week. When you’ve finished with your classes, simply drop your books in the bin and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing you’ve made some future Duke student’s day.
So if you passed your classes, pass it on. Donate your textbooks to us and make a Duke education more affordable for all.
(And if you didn’t pass, we’ll understand if you need to hang on to those books a little longer.)
Post by Luo Zhou, Librarian for Chinese Studies; Rachel Ingold, Curator of the History of Medicine Collections; and Laura Williams, Head of the Music Library
This year commemorates a significant milestone: the 50th anniversary of Libraries Assembly (LA), the association for staff across all the libraries at Duke University. To kick off this celebration year, a fresh new logo was unveiled, designed by Aaron Canipe, symbolizing LA’s core commitment to fostering connections and partnerships with co-workers, and offering information about Duke and its libraries. The new logo was selected from more than five designs submitted by staff at the logo redesign contest that lasted from September to December 2023.
An exhibition documenting LA’s history, prepared by Rachel Ingold (current LA president), was on display at the entrance of Perkins Library for the whole month of February. It included photographs from past LA events and the Branson Committee Report that led to the formal establishment of Librarians Assembly on December 4, 1973 with librarians from Perkins Library and the Medical Library, and later those working at the Goodson Law Library and the Ford Library (Fuqua School of Business), and the Divinity School Library.
On February 7, library staff gathered in Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room to celebrate the milestone with a delectable cake and an enlightening panel discussion featuring five librarians who have made contributions to this association to share their experiences: Donna Bergholz (retiree), Beverly Murphy (Medical Center Library), Beth Doyle, Emily Daly and Christina Manzella. The panel also had contributions from Barbara Branson (read by Laura Williams) and Rachel Ingold as the moderator.
The panel began by delving into the creation of the Branson Committee, established in response to the efforts to formalize the status of professional librarians by the University’s Personnel Office (now Human Resources). Details were shared about the formation of the committee, their work on gathering information on the salary, benefits, and status of professional librarians in academic libraries in the United States, and the important final report that made possible the formation of this association.
The panel moved on to the change of name from Librarians Assembly to Libraries Assembly in 2018, expanding membership to include all staff working within libraries at Duke. More recently in June 2020 (with updates in February 2023), the Libraries Assembly made a resounding Statement on Systemic Racism, formally announcing its support to the movement for racial equality and affirming its commitment to a plan of action. The panel concluded with a positive outlook for future opportunities where LA continues to serve as an advocate for excellence in librarianship and to promote the interests and participation of its members in the affairs of the libraries, the University, and the profession at large. You can find a link to the recording here.
The celebration was well attended and enthusiastic feedback was heard from all. LA invites all staff working at libraries at Duke University to continue to share their experiences with LA throughout this year with stories and photographs.
Post by Ella Young, Research and Public Services Intern
In order to explore the true cost of a Duke undergraduate education, the Duke University Libraries are conducting a survey of teaching faculty to assess course materials costs for undergraduate students. By soliciting faculty responses, we seek to understand what types of materials are assigned in undergraduate courses across disciplines and their costs for students. The price of traditional textbooks and single-use online codes for homework has been rising for over 20 years, and students across the U.S. have reported struggling to afford their course materials alongside daily expenses. At Duke, if every undergraduate purchased every assigned textbook for their classes, they would cumulatively pay upwards of $1.4 million per academic year.
The Libraries plan to use data from the survey to assess how we can better support student access to course materials and to gauge interest in Open Educational Resources as a cost-effective alternative to traditional textbooks. Surveying faculty about their interest in OERs moves Duke one step closer to implementing affordability initiatives and expanding OER availability on campus.
Open Educational Resources (OERs) are “openly-licensed, freely available educational materials that can be modified and redistributed by users” (The OER Starter Kit). This includes textbooks, searchable repositories, images, artwork, and even online college courses.
OERs benefit students by reducing college costs, and instructors can tailor OER to fit their needs. People who otherwise would not have access to college-level materials also can gain an education with open access materials.
How do OERs work?
Creative Commons (CC) licenses are copyright licenses that give users permission to reuse, distribute, remix, adapt, or build upon someone’s original material. All OERs are made available under some type of open license. There are six levels of license types with varying permissions, which you can explore here.
Learn more about OERs
To get started using Open Educational Resources, Duke Libraries has a guide to OERs with introductory information and links to open resources for instructors. For questions about OERs or how to make your courses accessible and affordable, contact Haley Walton, Librarian for Education and Open Scholarship, at the Duke University Libraries.
Open Education Week, a worldwide event for celebrating and promoting OERs, will take place this year the week of March 4th—8th. During OER Week, organizers across the globe will be hosting in-person and virtual events to showcase and discuss open education initiatives. A calendar of events can be found here.
Guest post by Gabe Cooper, a first-year student from Columbia, SC. He intends to major in Economics with maybe a French minor and an Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate.
A dynamic scene of a caiman holding a false coral snake in its mouth, from Maria Sibylla Merian’s Surinam Album.
I discovered this FOCUS cluster almost completely by accident. I came up to Duke to visit during Blue Devil Days and chose to attend a lecture about unraveling the secrets of Leonardo da Vinci, knowing I had enjoyed learning about the Renaissance in the past but also not really knowing what I was getting myself into. When I walked into the lecture room, I was greeted by an eccentric, wise person; the epitome of a college history professor—this is when I met Professor Robisheaux.
Gabe Cooper
I was expecting the mini lecture to be simple—a lecture where Professor Robisheaux talked to us about Leonardo da Vinci. Instead, he tasked the class of newly accepted Duke students to unravel the mystery of Leonardo ourselves. How was the world connected for Leonardo da Vinci? What did his artwork, architectural designs, and a piece of music have in common? All these questions Professor Robisheaux asked us, and all that we had to answer were primary materials and each other. Suddenly, I was in the position to be the one who investigated and be the historian; Professor Robisheaux was just a guide.
This experience during Blue Devil Days drew me to sign up for this MedRen FOCUS cluster because Professor Robisheaux’s teaching style was unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and the lecture made me rethink everything I knew about Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. I wanted to explore this cluster further, and I am so glad I did.
As a student interested in the sciences, what did studying the Renaissance in a humanities program like the MedRen Focus teach you?
The MedRen FOCUS taught me that the distinctions we make today between different subjects in the sciences and the humanities are not as strong as I previously believed. Almost all the figures we studied with Professor Robisheaux were polymaths: Leonardo da Vinci was an artist, scientist, engineer, and courtier; Maria Sibylla Merian was an artist, biologist, and explorer; Paracelsus was a physician who understood medicine and the human body through art and his religious beliefs. Everything was interconnected during the Renaissance, and by studying this period in history, I’ve been better able to see the interconnectedness of the world around me.
A busy scene of Huntsman spiders, pink toe tarantulas, leaf-cutter ants, and a ruby-topaz hummingbird, from Maria Sibylla Merian’s Insects of Suriname.
What was it like encountering early printed books from the Renaissance for the first time?
It was stupefying to encounter early printed books because time seemed to have collapsed. These books were a physical representation of time—they had survived centuries before me and would likely survive centuries after me. But at the same time, the books were just books. They looked ordinary and you could still understand their pictures and sometimes even what they were saying. It was a weird dichotomy between awe and ordinariness, and I would highly encourage anyone to explore the Rubenstein Library’s collection.
What was your topic for the final paper in Professor Robisheaux’s class? What did you choose to write about and why?
My topic for my final paper in Professor Robisheaux’s class was centered around the question “How did art become the pinnacle of subjectivity that we know today?” I came up with this question because throughout Professor Robisheaux’s course, a key theme that emerged in our discussions was the fact that art was viewed as mainly objective during the Renaissance, with very set guidelines and procedures. However, while looking at De europische insecten at the Rubenstein Library during class one day, Maria Sibylla Merian seemed to stand out as an outlier. All of her work had very little commentary, a sense of chaos, and focused on the subjective, individual experience of nature.
And perhaps the most exemplary in accomplishing this switch to subjectivity is Merian’s Surinam Album, which masterfully displaying the wildlife of Surinam in the eighteenth century. This album, full of vibrant colors, intricate details, and dynamic scenes, gives the impression that Merian is tasking the viewer with making sense of what these scenes in nature mean, as if she is rendering them the scientist. I wanted to dive deeper into these themes in my final paper, using everything I had learned throughout the course to try to become a historian.
Two Menelaus Blue Morpho butterflies fluttering around its caterpillar form on a Barbados Cherry, from Maria Sibylla Merian’s Insects of Suriname.
Any other things you would like others (especially future students!) to know about the FOCUS program or the Libraries?
One of the most valuable aspects of FOCUS is the relationships you make with fellow classmates and your professors. Meeting with Professor Robisheaux, Professor Kate Driscoll, Professor Roseen Giles, Dr. Heidi Madden, Ms. Rachel Ingold, and all of your classmates every week for dinner and field trips allows you to really get to know everyone in your FOCUS program. This is truly invaluable because when you take FOCUS as a first semester freshman, you are dealing with a lot of uncertainty. Who will be your friends? Are you going to achieve the same amount of success you did in high school? How do you deal with being on your own? Having a tightly-knit community that is provided by FOCUS makes the entire college transition much easier because you have professors and librarians that want to help you succeed and classmates who are going through the same challenges you are.
Post by Deric Hardy, Assistant Librarian for Science and Engineering, and Allison McIntyre, Communications Consultant for Graduate Communications and Intercultural Programs, Pratt School of Engineering
Engineering students by nature are inquisitive, analytical thinkers, and naturally fond of seeking scholarly pursuits!
This affinity for intellectual curiosity led teams of EGR 506 and 706 students to the Perkins, Bostock, and Rubenstein Libraries for the spring edition of the Engineering Library Scavenger Hunt on Jan. 22-23.
Engineering students explored the many different areas of Perkins, Bostock, and Rubenstein with the hopes of being the first team to complete 23 scavenger hunt missions with the most points at the end of one hour. One of those missions required teams to use the library website to locate two different engineering books as well as find a book in their native language. Another task included having students browse our exhibit galleries to discover the “hidden figure” who taught Charles Darwin to stuff birds.
Students also learned about the history of Duke University in the Gothic Reading Room and searched for one of our former Duke Presidents. Other missions included finding the Oasis, Nicholas Family International Reading Room, Prayer and Meditation Room, Project Room #9, the OIT Help Desk in the Link, and the Librarian for Science and Engineering at the Perkins Service Desk.
The purpose of this event was to provide engineering students with a great introduction to Duke University Libraries, promote greater awareness of library spaces, resources, and services, and provide a wonderful user experience to encourage many return visits!
This event was made possible through a collaborative partnership between Duke University Libraries and the Graduate Communications and Intercultural Programs.
If you have any questions, please contact Deric Hardy (deric.hardy@duke.edu) or Graduate Communications and Intercultural Programs in the Pratt School (gcip-pratt@duke.edu).
Join us for two author talks this semester and the launch of a new book series from Duke University Press, Studies in the Grateful Dead, exploring the iconic rock band’s lasting impact on American culture and the “long strange trip” their music is still taking today.
Edited by Nicholas G. Merriweather, Executive Director of the Grateful Dead Studies Association and former Grateful Dead Archivist at the University of California–Santa Cruz, the new book series explores the musical and cultural significance, impact, and achievement of the Grateful Dead while reinventing the academic and popular discourse devoted to the band.
According to the Duke University Press website, Studies in the Grateful Dead “establishes the Dead as an anchor for the 1960s counterculture, which proved to be the source of key historical moments that have shaped music, art, film, literature, politics, and philosophy in America ever since. In this way, books in the series will deepen understandings of postwar American culture while providing a full examination of the ‘afterlife’ of the Grateful Dead, with all the seriousness and joy their work deserves.”
Each event will feature a Q&A with the author, light refreshments, and enough obscure band trivia (and deep analysis) to satisfy Deadheads of all ages. Copies of the books will be available for purchase.
Date: Friday, February 2 Time: 6:00 p.m. Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room (Rubenstein Library 153)
Duke has several notable connections with the Grateful Dead. Last April marked the 45th anniversary of the jam band’s 1978 concert at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, widely regarded as one of their best shows of the decade and one of five times they performed at this university. The Duke community celebrated the event with an engaging panel discussion and performance at the Rubenstein Arts Center. You can also watch a recording of the historic concert online.
Co-sponsored by Duke University Press, Duke University Libraries, and Duke Arts
Guest post by Meg Brown, Head, Exhibition Services and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation Exhibits Librarian
Jerry and Bruce Chappell in the library exhibit gallery named in their honor, October 2015.
A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune of spending a magical evening with Jerry and Bruce Chappell, the namesakes of the Jerry and Bruce Chappell Family Gallery near the main entrance of Perkins Library on Duke’s West Campus.
Jerry was a member of our Library Advisory Board for 12 years. She and Bruce have long been generous supporters of the Libraries’ exhibition program, and they have always been very kind to me personally. Sadly, Jerry passed away a few days after our visit, on November 6, 2023, and I’m so grateful to have had such a wonderful evening with an amazing, warm, loving woman.
I was there with Susan Berndt of Duke Alumni Engagement and Development. It was a beautiful night, and Jerry took us through her garden and shared stories of special people who taught her about plants. She spoke with gratitude of the time she spent with her mother in the yard. She asked me about my mother, and she listened with interest. She toured us through her book-filled home, including a room with an extensive genealogy collection. She spoke about researching her family history and how it was all intertwined with her studies years ago at Duke, and how she never lost her love of learning. She worried aloud about new generations of people who don’t appreciate books, and we commiserated about a future full of digital history. But together we tried to look on the bright side of all of the opportunities for research this might bring.
We all sat down and talked about the library, and about the future of the library exhibition program. Bruce and Jerry told us stories about what Duke had meant to them. They explained that it was fun, it was extraordinary, it was hard work, and it was family. One of Jerry’s favorite professors was Dr. Robert Durden, a professor of history and author of several books about the history of this institution. It turned out that Durden’s mother was also Jerry’s housemother when she was a Duke undergraduate in the Woman’s College. She spoke of how important those relationships were, and how she always felt welcome there. She spoke of Duke even today as an extension of her family, her sorority sisters, her classmates, her teachers, the new students and alumni she meets all around the world.
Jerry Chappell (née Perry) as a Duke undergraduate, second from left, from the 1960 Chanticleer yearbook.
That night, Jerry treated me like family. She asked me about my work, my kids, my passions. She hugged me when I left and she thanked me. She held my hand and I felt appreciated, like she wanted to make sure I knew I was doing good work. All that the Chappells asked of me that night was that I make the library a place where people feel inspired—and in Jerry’s honor, I hope I am able to always fulfill that request.
The next time you visit Perkins Library, I hope you will look up and see the Chappells’ name on the gallery near the main entrance. And I hope the exhibitions there will inspire you to feel that Duke is still a welcoming place.
Guest post by Brandon Britt, Access Services Librarian, and Annette Tillery, Perkins Service Desk Supervisor
The Duke University Libraries are highly invested in ensuring that the services and experiences we offer to all who visit us at our Service Desk are as responsive to user feedback as possible.
The Perkins Library Customer Service Experience Survey is a short, 3-minute survey which allows you to give feedback on your time engaging with the people and resources in the building. We welcome constructive remarks about your time in the building!
Simply click the survey link above or scan the QR code when you see these signs around Perkins Library.
We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2022-2023 library writing and research awards. Every year the Duke University Libraries run a series of essay contests recognizing the original research and writing of Duke students and encouraging the use of library resources. Congratulations to this year’s winners!
Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using sources from the Libraries’ general collections.
Honors Thesis Winner: Alexandra (Bailey) Griffen for “The ‘Last Midwife’ that Never Was: Gender Race and Birth in Durham’s Medical Establishment, 1900-1989,” nominated by Dr. Sarah Deutsch.
Third/ Fourth Year Winner: Angela Wu for “Ncosi, The Story of South Africa’s AIDs HIV Poster Child,” nominated by Dr. Karin Shapiro.
First/Second Year Winner: Rhiannon Camarillo for “Abortion Liberalization in West Germany: A Lasting Legacy of Conservatism,” nominated by Dr. James Chappell.
Recognizing excellence of analysis, research, and writing in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Zoe Kolenovsky for “Cancer Alley, Louisiana: A Case Study in Race- and Class-Based Discrimination as Drivers of Environmental Injustice,” nominated by Dr. Nancy MacLean
Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using primary sources for political science or public policy.
Axelle Miel for “Concentrix in the Philippines: The Political Risk of Remote Work,” nominated by Dr. Edmund Malesky
Kulsoom Rizavi for “Intra-Party Polarization – Characterizing its Nature and Extent through r/Democrats and r/Republican,” nominated by Dr. Christopher Bail
Recognizing outstanding creative writing by juniors and seniors.
Ruby Wang for “2001: An Ode to Mother”
Sophie Zhu for “White Fox”
Join Us at the Awards Reception!
We will be celebrating our winners and their achievements at a special awards reception coinciding with Duke Family Weekend. All are invited to join us for refreshments and the opportunity to honor the recipients.
If you’re a graduate student at Duke, Fall Break may be a good time to work through several of your RCR credits in just two days! The Duke University Libraries offer a cluster of workshops on diverse subjects in several different disciplines on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 16-17. Register now!
Recent Duke doctoral graduate Joshua Shelly (Ph.D., 2023) won second prize in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. (Image courtesy Joshua Shelly/Carolina-Duke German Studies Program)
Congratulations to Joshua Shelly, a newly minted Ph.D. from the Carolina-Duke German Studies Program, who just won second place in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest!
In recognition of his bibliophilic brilliance, he will receive a $1,000 cash prize (presumably to spend on more books!) and a trip to Washington, D.C., to represent Duke at a special awards ceremony on September 22 at 5:00 p.m. at the Library of Congress’s Whittall Pavilion. As his home institution, the Duke University Libraries also receives $500.
Joshua’s collection was inspired by an essay he came across while in an archive working on his dissertation. “Alte Bücher in Haifa” (Old Books in Haifa), published in Paris in the 1930s, captures the experience of a German-reading Jew seeking to rebuild his library through Haifa’s used book market. Joshua’s collection focuses on works important to German Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He notes, “Whether clicking through internet pages on the path to that one title, browsing Bücherschränke (little libraries) in Berlin, or else leafing through physical pages in a book shop in Jerusalem, my decision to add a book to my collection is shaped by factors such as the book’s physical condition, price—where relevant—and my own idiosyncratic literary taste.”
Earlier this year, Joshua took first place in the graduate category of the Andrew T. Nadell Book Collectors Contest, sponsored by the Friends of the Duke University Libraries, for his collection “Alte Bücher in Haifa: (Re)building a German Jewish Library in the 21st Century.” That earned him a $1,500 cash prize and the eligibility to compete on the national level.
Duke has been well-represented in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Competition. Past winners include:
2021 Winner, Essay Prize: Joseph E. Hiller,Como un detective salvaje: Gathering Small Press, Experimental, and Untranslated Latin American Literature
2015 Winner, Essay Prize: Anne Steptoe,Look Homeward: Journeying Home through 20th Century Southern Literature
2013 Winner, 2nd Prize: Ashley Young,New Orleans’ Nourishing Networks: Foodways and Municipal Markets in the Nineteenth Century Global South
2011 Winner, 1st Prize: Mitch Fraas,Anglo-American Legal Printing 1702 to the Present
Look for the announcement of the applications for the 2025 Nadell Book Prize in Spring 2025!
Are you curious about the history of Duke’s Engineering School? Would you like to hold an amputation saw from the 16th century as you contemplate the evolution of surgical tools? Do you want to know how a lipstick tester would work and how it came to Duke?
Join us for a special open house especially for students, faculty, and staff from the Pratt School of Engineering!
Date: Wednesday, September 27
Time: 12:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room (Rubenstein Library 153)
Artifacts on display will highlight:
University Archives materials
medical instruments
other artifacts that reflect technological changes
Attendees will have a chance to browse materials and talk with library staff about our collections. Plus enter a raffle to win fabulous library swag! Hope to see you there!
Post by Joyce Chapman, Assessment Analyst and Consultant; Sarah Park, Librarian for Engineering and Computer Science; and Matthew Hayes, Librarian for Japanese Studies and Asian American Studies
Duke students enjoy Holi, the Hindu holiday also known as the Festival of Colors. Photo by Jared Lazarus/University Communications.
How can the Duke Libraries better support the needs of international students at Duke? A team of library staff conducted qualitative research with international students over the past year in order to answer this question. This research was part of a multi-year effort at the Libraries to better understand the experiences and needs of various populations at Duke, including first-generation college students, and Black students.
Our final report discusses the full research process and our findings in more detail than that provided below, including a full list of recommendations resulting from the study.
We began by reading existing research on university and academic libraries’ support of international students and speaking with key stakeholders on campus. In fall of 2022 and spring of 2023, we conducted a series of discussion groups with both graduate and undergraduate international students. We also surveyed international students to better understand their library and campus experiences at Duke.
On the whole, participants express high satisfaction both with the Libraries and Duke University. In the 2023 Libraries Student Survey, international student respondents were more likely to report feeling welcomed at the Libraries and that the library is an important part of their Duke experience than domestic students. When asked in discussion groups what helps them feel welcome, international students discussed how the Libraries’ wide array of exhibits and events with international focus, as well as visible print materials in non-English languages, make the Libraries a welcoming space for them. Numerous students mentioned the positive impact of the Duke International Student Center (DISC) and a range of orientational programs, such as campus wide, program specific, and international student specific orientations, in fostering a sense of belonging and welcome at Duke. For undergraduates specifically, peers play an important role in making them feel welcome.
Studying for finals in Lilly Library on Duke’s East Campus. Photo by Bill Snead/University Communications.
Participants were also asked which people, services, and spaces feel supportive and safe at Duke University. For undergraduates, examples include Counseling and Psychological Services; Duke LIFE (Lower Income, First-Generation Engagement); the campus farm; Resident Advisor supervisors; advisors; fellow Duke students; professors and Teaching Assistants; the Career Resource Center; campus events; Duke health insurance; student clubs; and the campus gyms. For graduate students, supportive services primarily revolve around departments and programs, including departmental staff such as program administrators, Directors of Graduate Studies and Director of Graduate Studies Assistants, program advisors, career services teams within schools, and department coordinators. Graduate students also discussed fellow international students, upperclass students within their programs, instructors, and lab mates as sources of support.
Overall, international students at Duke feel welcome and supported by both fellow students and faculty. Participants also discussed aspects of Duke that have felt unwelcoming, including the additional stress of administrative requirements around acquiring healthcare, visas, driver’s licenses, social security numbers, and housing. Both graduate and undergraduate participants discussed how cultural differences can make students feel out of place. A few students shared their experiences of encountering microaggressions from some fellow students and faculty. These microaggressions often stem from assumptions made by the microaggressor based on the students’ nationality or from the microaggressor’s own U.S.-centric worldview, even in academic situations where a global perspective is expected. A theme among undergraduate students was the unwelcoming exclusivity of social groups and some clubs, which was described as a cause of social anxiety. For graduate students in particular, the cost of living, feeling unsafe off campus, and transportation are three of the least welcoming aspects of life at Duke. Some students additionally brought up the stress caused by the pervasive nature of academic elitism at Duke, an issue that would not be unique to international students.
Participants were asked who they turn to when they have questions. Undergraduates often turn to friends, upperclass students, advisors, student support offices, and even large chat groups used by their cohorts. Graduate students tend to rely more on formal entities such as advisors, graduate program offices, and faculty, though they also consult lab mates, upperclass students, friends, and their extended networks.
Duke students and alumni celebrate Homecoming Weekend on the Bryan Center Plaza. Photo by Jared Lazarus/University Communications.
Students reflected on what was most challenging for them when they first arrived in Durham or on campus. Literature reviews discussing the challenges international students face while studying abroad often emphasize language and communication barriers. However, challenges identified at Duke centered more on cultural and social interactions, with little mention of basic communication issues. Students expressed feelings of being overwhelmed with a bewildering variety of resources and facing challenges in navigating through available options. While such overwhelming feelings are not unique to international students, it is notable that their American counterparts are often guided by relatives who have experience with the U.S. education system. Additionally, many undergraduate students talked about differences in education systems and pedagogical approaches between their home countries and Duke.
We also asked participants how they use the Libraries at Duke and what works well for them. The overall attitude toward the Libraries is very positive. International students use and value the Libraries for its variety of study spaces, online resources, textbook loans program, interlibrary loan services, and research support. When asked what works well in the Libraries, the majority of comments focused on the ease-of-use of library facilities and spaces, as well as on the accessibility of library materials. Many students also appreciate the ability to use the Libraries as a place to relax and unwind throughout the day. Students praised the volume of Duke’s holdings, its networked relationship to other lending institutions, the ease of finding online resources, and the savvy work of librarians in assisting students during research consultations.
International students also identified several areas of the library that do not work well for them. Among these, students described their limited awareness of library services and librarian subject expertise. Many also commented on the crowded nature of study spaces, and the frustrating waitlist for carrels. While study rooms are highly valued by international and domestic students, we found that they are also one of the Libraries’ services for which students express frustrations and a greater need. We found that many undergraduate international students were unaware of the ability to receive personalized help from library staff, and that the Libraries’ support role is known only to small cross-sections of the international student population. When students learn of personalized assistance from librarians they often do not do so through the Libraries, but from professors and other students. Students praised information provided by librarians in their Writing 101 and English for International Students classes, but requested that the Libraries provide more outreach and information sessions extended over a longer portion of the student’s academic career at Duke. Some students expressed a strong interest in having tour opportunities, more library orientations, and greater awareness of the general services offered by U.S. academic libraries, with which many international students may be unfamiliar.
When asked what services and programs the Libraries could offer to further support international students, participants had several ideas. The overarching theme was a desire for enhanced communication and promotion of library services and resources. This could include promotion through the DISC newsletter and international student orientations. It could also include channels not specific to international students, such as professors, programs, program orientations, and increasing advertising about the Libraries on campus but outside the library buildings themselves. Students were also interested in the Libraries increasing its offerings of workshops and tours. Echoing findings from the Libraries’ 2023 Student Survey, a recurring request from international students in discussion groups was for increased foreign language materials, and in particular, leisure reading materials and current newspapers. Other ideas from students include increasing collaboration with DISC and other campus offices, and providing popular games from students’ home countries in a leisure area of the Libraries.
Getting ready for final exams in the Link at Perkins Library. Photo by Jared Lazarus/University Communications.
What’s Next?
These findings became the basis of 29 recommendations outlined in the Research Team’s full report. The Research Team will present this study at the Libraries’ all-staff meeting, and will share it widely with other units on Duke’s campus over the summer of 2023. We will also share the report within the library community to encourage other libraries to consider these questions and undertake similar work at their own institutions.
One of the report’s recommendations is that the Libraries’ charge an International Student Study Implementation Team in fall 2023 that will prioritize and coordinate the implementation of recommendations from the study.
For more information on this study, contact Joyce Chapman, Assessment Analyst and Consultant, at joyce.chapman@duke.edu.
Although most library users won’t notice any difference, changes are coming to an important back-end system the Duke University Libraries uses to handle everything from checking out books to managing thousands of databases and online resources. Between now and summer 2024, we will sunset our legacy library enterprise system and transition to the Ex Libris Alma Library Services Platform.
Most large research libraries like Duke’s rely on various commercial and open-source software products to handle the everyday work of library staff, integrating systems for broad interoperability and accessibility while at the same time providing a high-quality user experience to library patrons.
While Duke has long contributed to the development of open-source library technologies (we were the founding institution of the Open Library Environment and a charter member of FOLIO), the decision to implement Alma was made after an extensive internal review of the specific library needs of the Duke community, including the separately administered libraries serving the schools of Business, Law, Divinity, and Medicine, as well as Duke Kunshan University Library. After evaluating financial considerations, impact on staffing, and the sustainability of wide-ranging library technology projects in which Duke has invested heavily, library leadership decided to move forward with Alma.
“We are in a better place today because of the contributions and work of our staff, who have laid the foundation for stronger, more sustainable library system at Duke,” said Joseph Salem, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs. “These investments, collaborations, and projects have been worthwhile in preparing us for an impactful future serving the Duke community.”
“We have a notable history of innovation through leveraging and integrating multiple technology platforms for library users,” said Tim McGeary, Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies & Technology. “We remain proud of FOLIO, our contributions and collaboration, and of our colleagues that have fully implemented FOLIO. We will work with the FOLIO community during this transition to minimize impact on leadership and staff collaboration, and we will fulfill the financial commitments we have made in shared development projects. We also remain proud of our partnership with Index Data, which will continue through hosting and supporting the Library Data Platform. Index Data’s dedication to FOLIO, Project ReShare, and open-source technology development in libraries is strong, and we look forward to future partnerships.”
Project plans for implementing Alma are being developed and will be communicated soon.
The new Main Library in downtown Durham is one of the Bull City’s newest architectural gems. All Duke students are eligible to use your local public library, even if you’re not a permanent NC resident.
It’s National Library Week, and we’ve got a quick and easy way you can celebrate!
Stop by Perkins Library on Tuesday, April 25, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m., and sign up for a Durham County Library Card.
It’s free and easy. All you need is your Duke ID (if you’re a Duke student) or other photo ID and proof of Durham residency (everybody else).
That’s right! ALL DUKE STUDENTS ARE ELIGIBLE to get a free Durham County Library Card*. Even if you’re not a permanent North Carolina resident, you can still use your local public library, and you don’t even have to leave your dorm room once you sign up.
Not to mention popular streaming services like Hoopla (Kids TV, popular movies, comics, e-books, and more) and IndieFlix (classic films, award-winning shorts, documentaries).
The Durham County Library consists of six branches spread throughout Durham County including the brand-new Main Library in downtown. It’s one of the Bull City’s newest architectural points of pride. If you need a break from studying in our campus libraries, check out their quiet study spots with inspiring views of downtown Durham. You can thank us later when you ace those exams.
* If you only have a Duke ID when you sign up, you’ll get a Student Card, which lets you check out 10 items at a time, plus access all electronic resources. If you also can show some proof of NC address (can be electronic, photo of a utility bill, piece of mail, etc.), you’ll get a full Library Card, which lets you check out up to 50 items.
Post by Michael Edwards, Resource Sharing Librarian; Alex Konecky, Access and Library Services Assistant; and Sarah Park, Librarian for Engineering and Computer Science
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is Duke University Libraries’ system for obtaining materials that are not available at Duke. This service is available to current Duke University faculty, staff, and students. Eligible users can submit an ILL request on the library homepage.
Go to the library homepage and click “Interlibrary Request” on the quick links menu. Then, click the “Request a Title” button to login, and fill out the form. If you haven’t used the service before, you may need to register for an account.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to fill out the form yourself, you can request an article through Google Scholar and avoid filling out the form. To do so, go to Scholar.Google.Com and search for the article you need.
Before you search, make sure that Google knows that you are affiliated with Duke. If you are on campus, Google already knows that you are affiliated with Duke. But if you are off campus, go to the settings under the three bars, clicking “Library Links,” and searching for Duke in the search box. Select Duke and press the “Save” button. A shortcut to the “Library Links” is https://scholar.google.com/scholar_settings?#2.
Once you have set up the library links, you will notice that search results show a “Get it at Duke” link next to the title whether you are on or off campus.
If you come across an article that doesn’t have the “Get it at Duke” link, like “Closed-loop insulin delivery: current status of diabetes technologies and future prospects,” don’t worry. You can still access it by clicking the double arrow at the bottom of the article. This will reveal the “Get it @ Duke” link. Click on it to proceed.
Next, click on “Request – University users” and make sure all the information is correctly filled out before submitting the request. You will receive a link via email, so you can access a PDF of the article.
If you have any questions about this or any other interlibrary loan services, please contact ILL department at Interlibraryrequests@duke.edu.
For the last several years, the Duke University Libraries has purchased copies of the assigned texts for a wide range of Duke courses and made them available to check out for free. It’s one of our most popular services, and students regularly tell us how much they appreciate it. And no wonder, when the cost of a single textbook can often exceed $300.
Now there’s a way you can help us make the program even better and do something about the ridiculous cost of textbooks at the same time. At the end of this semester, donate your textbooks to the library. We’ll make them available for other students to check out for free.
Don’t you wish someone had done that for you? Be that someone.
Look for the textbook donation bins in Perkins, Bostock, Lilly, and Divinity libraries starting this week. When you’ve finished with your classes, simply drop your books in the bin and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing you’ve made some future Duke student’s day.
So if you passed your classes, pass it on. Donate your textbooks to us and make a Duke education more affordable for all.
(And if you didn’t pass, we’ll understand if you need to hang on to those books a little longer.)
The Duke University Libraries are undertaking a strategic planning process in order to define a clear sense of direction and identify priorities for the next five years. Griffin Reames and Ashley Garcia from Guideline Consulting are helping to support us in this important work.
We would very much appreciate your participation in a 1-hour focus group with Guideline Consulting to share your feedback and reflections on the biggest strategic issues impacting the library’s future. Focus groups will be conducted virtually via Zoom.
Please indicate your availability here no later than Friday, April 14 and someone from Guideline will reach out to confirm a final date and time. Discussion prompts will be shared by Guideline prior to the focus group, though no advance preparation is required.
Attendees will receive a $20 gift card via email. We hope to hear from you!
On April 12, the Duke community will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Grateful Dead concert at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Widely regarded as a top show that year, the band delivered smoking renditions of “Jack Straw,” “Bertha,” “Good Lovin’,” and “Eyes of the World,” as you can hear for yourself in the video above.
To commemorate this historic show, join us for a special panel discussion, selections from the remastered video recording, live music, and refreshments on Wednesday, April 12, at 6:00 p.m. in the Ruby Lounge of the Rubenstein Arts Center.
A panel of Dead experts will share their interpretations of the show, including Professor Eric Mlyn; show volunteer and former Duke University Union coordinator Peter Coyle; and John Brackett, author of the forthcoming book Live Dead: The Grateful Dead, Live Recordings and the Ideology of Liveness, coming out next fall from Duke University Press. The book will be the first in a new Duke University Press series, Studies in the Grateful Dead, in the fall of 2023.
Bridget Booher, Director of Duke WIN, will moderate the panel. Footage featuring selected songs from the concert will be screened. After the program, local Dead cover band The Loose Lucies will perform for an hour. Refreshments will be served.
Professor Mlyn teaches a first-year seminar about the Grateful Dead. His students researched the band’s performances at Duke from 1971 to 1982 and curated an exhibit in Perkins Library. According to Mlyn, “4/12/78 was a raucous and animated performance and has been widely recognized by Deadheads as one of the best shows that year. The band was preparing for a trip to Egypt and it was the last full year of shows for keyboardist Keith Godchaux and his wife Donna whose unforgettable vocals punctuated shows during that era.”
Catch the livestream on April 27 at 6 p.m. No ticket required. See below for details.
In celebration of National Library Week, the Duke University Libraries are pleased to present an evening with National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg in conversation with New York Times opinion writer Frank Bruni at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 27, in Duke University’s Page Auditorium.
One of the country’s most respected journalists and a doyenne of the Supreme Court, Nina Totenberg is NPR’s award-winning legal affairs correspondent. With more than 40 years’ experience at NPR, she has won every major journalism award in broadcasting for her in-depth coverage of our nation’s highest court. Her nuanced reporting and seasoned reflections shine a light on important judicial cases, helping audiences understand their impact on America’s future like no one else can.
Dinners with Ruth chronicles Totenberg’s longstanding friendship with “RBG,” which began 22 years before Ginsberg was appointed to the Supreme Court and 4 years before Totenberg started at NPR. As both women fought for and excelled in careers historically dominated by men, they paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers. At the story’s heart is a special relationship: Ginsberg and Totenberg saw each other not only through personal joys, but also illness, loss, and widowhood. During Ginsberg’s last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were “reserved for Ruth” in Totenberg’s house.
Totenberg will be joined on stage in conversation with Frank Bruni, nationally renowned author and New York Times contributing opinion writer and the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University. Bruni is the author of five bestselling books, most recently The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found, a moving account of his diagnosis with a rare disorder that imperils his eyesight and left him blind in one eye. In 2021, he joined the Duke faculty and teaches media-oriented classes in the Sanford School of Public Policy.
Totenberg will be joined on stage in conversation with Frank Bruni, nationally renowned author and New York Times contributing opinion writer and the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University.
The evening with Totenberg and Bruni will be presented as the Weaver Memorial Lecture, hosted by the Duke University Libraries in memory of William B. Weaver, a 1972 Duke graduate and former member of the Duke Library Advisory Board. Previous Weaver Lecture speakers have included Barbara Kingsolver, Oliver Sacks, Dave Eggers, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Colson Whitehead, among others.
Copies of Dinners with Ruth will be available for sale at the event, and Totenberg will sign books after the talk. The book is also available in print, e-book, and audiobook format through the Duke University Libraries, and at your local public library.
Reserve Your Ticket
Note: Ticket reservations made online or by phone carry a $1.50per ticket service charge. Credit card payments only.
IN PERSON (FREE): Visit the Duke Box Office in the Bryan Center on Duke’s West Campus during their regular business hours, Tuesday-Friday, 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Parking Info
Visitors to campus without a Duke parking permit are strongly advised to pre-purchase a $5.00 visitor parking permit for this special event. The permit is valid for Parking Garage 4 (PG4), adjacent to the Bryan Center and a short walk from Page Auditorium.
Visit the My Parking at Duke website and select the Nina Totenberg and Frank Bruni event. You may be prompted to register with OneLink (it’s free and easy) in order to complete your transaction. Pre-purchased permits greatly reduce wait times on entering and exiting the parking garage.
Visitors without a pre-purchased permit will be charged $10(CASH ONLY) to park. Cashiers will be available at the Parking Garage 4 entrance. If you wish to pay by credit card, you will be directed to other visitor parking locations on campus.
Watch the Livestream
The talk will also be streamed online for those who are unable to attend in person. No ticket needed. Visit the Duke Box Office website for the livestream link and tune in at the event start time.
As part of our commitment to embody the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work, the Duke University Libraries are pleased to announce a new residency program for early career librarians, starting with two full-time positions.
The Duke University Libraries Residency Program will be a three-year program providing enhanced professional development and mentorship to enable two recent graduates of an MLS or related graduate program to gain experience and expertise in a highly specialized area of librarianship.
As a member of the ACRL Diversity Alliance, we are launching the Residency Program as part of our organization’s commitment to “diversify and thereby enrich the profession” and “to build an inclusive organizational culture supportive of Black, Indigenous and People of color (BIPOC).”
Two Residents will be hired in tandem to create a cohort experience every three years.
This program seeks to provide meaningful work placements in specialized fields of librarianship, aligning the professional goals of Residents with the strategic goals of the Duke University Libraries. While learning on the job, Residents will work with colleagues who are highly skilled in these specialized areas and receive relevant development and training.
To this end, the residency program will guarantee professional development funding to Residents to fund travel, conference attendance, presentations, etc., related to skill building and their ongoing career trajectories. Additional professional development will also be offered to Residents through both DUL and Duke-wide programming. Formal and informal mentorship opportunities will also be provided to Residents.
While an offer for regular employment is not guaranteed after the three-year program, Residents will be placed intentionally with the goal of their positions becoming regular, ranked librarian positions if successful during their three-year terms.
Resident Librarian for Resource Description
The Resident Librarian for Resource Description works collaboratively with the Original Cataloging Team and with other library colleagues to assist in the creation, management, and configuration of DUL metadata for description. The Resident Librarian will gain experience in applying international cataloging standards to resources in multiple formats and across all subjects in a way that promotes inclusive and effective access, with a focus on a language or languages from the following collecting areas—Middle Eastern (e.g., Arabic, Persian, Turkish), East Asian (Chinese, Korean), Central/South/Southeast Asian languages (e.g., Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Sanskrit, Uzbek, Kazakh), or Slavic languages (e.g., Russian, Ukrainian). The resident will gain experience working collaboratively on projects and utilizing open-source tools that support better discovery of library resources. See the full position description.
Resident Librarian for South and Southeast Asian Studies
The Resident Librarian for South and Southeast Asia serves as the primary liaison for faculty and users in the interdisciplinary fields of South and Southeast Asian Studies at Duke University. The Resident Librarian develops and manages the collections from and about South and Southeast Asia, and provides specialized reference assistance and instruction. The Resident will gain experience working collaboratively with library staff, students, and faculty through teaching, research consultations, outreach related to library collections, and other special projects. See the full position description.
Virtual Info Session: April 6
Please join us to learn more about these positions and ask questions before applying! We are offering an information session over Zoom where we will share more information about Duke University, the Duke University Libraries, and the two residency positions. No registration is needed. Just click the Zoom link below at the listed date and time. Participants can login as anonymous—attendee names only seen by panelists.
Jameca Dupree, Associate University Librarian and Director of Financial and Facility Services
The Duke University Libraries are pleased to announce two appointments to our senior leadership team, after dual national searches. Both will serve as members of the Libraries’ Executive Group, reporting to the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs.
Jameca Dupree has been named Associate University Librarian and Director of Financial and Facility Services, effective February 1.
In this role, she will have overall responsibility for the financial affairs and administrative operations of the Libraries, overseeing a $36 million operating budget and providing leadership over a division that includes Business Services, Facilities and Distribution Services, and the Library Service Center.
Dupree has led the division in an interim capacity since last July, following the retirement of Ann Wolfe, who had served in the role since 2002.
Dupree has worked at Duke for twenty-one years, including seventeen in the Libraries, in progressively responsible administrative, budget, and financial oversight roles. Starting out as a staff assistant in our Human Resources and Business Services Department (2005-2010), she was eventually promoted to Senior Financial Analyst (2010-2016) and Director of Business Services (2016-2022), before assuming her current responsibilities.
Dupree holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from North Carolina Wesleyan College, and a MBA from Fayetteville State University—both of which she earned while working full-time in the Libraries. She is also a graduate of the Managing at Duke program, the Triangle Research Libraries Network Management Academy, and the Duke Leadership Academy. In 2020, Dupree co-founded the Duke University Libraries Black Staff Alliance (DULBSA), a group that provides community, support, and ideas for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion among library staff.
“Jameca has excelled throughout her career in the Duke Libraries and most recently as Interim AUL,” said Joseph A. Salem, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs. “She was the ideal selection as we look for Financial and Facility Services not only to provide good stewardship well into the future, but also effective communication so that our staff have a shared sense of the resources needed to support our work and those available to innovate and push it in new directions.”
“I am delighted and extremely enthusiastic about this opportunity, especially continuing my career with the Duke University Libraries,” said Dupree. “It was a natural next step for me, and I am thankful that Joe, the members of the Executive Group, and library staff supported this direction. The Duke Libraries are moving forward in exciting and innovative ways, and I am honored to be a part of the leadership team that will see it through.”
Emily Daly, Associate University Librarian for Research and Public Services
Dupree’s appointment coincides with another addition to the Libraries’ Executive Group. Emily Daly has been named Associate University Librarian for Research and Public Services, effective March 1.
In this position, Daly will provide leadership, vision, and strategic direction to advance the core teaching, learning, and research services of the Libraries. The division she oversees is broadly responsible for providing individualized library help and outreach to students, faculty, university staff, and the general public. Research and Public Services includes Access and Delivery Services, the East Campus Libraries, International and Area Studies, Humanities and Social Sciences, Natural Sciences and Engineering, and the Marine Lab Library.
Daly has served as Interim AUL for the division since last June, following the departure of Dave Hansen. During that time, she has overseen a structural reorganization of the division, working with staff to bring increased focus on public services and user spaces. The new structure is better positioned to meet the evolving demands of a modern research library.
Daly has worked at the Duke University Libraries since 2006, when she was hired as an intern in the Instruction and Outreach Department. Later she was appointed Coordinator of Upper-Level Instruction and Librarian for Education (2008-2012), before being promoted to Interim Head of Library Instruction and Outreach (2012), Head of Assessment and User Experience (2013-2022), and Interim Head of Research and Instructional Services (2021-2022), prior to assuming her current duties.
In addition to her work in the Libraries, Daly is active in the library profession. She serves on the advisory council of the Triangle Research Libraries Network, and she has chaired or served on numerous committees with the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries, where she recently concluded a term on the board of the directors. Daly also has an extensive record of service to Duke. She currently serves on the Master’s Advisory Council and has been an Academic Advisor to pre-major Duke undergraduates since 2010.
Daly holds a bachelor’s degree in English from North Carolina State University, and a master’s in Library Science from UNC-Chapel Hill.
“I have been impressed with Emily’s willingness to lead the division through organizational change during this interim period and look forward to working with her in this role on an ongoing basis,” said Joe Salem. “She has demonstrated the commitment to collaboration, to our students, and to our colleagues that I was seeking. She has also demonstrated a strong emphasis on innovation and continuous improvement, which make her an ideal leader for a division that will contribute to the mission of the university in new ways over the coming years.”
“I’ve been fortunate in sixteen-plus years at Duke Libraries to work in a number of departments and roles,” said Daly. “Whenever I’ve felt that I might make a greater impact doing something new, an opportunity has presented itself, or I’ve successfully advocated for a change. I’m extremely excited about this latest opportunity, and I’m eager to work and learn alongside talented, dedicated colleagues as we set direction for services and spaces in response to library users’ evolving needs.”
The other members of the Libraries’ Executive Group include Blue Dean, Associate University Librarian for Development; Dracine Hodges, Associate University Librarian for Technical Services; Timothy M. McGeary, Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies and Technology; and Naomi Nelson, Associate University Librarian and Director of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Post by Hannah Rozear, Librarian for Biological Sciences and Global Health, and Sarah Park, Librarian for Engineering and Computer Science
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the buzz about ChatGPT. It can write papers! Debug code! Do your laundry! Create websites from thin air! While it is an exciting tech development with enormous possibilities for applications, understanding what’s under the hood and what it does well/not-so-well is critically important.
ChatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence Chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched for public use in November 2022. While other AI chatbots are also in development by tech giants such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft, OpenAI’s early rollout has eclipsed the others for now – with the site reaching more than 100 million users in 2 months. For some perspective, this is faster widespread adoption than TikTok, Instagram, and many other popular apps.
What you may not know about ChatGPT is that it has significant limitations as a reliable research assistant. One such limitation is that it has been known to fabricate or “hallucinate” (in machine learning terms) citations. These citations may sound legitimate and scholarly, but they are not real. It is important to note that AI can confidently generate responses without backing data much like a person under the influence of hallucinations can speak confidently without proper reasoning. If you try to find these sources through Google or the library—you will turn up NOTHING.
Why does it do this? ChatGPT is built on a Large Language Model and has been trained on a huge dataset of internet sources. It can quickly and simply generate easy-to-understand responses to any question you throw at it. But the responses are only as good as the quality of input data it has been trained on. Its core strength lies in recognizing language patterns—not in reading and analyzing lengthy scholarly texts. Given that, it may not be the most reliable source for in-depth research. The following is a shortlist of what we’ve observed ChatGPT is good for and not good for.
What It’s Good For
Generating ideas for related concepts, terms, and words about a particular topic. I asked ChatGPT, what are some keywords for the topic of AI literacy? It replied with: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning, Neural Networks, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Robotics, Data Science, Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Ethics of AI, Bias in AI, Explainable AI, Human-AI Interaction, Cognitive Computing… These are all great leads for terms I might use to look for articles and books on this topic.
Suggestions for databases where I could find literature on the topic. I asked ChatGPT, What are some good library databases I could search to find more information about the topic of AI literacy? ChatGPT replied with: IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, ScienceDirect, JSTOR, Proquest, arXiv, and Web of Science. It also suggested checking with my library to see what’s available. A more direct route to this type of question would be consulting the Duke Libraries Research Guides and/or connecting with the Subject Specialist at Duke who is familiar with the resources we have available on any given topic.
Suggestions for improving writing. As ChatGPT has been trained on a large corpus of text, it has accumulated a range of dictions and writing variations within context. I have found it particularly useful for checking grammar and sentence structure in American English, as well as for suggesting alternative phrasing, synonyms, or quick translations of my writing into another language. Additionally, I have experimented with asking ChatGPT to rewrite my paragraph, but if it produced an unexpected response, it may indicate that my writing contains parts that do not make sense in that particular language. Nonetheless, it is important to thoroughly review the text and ensure that it meets your criteria before taking it.
What It’s NOT Good For
DO NOT ask ChatGPT for a list of sources on a particular topic! ChatGPT is based on a Large Language Model and does not have the ability to match relevant sources to any given topic. It may do OK with some topics or sources, but it may also fabricate sources that don’t exist.
Be wary of asking ChatGPT to summarize a particular source, or write your literature review. It may be tempting to ask ChatGPT to summarize the main points of the dense and technical 10-page article you have to read for class, or to write a literature review synthesizing a field of research. Depending on the topic and availability of data it has on that topic, it may summarize the wrong source or provide inaccurate summaries of specific articles—sometimes making up details and conclusions.
Do not expect ChatGPT to know current events or predict the future. ChatGPT’s “knowledge” is based on the dataset that was available before September 2021, and therefore, it may not be able to provide up-to-date information on current events or predict the future. For instance, when I asked about the latest book published by Haruki Murakami in the US, ChatGPT responded with First Person Singular, which was published in April 2021. However, the correct answer is Novelist as a Vocation, which was released in November 2022. Additionally, ChatGPT did not seem aware of any recent developments beyond September 2021. It’s worth noting that Murakami’s new novel is expected to be released in April 2023.
AI chat technology is rapidly evolving and it’s exciting to see where this will go. Much like Google and Wikipedia helped accelerate our access to information in their heyday, the existence of these new AI-based tools requires their users to think about how to carefully and ethically incorporate them into their own research and writing. If you have any doubts or questions, ask real human experts, such as the library’s Ask a Librarian chat, or schedule a one-on-one consultation with a librarian for help.
Resources
Alkaissi, H., & McFarlane, S. I. (2023). Artificial Hallucinations in ChatGPT: Implications in Scientific Writing. Cureus, 15(2), e35179. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.35179
Over the last several years, Duke, like many other institutions, has made a significant investment in computational research, recognizing that such research techniques can have wide-ranging benefits from translational research in the biomedical sciences to the digital humanities, this work can and has been transformative. Much of this work is reliant on researchers being able to engage in text and data-mining (TDM) to produce the data-sets necessary for large-scale computational analysis. For the sciences, this can range from compiling research data across a whole series of research projects, to collecting large numbers of research articles for computer-aided systematic reviews. For the humanities, it may mean assembling a corpus of digitized books, DVDs, music, or images for analysis into how language, literary themes, or depictions have changed over time.
The Law of Text and Data Mining
The techniques and tools for text and data-mining have advanced rapidly, but one constant for TDM researchers has been a fear of legal risk. For data-sets composed of copyrighted works, the risk of liability can seem staggering. With copyright’s statutory damages set as high as $150,000 per work infringed, a corpus of several hundred works can cause real concern.
However, the risks of just avoiding copyrighted works are also high. Given the extensive reach of copyright law, avoiding protected or unlicensed works can mean narrowing research to focus on extremely limited datasets, which can in turn lead to biased and incomplete results. For example, avoiding copyright for many researchers means using very old, public domain sources materials, which skews their scholarship to focus on works written by authors that do not represent the diverse voices found in modern publications.
Thankfully, there is a legal pathway forward for TDM researchers. Unlike the situation in most other nations, where text and data-mining has benefited from special enabling legislation, the United States has instead relied on fair use, the flexible copyright doctrine that has been key to US innovation policy. While fair use has the reputation of being nebulous and confusing (you might recall hearing it described as the “right to hire a lawyer”) there are good reasons to believe that with appropriate safeguards, non-commerical academic research is reliably protected by fair use. Only a handful of recent efforts have focused on helping researchers better understand the scope of these fair use rights for TDM research. For example, UC Berkeley spearheaded an NEH-funded project to build legal literacies for text and data mining in 2020. I’m happy to say that Authors Alliance, a nonprofit that supports authors who research and write for the public benefit, is working to further advance understanding of fair use as applied to TDM research through new resources and direct consultation with researchers under a new Mellon Foundation supported project titled “Text and Data Mining: Demonstrating Fair Use.”
Unfortunately, fair use isn’t the only legal barrier to text and data-mining research. For researchers who seek to use modern digital works–for example, ebooks available only in ePub format, or movies only available on DVDs–a whole series of other laws can stand in the way. In particular, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA,” a creature of late-90s copyright and information policy), Congress created a special set of restrictions on users of digital materials, seeking to give copyright owners the right to place digital locks on their works, such as DRM, to prevent online piracy. The DMCA imposes significant liability for users of copyrighted works who circumvent technical protection measures (e.g., content scramble for DVDs) unless those users comply with a series of complex exemptions promulgated by the U.S. Copyright Office.
In 2021, Authors Alliance, the Association of Research Libraries, and the American Association of University Professors joined together to successfully petition the US Copyright Office for such a DMCA exemption for text and data mining in support of academic research. That exemption now allows researchers to circumvent technological protection measures that restrict access to literary works and motion pictures. Like other exemptions, it is complicated, containing requirements such as the implementation of strict security measures. But, it is not impenetrable, especially with clear guidance.
An Invitation to Learn with Us About Legal Issues in Text and Data Mining
To that end, I’m pleased that Duke University Libraries, the Franklin Humanities Institute, and others units at Duke are working with Authors Alliance to take the lead in supporting researchers to overcome legal obstacles to TDM. Together, this spring we will host a series of workshops for faculty, librarians, and others at Duke as well as other Triangle area universities. On March 23, we’ll host a workshop focused on legal issues in TDM using textual materials, and then on April 4, another workshop on TDM with visual and audio-visual materials. Each workshop will give an overview of the state of law as applied to TDM – practical tips and guidance, as well as substantial hands-on discussion about how to address particular challenges. We also plan to use these workshops to gather feedback: about where the law is confusing, or in its current state, inadequate for researchers. That work is done with an eye toward identifying ways to improve the law to make computational research using TDM techniques more accessible and efficient.
All are invited to join. You can register for these workshops below.
Legal Issues in Text and Data Mining: Literature and Text-Based Works
Thursday, March 23
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (Lunch Provided) The Edge Workshop Room (Bostock Library 127) Register to attend
Legal Issues in Computational Research Using Images and Audiovisual Works
Tuesday, April 4
2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall (Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, C105) Register to attend
The following letter was sent to the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy on behalf of the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation.
On behalf of all 13 Ivy Plus libraries, we write to express our strong support for the updated policy guidance issued by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) that will make funded research immediately available to the public to freely access and fully use.
At higher education institutions across the world, libraries play a critical role in supporting our scholars in finding and using research, and in sharing the research they produce—all in support of institutional missions to leverage our research and teaching in service of creating a better and more equitable world for future generations. It is in that spirit that we want to highlight the dangers of allowing the interests of commercial publishers to dictate the paths available to implementing this bold new guidance on open scholarship. We refer here to the pay-to-publish model of open access to research publications, as exemplified by individual APC (article processing charge) fees charged directly to authors, and/or institutional Read and Publish agreements where libraries pay bulk APCs on behalf of their scholars and unlock institutional access to read pay-walled content.
Some might argue that well-resourced institutions like ours can afford to pay for both the right to access research and the right to publish and participate in research, but such investment detracts from our core mission of open access and more specifically our ability to comply with the proposed policy changes that we so overwhelmingly support. Implementing the Nelson memo via an APC model is antithetical to the equity goals so clearly articulated in the guidance memo and the values of our institutions.
Locking in a norm where an author, funder, and/or institution must pay an opaque and often costly fee for the right to publish an article risks locking out scholars from less resourced institutions and less well funded disciplines. The equity issue in the APC model extends globally for authors and researchers in lower-income countries who must navigate publishers’ convoluted and demeaning APC waiver procedures that may result in denial of the waiver or discounted APC fees that are still unaffordable. Equitable opportunity to contribute to scholarly literature is as important for the integrity and usefulness of scholarship globally as is the open accessibility to read. As representatives of some of the most well-resourced libraries in the country, we are committed to using our resources to promote public access to all research, not just the research our scholars produce. If public access to research outputs is achieved via a pay-to-publish model, we will have squandered an opportunity to promote equity in scholarly communication by simply substituting economic barriers to access to research for economic barriers to contributing to research.
This policy guidance is the culmination of many years of steady progress towards making research more openly available. It provides a much-needed update to strengthen U.S. policy that will bring our country to equal footing with governments across the world that have established strong open access policies to promote their national innovation agendas. We hope to be a partner to the administration to support and implement this important policy guidance.
We both applaud this policy change and are aware that it may result in significant additional costs related to publication, repositories, data management, and staffing which we anticipate will be shouldered by individual researchers and institutions. We urge you to work with the research community to identify appropriate financial support to these additional burdens in future spending bills. Investing in infrastructure and services that are directly aligned with the research mission will be critical to laying the foundation for a more open and equitable system of research that will result in better, faster answers to the problems of our time.
Joseph S. Meisel
Joukowsky Family University Librarian
Brown University
Torsten Reimer
University Librarian and Dean of the University Library
University of Chicago
Ann Thornton
Vice Provost and University Librarian
Columbia University
Elaine L. Westbrooks
Carl A. Kroch University Librarian
Cornell University
Susanne Mehrer
Dean of Libraries
Dartmouth College
Joseph Salem
Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs
Duke University
Martha Whitehead
Vice President for the Harvard Library and University Librarian
Harvard University
Elisabeth M. Long
Sheridan Dean of University Libraries, Archives, and Museums
Johns Hopkins University
Chris Bourg
Director of Libraries
MIT
Constantia Constantinou
H. Carton Rogers III Vice Provost and Director of Libraries
University of Pennsylvania
Anne Jarvis
Dean of Libraries and Robert H. Taylor 1930 University Librarian
Princeton University
Barbara Rockenbach
Stephen F. Gates ‘68 University Librarian
Yale University
Michael A. Keller
Vice Provost & University Librarian
Director of Academic Information Resources
Stanford University
Are you stuck in a reading rut? Has that stack of books you’ve been meaning to read suddenly lost all appeal?
Oh, honey. You need to check out our Mystery Date with a Book display next to the Perkins Library Service Desk, now through February 15.
Our librarians have hand-picked some of their all-time favorite literary crushes. Trust us. Librarians are the professional matchmakers of the book world. They’ve picked out some titles guaranteed to improve your circulation, if you know what we mean.
Each book comes wrapped in paper with a come-hither teaser to pique your interest. Will you get fiction or nonfiction? Short stories or travelogue? Memoir or thriller? You won’t know until you “get between the covers,” nudge, nudge. Aw, yeah.
So go ahead, take home a one-night stand for your nightstand. Who knows? Your pretty little self might just fall in love with a new favorite writer!
Don’t forget to “Rate Your Date” and let us know what you thought of your match. Look for the rating card included with your book, and return it for a chance to win a library swag bag!
The Duke University Libraries are proud to present the 2023 Andrew T. Nadell Prize for Book Collecting. The contest is open to all students enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate/professional degree program at Duke, and the winners will receive cash prizes.
Winners of the contest will receive any in-print Grolier Club book of their choice, as well as a three-year membership in the Bibliographical Society of America.
You don’t have to be a “book collector” to enter the contest. Past collections have varied in interest areas and included a number of different types of materials. Collections are judged on adherence to a clearly defined unifying theme, not rarity or monetary value.
Visit our websitefor more information and read winning entries from past years. Contact Kurt Cumiskey at kurt.cumiskey@duke.edu with any questions.
Sara Seten Berghausen (left) with Exhibits Librarian Meg Brown, October 2015. Photo by Lisa Unger Baskin. Thanks to Andy Armacost, Meg Brown, Rachel Ingold, Laura Micham, Naomi Nelson, and Roshan Panjwani for their contributions to this remembrance.
On Monday, December 5, 2022, the Duke University Libraries lost a longtime colleague and treasured friend. Sara Seten Berghausen, Associate Curator of Collections in the Rubenstein Library, passed away at the age of 53 after a heroic fight with cancer. She will be deeply and greatly missed by many in Durham, at Duke, and especially here in the Libraries.
Sara had a long career at Duke—so long that her email address was simply sara@duke.edu. She worked here for just over two decades, during which time her curiosity and expertise led her to hold positions across this organization.
She could boast degrees from both ends of Tobacco Road, including two from Duke. She came here as an undergrad on scholarship for flute performance, only to discover a passion for Russian literature and culture that led her to earn a bachelor’s in Comparative Area Studies and Russian (1991) and stay on for a master’s in Russian Literature (1993). Sara made many lifelong friendships while a student here, most importantly her future husband Alexander (Sasha) Berghausen, whom she met when they both played as undergraduates in the Duke Symphony Orchestra. They married in 1993. She added a second master’s from UNC’s School of Information and Library Science in 1996.
Sara as a Duke undergraduate (right), with future husband Sasha (center) and future sister-in-law Beth, celebrating a Duke men’s basketball team victory, 1991.
While a grad student at UNC, Sara returned to Duke as a library intern, first in our International and Area Studies Department and later in what was then called the Reference Department in Perkins Library. Several years followed working for the library systems at the University of Chicago and University of Texas at Austin, before she returned to Duke in 2001 as Librarian for Literature and Theater Studies, a post she held until 2014. Ever generous and open to new challenges, Sara also covered the occasional critical vacancy, spending a year as Interim Film and Video Librarian in Lilly Library and another as Interim Slavic and Eurasian Studies Librarian. In 2012, she was promoted to Head of the Humanities Section. Since 2014, she has served as Associate Curator in the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. It was a job she loved, as anyone who spent five minutes in a classroom with her could tell.
Her portfolio as curator included the Economists’ Papers Archive, where she worked with a number of Nobel Prize winners, and wide-ranging literary collections. The latter spanned a multitude of fascinating and notable collecting areas, covering a broad swath of British and American literary history, comic books, science fiction, utopian literature, and Southern writers, including a number with strong Duke connections, such as William Styron, Fred Chappell, Reynolds Price, Michael Malone, Anne Tyler, and Allan Gurganus. She also supported archives related to Duke, Durham, and theater studies, including the Synergetic Theater and Manbites Dog Theater. Sara loved working with scholars, writers, authors, and theoreticians to preserve their papers and develop curricula and public programming around them. Collection donors and researchers deeply respected her expertise and were drawn to her warm and lively personality.
With novelist Colson Whitehead when he visited the Rubenstein Library while on campus to deliver a guest lecture, February 2018.
As Sara’s supervisor and friend, Andy Armacost, put it: “Sara had strong relationships across campus and in the Duke community. In her time in the Duke University Libraries she helped our library, our campus, and our town feel a little more connected. She helped librarians, students, faculty, and the community to better know each other.” The person who knew your children’s names and where they went to school, asked about your ailing parents, or brought you food when you were home sick—that was Sara.
Sara was also an active campus citizen. Among the many Duke extracurriculars she participated in, one of her favorites was the Common Experience Reading Committee, where she spent nearly fifteen years reading and debating which book the next class of Blue Devils should read. She had a gift for bringing people together over books and ideas, and she shared that gift freely, enthusiastically, and daily. She was a committed undergraduate academic advisor and provided advice and guidance to hundreds of students over her career. Sara also provided support to fellow working parents by helping to establish the parents@duke listserv in the early 2000s as a way to connect and find parenting resources within the Duke community. It’s no exaggeration to say that Sara bled Duke blue, and her insider perspective as a Duke alum made her an especially good librarian, advisor, and co-worker.
Sara was committed to social justice, and to Durham, and she led by example both at work and in the Triangle community. The list of nonprofit organizations for which she volunteered or served as a board member could fill a whole page, including Schoolhouse of Wonder, Preservation Durham, Urban Ministries, and St. Phillips Episcopal Church, among many others. She greatly admired the work of the Equal Justice Initiative, and one of the highlights of her career was meeting founder Bryan Stevenson after his book Just Mercy was chosen as the summer reading pick for the Class of 2020, thanks to Sara’s advocacy on the selection committee.
Assisting a patron at the Perkins Library Reference Desk, February 2011.
After she died, those of us in the Libraries began to share some of our fondest memories of Sara with each other. But because she touched so many lives, we wanted a space for the entire Duke community to be able to share stories and reminiscences about her, virtually. If you’re reading this and would like to contribute your own memory of Sara, please drop it in the comments section below. We’ll be sure to include it.
Sara leaves behind many friends in Durham, at Duke, around the country, and internationally. We wish to express our deepest sympathies in particular to Sara’s family, especially her husband Sasha; children Alexander, Ellen, and Jane; parents Charles and Nancy Seten; and her brother Charles Seten. Her library family grieves with you.
The night before Sara passed away, her close friend and colleague in the Rubenstein Library, Meg Brown, sat with her and read her a poem by Wendell Berry, which we would like to close with—in grief and in cherished memory of our good friend, Sara.
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Memorial Service
All are welcome to join in celebrating the life of Sara Seten Berghausen at a memorial service on Saturday, January 7, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. in Duke Chapel. The service will be followed by a public reception hosted by the Duke University Libraries in the Gothic Reading Room on the second floor of Rubenstein Library.
Gifts of Remembrance
The family has asked that gifts in Sara’s honor be directed to the Equal Justice Initiative. Donations can be made through their website. Be sure to check the box that says, “Dedicate my donation in honor or in memory of someone,” to indicate your gift is in memory of Sara Seten Berghausen.
Sara printing in the Durham studio of Brian Allen, December 2017.
Look at all those joyous little faces. That’s the power of books! (Image courtesy of Book Harvest.)
In memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and in support of our local community, the Duke University Libraries are running a children’s book drive now through January 10, 2023.
The books we collect will be donated to Book Harvest, a North Carolina nonprofit that believes in the power of books to change children’s lives and works to ensure that all children can grow up in homes full of books. Since it was launched in 2011, Book Harvest has donated almost 2 million books to children throughout North Carolina.
We need new and gently used books for children of all ages, especially board books and picture books for the youngest readers, as well as Spanish and bilingual books, and books with diverse characters and story lines. Please, no encyclopedias, dictionaries, or books in poor condition.
Where to Donate Books
Look for the book collection bins in the following locations, and please help us fill them!
Perkins Library, in the lobby across from the von der Heyden Pavilion
Perkins Library, Shipping and Receiving (Lower Level 1, near the Link)
Lilly Library, main lobby
Music Library, main lobby
Smith Warehouse, Bay 10, Shipping and Receiving
Ford Library, Fuqua School of Business
Goodson Law Library, Law School
Medical Center Library
Don’t have books but want to donate?
We’ve got you covered with the help of the Regulator Bookshop in Durham! Here’s how it works:
Upon checking out, use the code libraries to ensure your books count toward our book drive. (NOTE: This is not a discount code. You will not see a change in price.)
Select “In store pickup” as the shipping choice, and the Regulator will make sure the books get to Book Harvest.
You are also invited to volunteer for the MLK “Dream Big” community drive and to attend the 2023 celebration! Duke University Libraries is a proud sponsor of this annual event.
Guest post by Haley Walton, Librarian for Education and Open Scholarship
NOTE: This event was originally scheduled for October 25 but has been rescheduled to November 10.
As part of the Duke Libraries’ annual celebration of International Open Access Week 2022, Bostock Library will host Dr. Erika Weinthal, Professor of Environmental Policy and Public Policy at the Nicholas School for the Environment, to speak on her research into environmental peacebuilding.
Dr. Erika Weinthal, Professor of Environmental Policy and Public Policy
Defined in Dr. Weinthal’s co-authored 2021 paper (published openly in the journal International Affairs), environment peacebuilding is “the multiple approaches and pathways by which the management of environmental issues is integrated in and can support conflict prevention, mitigation, resolution and recovery.” In a world where armed conflicts continue to rage and the environmental crisis is worsening, Dr. Weinthal’s research emphasizes the critical need for collaboration to resolve those conflicts in keeping with principles of environmental consciousness.
Join us in the Bostock Library Workshop Room (127) on Thursday, November 10, 2022 from 4:30-5:30pm for Dr. Weinthal’s talk.
A link to the event on the Libraries’ calendar can be found here.
For more Open Access Week events, visit this site.
We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2021-2022 library writing and research awards. Every year the Duke University Libraries run a series of essay contests recognizing the original research and writing of Duke students and encouraging the use of library resources. Congratulations to this year’s winners!
Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using sources from the Libraries’ general collections.
First/Second Year Winner: Laura Boyle for “Pop Prophet: King Princess’ Subversion of Dominant Desire,” nominated by Dr. Matthew Valnes
Third/Fourth Year Winner: Darren Janz for “Somlandela: Julius Malema and the Rise of a New South African Populism,” nominated by Dr. Karin Shapiro
Honors Thesis Winner: Caroline Petronis for “Blurring Contagion in the Information Age: How COVID-19 Troubles the Boundaries of the Biomedical and Socioinformatic,” nominated by Dr. Nima Bassiri
Recognizing excellence of analysis, research, and writing in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Undergraduate Award: Adrianna DeLorenzo for “To What Extent Did British Prisoners of War During World War One Feel Ashamed as a Result of Captivity?” Nominated by Dr. Kristen Neuschel
Graduate Award: Mariko Azuma for “The Lure towards Comfōto: Japan’s Early Hotels of the 20th Century.” Nominated by Dr. Gennifer Weisenfeld
Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using primary sources for political science or public policy.
Ana Herndon for “The Historical Merit of Ethnic Studies: A Study on the Importance of Diverse Higher Education on Social Change.” Nominated by Dr. Cecilia Márquez
Thang Lian for “Kan i ton than lai (We will meet again): A Lai Mi Family Oral History”
Tina Xia for “Waiting to be seen”
Join Us at the Awards Reception!
We will be celebrating our winners and their achievements at a special awards reception coinciding with Duke Family Weekend. All are invited to join us for refreshments and the opportunity to honor the recipients.
Post by Haley Walton, Librarian for Education and Open Scholarship
For over a decade, the Duke University Libraries have been invested in open access to scholarly literature: the sharing of research outputs freely on the internet with no paywalls. In 2010, the faculty adopted an Open Access Policy to enable Duke authors to share their research papers in an open repository, DukeSpace, maintained by the Libraries. At the same time, the university signed onto the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE), a program that aimed to remove disincentives to publishing in open access journals by helping authors pay article processing charges (APCs).
Our COPE Fund’s founding mission was to support “pure” open access publishers operating entirely on APCs rather than subscriptions—this in order to promote equity among subscription-based publishers and APC-based open access, which was, at the time, an innovative publishing model. COPE was designed to encourage the overall creation and sustainability of fully open publishing, as well as lower the cost barrier of APCs for Duke authors. Our goal was to endorse the open exchange of scholarship produced at the university.
With funding from the Duke University Libraries, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and the Office of the Provost, COPE helped defray publication costs for our authors continuously for the subsequent 12 years. This included funding the publication of nearly 500 articles by 470 individual Duke authors (faculty, graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates). However, in June 2022, the COPE program will be coming to an end as the Libraries pivot to open access initiatives that are more relevant in today’s publishing landscape. (See our list of Duke-supported open access initiatives for more information.) This does not mean we are less dedicated to supporting OA at the university, but that the Libraries are choosing to invest in more contemporary models of openness, and ones that will have broader benefit in the Duke community and beyond.
As administrator of the fund for the last 6 years, I have enjoyed thoughtful correspondence with authors whose concerns about the publishing ecosystem are considerable. Openness is encouraged as demands for citations and numerous publications grow for students and faculty. But in the time since COPE’s creation, APC-based open access has matured into a mainstream part of the scholarly publishing ecosystem (rather than being the innovative model it was in 2010). Market-dominant, for-profit publishers and university presses have seen the benefits and popularity of open access, subsequently making modifications to their own models to include OA options (e.g. pay-for-OA in closed-access journals and/or entirely open journals started by “traditional” publishing houses).
As a consequence, there is less delineation between “pure” OA and a hybrid model of open options and subscriptions. This has made it difficult for our COPE Fund to operate effectively using the principles upon which it was founded, namely that we had to restrict the journals and publishers we could fund, excluding any journals that had been purchased or launched by publishers such as Wiley, Nature, or Elsevier. This led to frustration for both authors and for the Libraries as the open access publishing landscape became more convoluted. The technicalities of balancing COPE’s mission with the changing norms in OA publishing necessitated long-form communication with applicants and limitations on the fund that were more problematic than helpful for the Duke community. The Libraries assessed the dwindling ability of the fund to cover more than 20-40 article APCs per year (and often not the entire fee, as costs have been going up) and concluded that we could reinvest the COPE funds in other publishing activities that would benefit a greater number of authors on campus (such as the read and publish deal with Cambridge University Press that started in January 2022).
In my time working with Duke authors who were utilizing the COPE Fund, I had the privilege of seeing the groundbreaking research happening at the university and of having in-depth discussions about our community’s needs as academia grows and changes into the 21st century. I worked with authors across disciplines, from medicine and psychology to the social sciences and math. These are people dedicated to their work and determined to share knowledge with their colleagues and the general public. While COPE’s footprint on campus grew smaller with each passing year—limited funding and rising APC costs—I was still glad to keep a finger on the pulse of publishing on campus through the program. The Libraries (myself included) fully intend to continue to advocate for openness in scholarly publishing and for the interests of Duke authors in an ever-evolving world of openness in research, albeit without the COPE Fund.
It’s a bittersweet farewell I say to the program, but encourage all Duke faculty, students, and other researchers to keep an open dialog with the Libraries about what you need when it comes to resources to publish openly in your discipline. We are determined to invest library resources in an open infrastructure that supports our authors and their scholarly endeavors into the future.
Guest post by Paolo Mangiafico, Scholarly Communications Strategist and Co-Director, ScholarWorks Center for Scholarly Publishing; Haley Walton, Librarian for Education and Open Scholarship; and Elena Feinstein, Head of Collection Strategy and Development
In keeping with our long-held goal of putting knowledge in service to society, Duke University has been an early and strong proponent of open access publishing. So many scholarly journals and books remain behind subscription paywalls—while members of the Duke community can get access to many of them through Duke Libraries, researchers at less privileged institutions or in other countries, independent researchers, policymakers, and the general public often can’t. This is where open access comes in—through a variety of funding and publishing models, researchers can increasingly make their publications and data and other research outputs freely available to anyone to read and use, resulting in increased reach and impact for Duke research, and benefits to the world at large.
Duke’s Academic Council adopted an open access policy in 2010, making it possible for Duke faculty to share their own scholarly articles via an open access repository supported by Duke Libraries, and link them from their Scholars@Duke profiles and lab, department, school, and institute web sites. This is sometimes known as “green open access”—referring to authors making their own articles available via preprint servers or other other repositories, in addition to publishing them in a traditional journal. Some journals also make it possible for publications to be made open access directly from the journal—known as “gold open access”—either by publishing the journal through volunteer labor of scholars themselves, or by institutions and foundations sponsoring the journal’s publishing costs, or by publishers charging authors an article processing charge (APC) when their article is accepted for publication. Duke has provided support for all of these models over the years, encouraging more researchers and more journals to make their work openly available, and providing financial and in-kind support to help do so.
“Duke Libraries have recently entered into a new agreement with Cambridge University Press (CUP) that will both provide subscription access to Cambridge journals for the Duke community as well as cover open access article fees for Duke authors publishing in CUP journals.”
Starting in January, a new opportunity to publish open access became available to Duke authors. Duke Libraries have recently entered into a new agreement with Cambridge University Press (CUP) that will both provide subscription access to Cambridge journals for the Duke community as well as cover open access article fees for Duke authors publishing in CUP journals. This program applies to all 380 journals that Cambridge University Press publishes as either fully open access or hybrid (the journal itself is subscription access, but individual articles may be made open access)—you can find the full list of applicable journals here. If you submitted your article to one of these journals after January 1, 2022, and the corresponding author has a Duke email address, CUP will waive open access fees. CUP open access fees average $3,945 per article, so this agreement will result in a significant savings for Duke authors, help make more Duke research openly available to anyone to read, and increase the potential readership and impact for Duke researchers. The program includes authors affiliated with Duke University (including the professional schools), School of Medicine, and Duke Kunshan University, but not Duke University Health System.
These kinds of arrangements are called “transformative agreements” because they aim to begin the shift from institutions paying for limited access subscriptions toward paying for open access publishing, with the ultimate result of a transformed scholarly publishing landscape, with neither readers nor authors having to pay for publishing or access. These kinds of programs are a welcome transition away from a purely subscription landscape toward greater access, but they have the potential to further establish a different kind of inequity by privileging authors who are at institutions like Duke that can afford to enter in this kind of arrangement, and privileging large publishers who can afford to experiment with new funding models and make large-scale deals.
As a key player in the shifting scholarly publishing landscape, Duke Libraries will continue to experiment with a variety of models, and monitor the costs and benefits to the Duke community and effects on the broader research community, aiming to keep moving toward models that promote greater access and equity, and that align with our institution’s values.
“So at the end of this fiscal year… the COPE fund will wind down as we pivot to new models like the Cambridge program… and others that build partnerships between publishers and libraries to collectively fund journals and books so neither authors nor readers need to cover the costs.”
One experiment we began more than a decade ago is now winding down, as the landscape has changed significantly over those years. In 2010 Duke became a signatory to the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE), a program that aimed to remove disincentives for researchers to publish in open access journals, by helping cover some of the article processing charges (APCs) open access journals were starting to charge to cover their costs. With financial support from the Provost, Duke Libraries, the School of Medicine, and School of Nursing, a fund was established to cover some open access fees for Duke authors. Over the years this program has funded open access publication of nearly 500 articles, supporting 470 Duke authors, including faculty, graduate students, postdocs and even undergraduates. The journal publishing landscape has changed over the time this program was active—APC-funded publishing is now well-established, sponsors of funded research now generally allow inclusion of these costs in grant budgets, and new models have emerged that can provide broader benefit a lower cost. So at the end of this fiscal year (in June) the COPE fund will wind down as we pivot to new models like the Cambridge program described above (which provide benefit to all Duke authors, not just those who applied for and were awarded reimbursement from COPE) and others that build partnerships between publishers and libraries to collectively fund journals and books so neither authors nor readers need to cover the costs. Duke University Press is establishing itself as a leader in this area with the innovative model it has established for the Demography journal. UNC Press, MIT Press, the University of Michigan Press, and many others are also building sustainable open access funding models, and Duke is partnering with them to help build more open access for Duke researchers and readers everywhere.
To learn more about other programs supported by Duke Libraries to help increase open access to Duke research and promote a more equitable scholarly publishing ecosystem more broadly, and how you can use them when you publish, see this page, talk with your librarian, or email open-access@duke.edu.
For the last several years, the Duke University Libraries has purchased copies of the assigned texts for a wide range of Duke courses and made them available to check out for free. It’s one of our most popular services, and students regularly tell us how much they appreciate it. And no wonder, when the cost of a single textbook can often exceed $300.
Now there’s a way you can help us make the program even better and do something about the ridiculous cost of textbooks at the same time. At the end of this semester, donate your textbooks to the library. We’ll make them available for other students to check out for free.
Don’t you wish someone had done that for you? Be that someone.
Look for the textbook donation bins in Perkins, Bostock, Lilly, and Divinity libraries starting this week. When you’ve finished with your classes, simply drop your books in the bin and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing you’ve made some future Duke student’s day.
So if you passed your classes, pass it on. Donate your textbooks to us and make a Duke education more affordable for all.
(And if you didn’t pass, we’ll understand if you need to hang on to those books a little longer.)
Relocating Duke’s priceless special collections 4,700 miles away from the researchers who need to consult them will help ensure their long-term preservation.
With Duke’s recent addition of Hawaii to the list of states where university employees are allowed to work remotely, the Duke University Libraries announced today that its entire 250-person staff will be working full-time from the Aloha State, starting this spring and summer.
In what’s being described as a radical experiment in putting the lessons of the pandemic to work, Duke will have the first library system in the nation to be operated entirely remotely, from nearly 5,000 miles and five time zones away.
Though it will take some getting used to, the change will come with major benefits for students, said retiring University Librarian Deborah Jakubs, who has already gone ahead to the popular vacation destination to oversee the staff move.
“For years, Duke students have been asking us for more study space in the libraries,” said Jakubs from a private lanai overlooking a breathtaking Pacific sunset. “Now we’re finally able to give them what they want. With staff offices empty and all of us out of the way, students can finally have the entire place to themselves,” she added between sips from a tall, cool Mai Tai.
How exactly will a remotely operated research library work? Largely on the honor system and with the help of student employees, said Dave Hansen, Associate University Librarian for Research, Collections & Scholarly Communication. “The past two years have prepared us well for maintaining high levels of service even when we’re not onsite,” said Hansen, sporting a three-day beard under a wide-brim sun hat. “The Libraries employ almost 200 highly trained student workers who are already accustomed to assisting patrons and performing various support functions that keep our operations going.”
Books and other materials in the circulating collection will be available on a self-checkout basis, Hansen explained. The Libraries are purchasing additional self-checkout stations, which will be installed near every library entrance.
“And here’s the best part—once you’re done with your books, DVDs, whatever, you just put them back on the shelves where you found them,” said Hansen, the faint sounds of a ukulele strumming somewhere behind him. “We totally trust you.”
“Our librarians will still be available for consultation via Zoom,” said Emily Daly, Interim Head of Research and Instructional Services, casually waxing a Duke blue surfboard. “Whenever students or faculty need help with a class or research project, we’ll be just the click of a button away,” Daly added, as dolphins could be seen cavorting in the gnarly whitecaps behind her “office.” When scheduling Zoom appointments with library staff, Duke students and faculty are advised to add a 30-minute buffer on either end to account for “island time.”
While books and other materials in the Libraries’ general collection will remain onsite in Durham, some 65,000 linear feet of archival material in the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library will be relocated to a secure facility on Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island.
“We believe the best way to preserve Duke’s priceless special collections is to put about 4,700 miles of distance between them and the researchers who need to consult them,” said Naomi Nelson, Associate University Librarian and Director of the Rubenstein Library. “With its low temperatures, low humidity, and clean air, Mauna Kea has some of the best environmental conditions anywhere on earth for preserving rare books and historical papers,” Nelson explained, tossing a few more logs into a fire pit where she planned to slow-roast a pig over the course of the day. “Not to mention the billions of stars you can see out here at night. Really helps you keep all that important ‘research’ in perspective, you know?”
Nelson confirmed that the Rubenstein Library will continue to staff a reading room for researchers who wish to consult special collections material in person, “assuming they don’t mind a 15-hour flight.”
With Duke’s current University Librarian Deborah Jakubs set to retire in May, one unanswered question is whether her eventual successor will join the library staff or remain in Durham as the “face” of the Libraries on campus.
“We appreciate everyone’s patience and flexibility as we work to serve Duke better,” said Jakubs, reclining into a hammock slung between two palm trees that gently swayed in the sea breeze. “Mahalo.”
Can this flexible work arrangement be for real? Unfortunately it’s not a “remote” possibility. Happy April Fools’ Day, Dukies!
Blue Dean, Associate University Librarian for Development
The Duke University Libraries are pleased to announce the appointment of L. Blue Dean as Associate University Librarian for Development, effective March 28, 2022.
Reporting to the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs, Dean will serve as a member of the Libraries’ Executive Group and lead organizational efforts to sustain and expand philanthropic support for one of the nation’s top research library systems.
A seasoned fundraiser with more than twenty years of experience in higher education and the nonprofit sector, including prior appointments at Duke, Dean comes to us from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she has served as Executive Director for Library Development since 2019. Previously, she was the Executive Director of Development for Duke University’s Department of Medicine and the Duke Heart Center, earning a strong record of progressively successful fundraising leadership over eight years.
Dean has also led development efforts at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville—her alma mater, where she earned a B.A. in English—as the Director of Development for the University Libraries and, later, the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences. She has also held fundraising positions at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and oversaw the volunteer and visitor experience at the Knoxville Museum of Art.
During her time at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dean served as a member of the University Libraries Leadership Team and successfully raised over $20 million for the Libraries. At the start of the pandemic, she co-chaired a steering committee that determined how to reopen the libraries and provide services for students, faculty, and the community while prioritizing the safety of library staff. She also served on the University Development Office’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and on the taskforce that launched the OneCarolina Pilot Mentorship Program.
“I look forward to welcoming Blue to the Duke University Libraries, and I am excited about the energy and experience she will bring to this position,” said Deborah Jakubs, the Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs. “This is a time of transition for the Libraries,” said Jakubs, who will retire from Duke in May 2022, “and Blue’s track record as a successful fundraiser with strong connections at Duke and a passion for libraries will go far to ensure that a world-class university like Duke will continue to have a world-class library at its center.”
“I am excited to return to Duke and am especially excited and honored to work with the Duke University Libraries,” said Dean. “You cannot have a top research university without a top research library, and I look forward to partnering with alumni, families, and friends to continue the strong tradition of supporting Duke’s libraries. A philanthropic investment in the Duke University Libraries is an investment in every student, faculty member, and researcher in all of Duke’s schools, departments, and programs.”
In her new role, Dean succeeds Tom Hadzor, who will retire on May 17, 2022. Hadzor began his career at Duke in 1996 as Associate Director and Executive Director of Development and Communications for the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 2003, he became Associate Dean for Alumni and Development at the Duke Law School, where he led its building campaign. In 2006, he joined the Duke University Libraries and has served as the Associate University Librarian for Development ever since. During that time, he has raised over $120 million for the Duke University Libraries. Until his official retirement from Duke in May, Hadzor will continue to work for the Libraries in a special capacity, raising major gifts for the Lilly Library renovation and expansion project.
SciFinder-nis now available to all Duke students, faculty, and staff! The new interface offers new features, improved searching, and better integration of content. These enhancements make finding information easier, giving you more time for your research. Use your current SciFinder username and password to log in and start searching.
Trainers Edwin Robinson and Scott Hertzog of Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Service (ACS), will be on campus to offer in-person demonstrations and answer questions. Join us to learn about new tools designed to help researchers in chemistry, engineering, biology, the environment and medicine.
Students and faculty, new and veteran searchers, are encouraged to attend one or more sessions. Bring your laptop to search along! All training sessions will be held in French Family Science Center 2237.
Are you stuck in a reading rut? Has that stack of books you’ve been meaning to read suddenly lost all appeal?
This Valentine’s Day, check out our Mystery Date with a Book display next to the Perkins Library Service Desk, now through February 16.
Our librarians have hand-picked some of their all-time favorite literary crushes. Trust us. Librarians are the professional matchmakers of the book world. They’ve picked out some titles guaranteed to improve your circulation, if you know what we mean.
Each book comes wrapped in paper with a come-hither teaser to pique your interest. Will you get fiction or nonfiction? Short stories or travelogue? Memoir or thriller? You won’t know until you “get between the covers,” nudge, nudge. Aw, yeah.
So go ahead, take home a one-night stand for your nightstand. Who knows? You might just fall in love with a new favorite writer!
Dracine Hodges, Associate University Librarian for Technical Services, has been selected by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) as a 2021-22 Leadership Fellow.
The ARL Leadership Fellows program develops and prepares the next generation of senior library and archival leaders “to meet present and future challenges.” Selection is highly competitive. Past Leadership Fellows have emerged as successful leaders in a wide array of roles and settings, including as deans and directors of research libraries and archives and as leaders at all levels in various organizations.
The program will run from January through December 2022, during which time fellows will guided through a rigorous curriculum designed to enhance leadership skills, including a 360-degree assessment, individualized mentoring, team projects, site visits to peer institutions, and monthly sessions on different aspects of leading complex organizations.
According to ARL, the 2021-22 cohort of 20 Leadership Fellows brings together a diverse and highly accomplished group of library leaders, “representing the broadest range of research institutions and communities in the history of the Leadership Fellows program.”
Hodges is a member of Duke University Libraries’ senior leadership team. She provides administrative leadership for technical services, which supports the collections lifecycle and includes oversight of Conservation Services, Continuing Resource Acquisitions, Metadata & Discovery Strategy, Monograph Acquisitions, and Resource Description. Prior to coming to Duke in 2016, Hodges was a tenured Associate Professor and Head of the Acquisitions Department at The Ohio State University. She received her Masters in Library and Information Science from Florida State University and BA in English from Wesleyan College. Hodges regularly represents and manages aspects of Duke’s engagement with the Triangle Research Library Network as a member of the Advisory Council and the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation as a member of the Technical Services Group. She is also an elected member of the international FOLIO Project’s Community Council and was recently appointed to HathiTrust’s Program Steering Committee.
“I am delighted and grateful for this wonderful opportunity,” said Hodges. “I look forward to engaging with the rich curriculum, collaborating with the community of fellows, and learning from knowledgeable experts across higher education. My hope is that this experience will help me be a better, braver leader with core values that keep me self-aware and deserving of organizational trust.”
Two other members of the Libraries’ leadership team—Timothy McGeary and Naomi L. Nelson—have been through the program previously. In addition, library colleagues at UNC-Chapel Hill (Nandita Mani) and North Carolina State (Jill Sexton) were also selected as fellows this year, representing the Research Triangle well in the prestigious program.
Okay, that headline was total clickbait. We admit it. We’ll stoop pretty low in order to seize a teachable moment. But now that we have your attention, we really do want to convey some important info about using the library this semester. Things are getting back to nearly normal, and the more you know ahead of time, the smarter you’ll look in front of all your friends. (Depending on your friends.) So here we go.
1. No more Library Takeout. Book stacks are open!
Despite the funkalicious earworm it inspired, Library Takeout is history. You no longer need to request books online and schedule a time to pick them up. That’s so 2020. Library stacks are open again, so help yourself and browse all you like. Duke faculty and grad students can still have books delivered to the library of their choice by clicking the green “Request” button in the catalog.
2. Our hours have changed.
In pre-COVID times, certain Duke libraries used to be open 24 hours during the week. This semester we’ve had to scale back, due to pandemic-related budget cuts. Our busiest libraries (Perkins, Bostock, and Lilly) will still be open until midnight most days. And if you really want to keep burning the midnight oil, we’ll have study spaces available in the von der Heyden Pavilion and Rubenstein Library. See our posted hours online for the most up-to-date info.
3. You can still reserve a seat (but you don’t have to).
Last year, if you wanted to study in the library, you had to book a seat in advance. Not any more. Study areas are available again on a first-come, first-served basis. However, one thing this past year taught us was that some students actually liked booking a seat, because they didn’t have to wander around to find a place to work. So we’ve kept a limited number of reservable study seats available. They’re in the Ahmadieh Family Commons on the second floor of Rubenstein Library, just outside of the Gothic Reading Room.
4. We have textbooks!
Every semester, we purchase the textbooks for the 100 largest classes at Duke, so that you can check them out for free. Left your textbook in your dorm room? Or want to try before you buy? Borrow our copy for up to three hours at a time, then return it for someone else to use. How great is that?
5. In a hurry? Dislike personal interactions? Check yourself out.
Several libraries across Duke’s campus have self-checkout stations, where you can quickly and easily check out your own books without having to wait in line or deal with an actual human being. (We get it―ew.)
6. There is no number 6.
Gotcha.
7. We’re actually very friendly people who just want you to be happy.
People who work in libraries are some of the most approachable and service-oriented individuals you’ll ever meet. We genuinely want to help you. We also have a bunch of different ways you can get the help you need, whether by chat, email, phone, in-person, or Zoom. So don’t be afraid to ask us any question. We’re smiling at you under these masks.
What are we saying, of course you do. That funkalicious earworm is probably still bopping around inside your head right now.
With its playful animation, catchy chorus, and infectious beat, the short music video takes a simple set of step-by-step instructions for using a library service during the pandemic and transforms them into something unexpectedly funky, danceable, and fun. It was composed, animated, and produced last summer by a staff member in our Music Library (and Duke alum!), Jamie Keesecker.
Soon after it was released, the video became a viral hit both on campus and off, racking up over 890,000 views on YouTube and more than a thousand appreciative comments. There have been articles written about it (such as this one,this one, and this one), drum jam fan tributes, and the music streaming service Spotify even tweeted about it, calling it “the greatest library-focused track ever made.” (Speaking of Spotify, you can also find the song there, where it has been played almost 300,000 times.)
Now the video has earned another distinction—the admiration of our library peers!
Every year, the Arlies festival highlights and shares multimedia projects developed by member institutions to increase knowledge and use of libraries, their spaces, services, collections, and expertise. The films are voted on by ARL member institutions, which include the 124 largest research libraries throughout the U.S. and Canada.
We are honored by the recognition, and absolutely delighted for our colleague Jamie, who deserves all the credit for bringing Duke’s unofficial pandemic anthem into the world.
Thanks to the video’s popularity, relatively few people at Duke can say they don’t know how to check out books from the library right now. As a matter of fact, many fans of the video who have no connection to Duke whatsoever could easily tell you the steps. As one YouTube commenter noted, “How am I going to explain that my favorite song is an instructional video for a library I’ve never been to, at a school I’ve never attended?!”
We may never be able to replicate the success of “Library Takeout.” In fact, we’re positive we won’t. (All those people who subscribed to our YouTube Channel are going to be pretty disappointed by our usual fare of instructional videos and event recordings.) But we feel lucky to have hit on something that clicked with our users and supporters, at a time when they (and we) really needed it.
So go ahead, give it another listen (or five). It’s precisely what you need.
All submissions must be received by June 15, 2021.
Aptman Prizes
The Aptman Prizes recognize undergraduates’ excellence in research, including their analysis, evaluation and synthesis of sources.
Any undergraduate student who uses library resources to complete a paper and project as part of his or her undergraduate coursework at Duke may be considered for an Aptman Prize.
The Middlesworth Awards recognize excellence of analysis, research, and writing by Duke University students in the use of primary sources held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
All papers or projects from Duke undergraduate or graduate students that are based largely or wholly on sources in the Rubenstein Library are eligible.
The Holsti Prize recognizes excellence in undergraduate research using primary sources for political science or public policy.
Undergraduate papers that use primary sources and were written for a course, independent study, or thesis in the Political Science or Public Policy departments are eligible.
Sam Hammond in the room where he played the Duke Chapel carillon, 2018. Photo by Les Todd.
On February 25, 2021, the Duke University Libraries lost a longtime friend and cherished colleague. For many years J. Samuel Hammond was perhaps best known (or best heard) as Duke’s official carillonneur. He began playing the carillon in 1965 while an undergraduate at Duke and was eventually promoted to perform in an official capacity when he graduated three years later. For fifty straight years—one for every bell that hangs in the Chapel tower—Sam was Duke’s ringer-in-chief. In honor of a long and literally resounding record of service, Duke’s Board of Trustees passed a resolution in 2018 naming the carillon in his honor.
Illustration from “De campanis commentarius” (1612), purchased in Hammond’s honor when he retired from the Libraries in 2012.
For those of us in the Libraries, Sam was also our co-worker—someone we saw, spoke to, and joked with almost every day. He worked here for close to four decades, starting out as Duke’s first music librarian in 1974, then becoming a rare book cataloger in 1986, a position he held until his retirement in 2012. To send him off with style, the Rubenstein Library purchased in his honor an extremely rare 1612 first edition of Angelo Rocca’s De campanis commentarius (A Commentary on Bells), one of the earliest studies of bells and bell ringing.
After he retired from the Libraries, Sam was given a carrel on the fourth floor of Bostock Library so that he could continue his personal research and a project editing the correspondence of Hugh James Rose, an Anglican clergyman of the early nineteenth century who was instrumental in initiating the Oxford Movement. Happily, that meant we had the pleasure of continuing to see Sam around the library on a regular basis. Until 2020, that is.
After he died last week, those of us in the Libraries began to share some of our fondest memories of Sam with each other. And since we are unable to gather and celebrate his life in person, we wanted to collect and share some of those reminiscences with you, the Duke community, virtually. Needless to say, he leaves behind many friends in Durham, at Duke, and around the country. If you’re reading this and you would like to contribute your own memory of Sam, please drop it in the comments section. We’ll be sure to include it.
Among his many endearing and old-fashioned characteristics, Sam was a great writer of short personal notes. He would always record the date in Roman numerals (even in emails!) and close with the Latin benediction “PAX.” The kiss of peace, which we now return to him. Rest now, Sam. The bells are ringing for you. PAX.
Tributes and Testimonials
I came to Duke in 1983 and Sam was my colleague from then on. He was so wise and well-read, but also possibly the most modest person I have known, also the most generous and thoughtful. Knowing how delighted they would be to see the world from the top of the Chapel, over the years he invited each of my then-young sons (who were practically raised at Duke) to take the thrilling ride up—and then gave them each (on their respective visits) the ultimate responsibility of marking 5 p.m. with the five “bongs” heard all over campus. Their memories of those special visits with Sam are still vivid.
I will also remember Sam’s kindness—knowing of my interest in tango, he regularly kept me updated on the appearances of the Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble, including her memorable concerts on Jewish tango and her project “The Other Side of my Heart,” the stories of Latina immigrants. And I will always fondly recall the image of my encounters with Sam in the Libraries or on the quad, when he would bow and doff his hat, with a smile and a pseudo-formal greeting of “Dr. Jakubs!”—followed by a much more chatty personal conversation about so many things. Thank you, Sam. PAX.
—Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs
Soon after I began working at Duke in 2010, Sam offered to make me a scarf. I had no idea how broad his talents were, and I was touched by this personal gesture as I was trying to find my footing in the library. A beautiful blue scarf soon appeared in my inbox with a handwritten note. It was one of many notes I found in my box in the years before Sam retired, often calling something to my attention and occasionally letting me know I’d done something well. I valued his opinion and sought to uphold his high standards for the Duke Libraries. I will greatly miss greeting Sam in the library or on the quad. And I will wear my scarf with gratitude and seek to be worthy of it.
—Naomi L. Nelson, Associate University Librarian and Director, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
My children knew Sam Hammond as “Mr. Sam.” Over the course of thirteen years, we passed Mr. Sam on 751 as he walked to campus wearing his black coat and his signature hat. On our daily commute to school, the kids and I looked expectantly for Mr. Sam just as Academy Road intersected with Wrightwood Ave. If we were on time, the kids would wave and Mr. Sam would tip his hat.
Sam Hammond shared his musical gifts with our children. When my son was nine, Sam accompanied Micah as he learned the role of Amahl for Long Leaf Opera’s Amahl and the Night Visitors. For many years, Sam and Marie attended the children’s concerts—piano recitals at Durham School of the Arts and the Yiddish Song Festival at Beth El Synagogue. Mira remembers Sam jotting down the date of her event in a small leather-bound black book. This book, the suspenders, and Sam’s hat were part of what made Mr. Sam so enchanting.
One memory that the children both recollect: we bumped into Mr. Sam on the quad a few Decembers ago when he was en route to play the carillon. We chatted, and as he turned to tip his hat, he wished us a Happy Chanukah. When he arrived at the carillon, he played his traditional 5 o’clock bells and then moved from a hymn to a melody which both children recognized—they smiled and sang along as Sam played “I have a little dreidel.” We will continue to treasure these memories of our beloved Mr. Sam.
— Trudi Abel, Research Services Archivist, Rubenstein Library
Something he gave us all, day after day, was the ringing of the carillon as we were released from work at the end of the day: the ringing out of bronze bells high in the chapel’s belfry, signifying completion and freedom to one and all, regardless of race, rank or creed. And yet, with such power at his fingertips, it seemed that he treasured library work equally, its quiet spaces and detailed endeavors, requiring the most sterling patience and devotion. Over the pressed black and white attire of a gentleman he often wore a dark green work smock, navigating the halls and vestibules where I might meet him and say hello. He brought a delightful and unique formality to the most mundane encounters, investing them with a subtle radiance. I will miss him. He was like an ambassador from a better world.
— Mary Yordy, Senior Library Assistant, Conservation Services
My story is about Sam’s care of new parents. When I became a parent in the early-mid 2000s, Sam would bestow gifts of crocheted or knitted items for our babies that he presented in his humble, loving way. My memory is that he waited to give the gifts until we’d come back to work to take the opportunity to offer a few carefully chosen sympathetic and supportive words about surviving the experience of new parenthood. I still have the blanket he made for us.
— Laura Micham, Merle Hoffman Director, Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture
Before my retirement in 2010 from what is now the Rubenstein Library, I had an office on the second floor that looked right onto the quad in front of Duke Chapel. This gave me a front row seat to Sam’s daily recitals. I often stayed longer than I needed, just to be able to sit back and enjoy the bells.
More than that though, my responsibilities in the library put all of the rare book and manuscript technical service operations under my supervision. This meant that Sam, as a rare book cataloger, was technically under my supervision. This was laughable, since Sam had more knowledge about rare book cataloging tucked into the hardened and muscular folds of one hand than almost anyone in the state of North Carolina! It did, however, afford me the pleasant excuse to meet with him periodically.
Some memories that stand out include hearing about his annual trek to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where there was an annual gathering of carillon artists from around the country. Sam especially liked the atmosphere of Sewanee, which was a traditional old-style college, where upperclassmen were required to wear academic gowns to class. Given Sam’s singular (and easily recognizable from 100 yards away) style of dress, I often thought that he would have been more comfortable wearing his own academic gown.
After my own retirement, I was often on campus in the morning on my way to Wilson Gym and would run into Sam coming though the clock tower passage from Crowell Quad on his way to the library (where he kept a carrel after his retirement to volunteer his efforts to resolve lingering rare book cataloging issues). There was always a tip of the hat and a brief genial conversation on families, the weather and other pleasantries.
A couple of years ago I was at a retirement party at the Schwartz-Butters building for a Wilson/Card gym staff member. Somehow I ended up in conversation with David Cutcliffe, Duke’s football coach, and he asked me if I knew anything about a gentleman wearing a hat and usually carrying a bag that he would see walking along Academy Road as he would come into work in the morning. It didn’t take much elaboration to know he was talking about Sam Hammond. I spoke with him briefly about Sam and his work in the Chapel and the library. The very next time I encountered Sam, he told me that Coach Cutcliffe had pulled his car over to introduce himself and chat with Sam. I think this was the start of an interesting friendship. After Sam’s heart attack last summer, I managed indirectly to get word to the coach and I know that he immediately got in touch with Sam.
— Steve Hensen (Retired), Rubenstein Library
Sam was always gracious. He shared the carillon with alumni and friends. Whenever I invited someone for a special experience, Sam always enthralled. I will miss him and his gentleness. And the elevator rides to the top of Duke and his world.
— Tom Hadzor, Associate University Librarian for Development
When I started the University Archives in 1972, I wondered who this person I kept seeing around the building wearing a three-quarter-length coat as sort of a working uniform was. Then I noticed the variety of work stations he occupied. I got to know him as the carillonneur through my association with the Friends of the Chapel. I quickly discovered that whatever he was doing it was with thoroughness, integrity, passion, and with wit and a twinkle in his eye. Over the years, decades really, Sam became a trusted friend and confident who shared a love for the university and its history. He was unique. His role and contribution to Duke was unique. Such people have made the university what it is. His presence will be missed and all who knew Sam will miss him greatly.
—William E. King (Retired), University Archivist 1972-2002
Sam was always very kind to me. When I went to his office to review an item, we would have long chats, and he would show me all the wonderful things he was working on. Sam always took the time to say that he appreciated that I was here. That made me feel good. I appreciated his kindness, his sharp wit, and his willingness to help you with any question you had for him. Even after retirement he would make time to stop and chat if we ran into each other in the hallway. I will miss his presence greatly.
— Beth Doyle, Leona B. Carpenter Senior Conservator and Head, Conservation Services Department
I knew Sam primarily as a Rare Books Librarian when I worked in the library as staff member from 1993-2000. There was no one I’d rather give a curious old book to than Sam, just to see what he thought and how it connected to the thousands of others he had taken his glasses off to pore over; you can’t “Google” information like that. We had a special connection, as native Georgians and as musicians, and I learned a great deal about rare books and collegiality from him. PAX, SH, from GB 26 II.
— Gary R. Boye, Erneston Music Library, Appalachian State University
I worked and socialized with Sam Hammond throughout our long careers in the Duke University Libraries. He played the organ at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church for my marriage with Catherine Blue, a Duke graduate. He was a quintessential gentleman, highly cultured, and someone with whom one could discuss anything with ease, understanding, and mirth. When I had the privilege of hearing the first concert on the great Fisk organ at the new Catholic Cathedral in Raleigh, it was Sam who played the carillon afterwards. Sam was a monarchist, and we had reasons to explore that culture joyfully. He inserted a special piece of music for me on the Duke Carillon after my retirement. He was always the same.
— William Rector Erwin, Jr. (Retired), Manuscript Cataloger and Reference Librarian, Manuscript Department, 1960-1999
I’d just started at Duke in July 2018. I can’t remember when it was exactly but in my first few days but Sam came in and came to my station. He said, “You’re new here!” and I said “Yes sir, I just got here from Davidson College.” He said that he was sure I’d do a good job and that he was glad to have me as part of the Duke community. He didn’t know this but I was a total ball of anxiety. Davidson was a small liberal arts college and I’d come here to work for a behemoth of an institution. That simple act of kindness meant more to me than he knew, but that was just Sam, doing good deeds wherever he went.
— Jeremy Martin, Reserves Coordinator
Sam always had a smile on his face; his laughter was a happy chuckle.
— Catherine Leonardi (Retired), Music Cataloger
When I became a rare book cataloger, Sam Hammond became one of my mentors, always treating me with courtly kindness and giving sound advice. I especially enjoyed opportunities to share our mutual admiration of Queen Elizabeth II. I respected Sam’s firm dignity and appreciated his gentle courtesy toward all our Special Collections colleagues, as well as the library’s patrons and visitors.
—Nixie Miller (Retired), Rubenstein Library
Sam was a steady presence in the library. Walking through Perkins, I’d run into him several times a week. He’d tip his hat, smile and share a hello. Every. Single. Time. For a while, I didn’t know who he was or how he knew me. Was he an alum who loved the library? A professor that I had somehow forgotten I met or knew? Nope – just a gentle man who exuded the warmth of human kindness.
— Shawn J. Miller, Director, Duke Learning Innovation
Before he retired as carillonneur, I often encountered Sam on my after-work walk to my car as he was leaving the Chapel after playing the carillon that day. He would always smile and tip his hat to me. Occasionally, we would stop and chat for a few minutes if either of us had recently heard from a mutual friend who used to be a faculty member in the Divinity School. He will be sorely missed!
—Jim Coble (Retired), Information Technology Services, Duke Libraries
I succeeded Sam as Music Librarian, and I remember walking into his former office in the Biddle Building in early January of 1987, ready to start my new job. The office was left in immaculate order for the next person. I was so grateful for that, and it helped me to feel that I had come to the right place. Over the years until I retired in 2005, I conferred with Sam about a number of things, not the least of which was his invitation to my family and myself to visit him in the upper room of the carillon tower while he held forth at the special console. I’ll always associate Sam with the grand Chapel bells, spreading their wonderful tones and overtones over the university landscape and issuing an invitation to all to pause and listen.
— John Druesedow (Retired), Music Librarian, 1987–2005
I worked with Sam for many years and he was always the most pleasant person that you ever wanted to meet. Always willing to assist you with your needs and I loved to hear him laugh. My deepest condolences to his family.
— Beverly Mills (Retired), Perkins Library Serials Department
I had the pleasure of meeting Sam in the early days of my employment in the library (mid-1970s) and I have nothing but fond memories of him. Sam ALWAYS exhibited a pleasant disposition, cheerful attitude, and respectful demeanor to me, from day one until the last time I saw him just before I retired almost 3 years ago. I’ll always remember seeing him walking to campus from his home each morning, and upon arriving to campus, stopping to salute the James B. Duke statue in the middle of the quad in front of the Chapel before continuing his journey into the library. At precisely 5:00 p.m. each day, Sam would play the bells from the top of the Chapel, and I looked forward to listening to the tunes he played each day when I left work to return to my car to head home, sometimes humming along to the tunes I was familiar with. Years ago, Sam even gave myself and some other library employees a personal tour of the top of the Chapel where the bells are located and demonstrated to us how he played them. Finally, I will always remember Sam’s hearty and joyous laughter and his gentlemanly demeanor. I’m very honored to have known him and will always treasure these memories of him.
—Iris Turrentine (Retired), Library Human Resources
In 2000, when I moved from the Bingham Center to a generalist position in what is now the Rubenstein Library, Sam allowed me to sit in on his many library instruction classes so that I could become more familiar with our early manuscript and rare print collections. His deep knowledge of the history of religion and printing, along with his ability to communicate clearly made him extremely effective with undergraduate and graduate classes. Even more marvelous was his rapport with the many elementary, middle school and high school students who came to see our treasures on display in the Biddle Rare Book Room. Always dignified, but with an impish twinkle in his eye, Sam kept every one of those young people absolutely rapt as he explained how papyrus was made or how one might correct an error written on vellum. He addressed them with calm respect and they responded by listening intently, asking excellent questions, and behaving with impeccable manners. It strikes me now that Sam was the Mr. Rogers of the Rubenstein Library. He brought kindness and empathy to every encounter.
— Elizabeth Dunn, Research Services Librarian, Rubenstein Library
When I was in grad school in 1987, studying histories of Judaism and Christianity and art, I had a brief job working chiefly with Samuel Hammond. We selected, described, and presented Jewish art publications, including but not limited to Passover Haggadah books from “The Abram & Frances Pascher Kanof Collection of Jewish Art, Archaeology, and Symbolism” donations. It was a pleasure working with Sam, and if I may say so, the display was rather fine. In later years, it was always good to see him on campus and to hear his music.
— Stephen Goranson, Stacks Maintenance Assistant
Before my retirement, I worked with Sam for several years in what is now the Rubenstein Library.
One day I was walking with Sam on the sidewalk toward the West Campus Union Building. About every third person we encountered knew Sam and they spoke warmly to each other. I did not recognize any of them. I realized then that he knew a broad swath of people outside the library.
Sam did not like what became the norm when we began to hold retirement receptions and other events in the Rare Book Room where food and drink were served. He absolutely would not attend any of these events, for he was concerned that damage would be done to the rare books. One of the reasons Linda McCurdy (whom Sam called Dr. Linda) and I had our joint retirement reception in Perkins Library rather than in the Rare Book Room was so Sam could attend. And he did. I have photographs!
One day Sam and I spoke about how much we admired former President Jimmy Carter. I learned that Sam grew up in Americus, Georgia, not far from Plains. Further, he said his mother used to cut Jimmy Carter’s hair! She knew the Carter family well and had eaten dinner in their home. Imagine my surprise at that.
Sam was a true original and unique individual. And modest to a fault.
When my mother died in 2002, Sam sent me a handwritten sympathy note. In it, he included the following anonymous poem that he said was read at the Queen Mother’s funeral. After Sam’s passing, I reread it and thought about Sam.
You can shed tears that she is gone or you can smile because she has lived
You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come back or you can open your eyes and see all she’s left
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her or you can be full of the love you shared
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday
You can remember her and only that she’s gone or you can cherish her memory and let it live on
You can cry and close your mind be empty and turn your back or you can do what she’d want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on
— Janie Morris (Retired), Rubenstein Library
I’m at a loss for words! Sam and I kept in touch even in his/my retirement! He brought peanuts from Georgia to me and Peach Pie. In return, she prepared chicken salad and deviled eggs for him (and Marie). We picked fresh strawberries for him, too! He will be missed. Of course Sam enjoyed Peach Pie’s infamous banana pudding! I enjoyed my many talks/walks with Sam. He gave me a personal tour of the “bells” as he did my granddaughter, Makenzie. She sat beside him while he played. Afterwards he took her to the roof of the chapel. Sheer excitement!
— Nelda Webb (Retired), Administrative Assistant to the Director, Rubenstein Library
I retired from the library 11 years ago but have fond memories of Sam. I can still hear his voice from his always friendly greetings. There was a time when my children were young and came to work with me. Sam didn’t usually take requests for “songs” but was pleasantly surprised when we left the office that afternoon and my daughter’s request was being played on the bells. Can’t recall what the song was, but felt very fortunate to have our request granted.
— Rose Bornes (Retired), Accounting Office, Duke Libraries
I remember Sam as a kindly, gracious gentleman — emphasis on gentleman — with a fine ability to appreciate and laugh at the absurdities of life. He was an extremely talented musician whose daily playing of the carillon brought a certain stability and peace to the campus. It was a blessing to have had him as a colleague in Perkins Library.
— Joline R. Perkins (Retired), Reference Department, Perkins Library
I so much enjoyed seeing Sam during the day. Always the wave and that nod, usually a chuckle—even if we just said “Hello” to each other. Gentle and generous. The evening after Dean Smith died, I choked up when I heard him play UNC’s fight song on the carillon. That wasn’t the only time his choice of music made me tear up.
I treasure my memory of going up into the tower of Duke Chapel to watch him play. Feet and fists striking keys, and Sam transported, it was a treat. Thank you, Sam.
When I first started at Duke in Special Collections, I worked down the hall from Sam. Princess Diana had recently died, and Sam wore a black arm band for a month in honor of her. He did the same thing when the Queen Mother died. His portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth in his office brought a regal air to a regal man.
Sam was always saying dry comments as quiet asides in staff meetings, and making anyone laugh who could hear them. His eyes really twinkled, and his gentle laughter always brought us to a feeling of good humor no matter the topic.
I served many Saturday reference shifts with Sam. No matter the question, Sam was able to help the researcher in their work by highlighting new resources or redirecting their attention to a newly cataloged book (often still in his office, that he would bring down for them to review). In the seven dark and winding floors of the stacks at that time, I was always relieved to see Sam as my partner, for I knew that whatever was requested Sam would be able to find it, walking slowly and with purpose.
When Sam did instruction for visiting school students about the rare book collection, he would provide a follow up instruction session for interested staff members. He would go over some of the most interesting treasures, small and large, valuable and invaluable because of his interest. You always learned something new from Sam, no matter how long you’d been at the library.
Sam was so kind, and asked about your family, and how you were doing. He lived his faith, and led with love in his interactions with us in the library and the university community, writ large. One year I told him it was my Dad’s birthday and that he had been in the Navy, and that evening in the selection for the chimes he included the Navy Hymn – a subdued nod to our conversation and my dad. These unexpected and frequent kindnesses of Sam’s that stay with me, and underlie the deep feeling of grief and loss for his quiet compassion, tender wit, and patience.
—Lynn Eaton, Director, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University
I met Sam when he was the head of the Music Library. I worked in Collection Development with Florence Blakely and was included in her meetings with Sam to discuss issues relating to acquisitions made possible via a Duke Endowment grant money and other issues relating to the Music Library. Florence had a high respect for Sam’s decisions. It was delightful to converse with Sam. The meetings continued when he became Rare Book Librarian. The topic most discussed related to acquisitions of often expensive titles or collections.
It was always delightful to converse with Sam. I always enjoyed his playing the carillon every afternoon. Sam will be missed by many people.
— Ginny Gilbert (Retired), Perkins Library
I retired in 2013 from interlibrary loan. Before that I had been in photo services for some number of years as head of that department. I had worked with Sam the entire time I was at the library. For me that was 33 years. Sam was a great friend to me. He was always coming in and telling me how things were going and telling me how good I looked, when I knew he was lying. We had an agreement. Each year near graduation he would take my senior students up into the tower to chime the hour. This was a special thing for my students because when hired, they stayed with me all four years and it was something that Sam and I could give them no one else could. I really appreciated Sam doing that as a special gift for my student workers. Not only to my students, but one time he also took me up in the tower to chime the hour. I will never forget how nervous I was and how calm he was. On many occasions Sam would come through the office and ask what I wished to hear played that day. A great friend, a devoted employee, a wonderful man—not enough words to describe Sam Hammond.
Sam Hammond was a beloved colleague and a Duke University institution. Although he retired from librarianship some years ago, he continued to come to campus each day to study in his carrel and play the carillon. I can’t count the number of times I passed Sam in the library or on the quad, with him offering a tip of his hat and a pithy bon mot. The five o’clock carillon is such a part of the fabric at Duke that many people don’t realize that there is a person high in the tower. Over the years, Sam gave the University Archives the logs of what songs were played each day, as well as other information he gathered about the Carillon. My colleagues and I in University Archives treasure these materials, which document each day at Duke going back decades. They have already been used by students in research.
Sam was unfailingly generous, and graciously welcomed guests to the Chapel tower to see the carillon itself. A couple of years ago, a group of students researched the laborers who built West Campus. Sam escorted the students and some University Archives staff up to the tower, so the students could see the details of the building close up. We looked out over Duke, and Durham beyond, seeing the stunning beauty–and terrifying height–that the workers who built the tower must have seen. He showed us his Carillon room, with its keyboard and its practice keyboard. A framed photograph of a young Queen Elizabeth was among the decor. At 5 o’clock, Sam began playing the carillon, and we stood beneath the 49 bells listening to him play. It gave us a rare opportunity to appreciate the beauty that surrounded us, and the majesty of the music that rang out from the tower.
I will miss Sam, his humor, his knowledge, his music, his friendship. Long may the carillon ring, reminding us each day of the many ways Sam enriched our lives.
Valentine Card. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Surrounded by stories surreal and sublime, I fell in love in the library once upon a time. — Jimmy Buffett, “Love in the Library”
Maybe it’s the intimacy of hushed voices, the privacy of so many nooks and crannies, or the feeling of mysterious possibility that comes from being surrounded by so many books and stories. Let’s face it—there’s something romantic about libraries.
That’s why this Valentine’s Day has hit us right in the feels. Normally, in pre-pandemic times, we would be encouraging you right now to go on a “Mystery Date with a Book,” wrapping up dozens of our favorite titles in pink and red paper with come-hither teasers designed to lure you in.
Alas, our innocent fun is another casualty of COVID. But we’re still hoping we can spice up your reading life. We revisited our mystery picks from years gone by and pulled together some of our all-time favorite literary crushes, personally recommended by our staff. All titles are available to check out through our Library Takeout Service.
So go ahead, treat your pretty little self to something different. Who knows? You might just fall in love with a new favorite writer!
Selected by Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Head, Humanities Section and Librarian for Literature and Theater Studies:
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things: “Seven year old twins are forever changed by one day in 1969.”
Naomi Novik, Uprooted: “The fairy tale you always wanted as a child…and finally got as an adult.”
Selected by Kim Duckett, Head of Research and Instructional Services:
Anthony Mara, The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories: “A collection of beautiful interlocking short stories dipping back and forth through 20th century Russia.”
Matthew Kneale, English Passengers: “Twenty narrators tell a fascinating story of Manx smugglers, seekers of the Garden of Eden, and the plight of Tasmanian Aborigines.”
Selected by Brittany Wofford, Librarian for the Nicholas School for the Environment:
P. G. Wodehouse, How Right You Are, Jeeves: “For everyone who thought that Carson was the real hero of Downton Abbey.”
Selected by Megan Crain, Annual Giving Coordinator:
Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine: “We all know what it means to survive. But do we know what it means to live in the 21st century?”
Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time: “A childhood classic about family, bravery, and finding light through the darkness.”
Selected by Aaron Welborn, Director of Communications:
Richard Hughes, The Innocent Voyage (A High Wind in Jamaica): “One of the best novels you’ve never heard of. A combination of Peter Pan, Heart of Darkness, and Lord of the Flies, all rolled into one.”
J. L. Carr, A Month in the Country: “A gem of a book: a quaint English village, a WWI vet, and a shimmering summer of youth.”
Selected by Elena Feinstein, Head, Natural Sciences and Engineering Section and Librarian for Biological Sciences:
Monique Truong, The Book of Salt: “Flavors, seas, sweat, tears – weaves historical figures into a witty, original tale spanning 1930s Paris and French-colonized Vietnam.”
Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife: “According to the author, the themes of the novel are ‘mutants, love, death, amputation, sex, and time.’ Many readers would include loss, romance, and free will.”
Selected by Jodi Psoter, Librarian for Chemistry and Statistical Science:
Selected by Ciara Healy, Librarian for Psychology & Neuroscience, Mathematics, and Physics
Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House: A Memoir: “If you lived through some stuff, and survived… this book is for you. Exquisitely written, heart wrenching.”
Edgar Cantero, Meddling Kids: “A Scooby Doo re-do; former kids detective club grows up, messes up and tries to solve a spooky mystery + actual dog as part of the Doo crew.”
Selected by Kelli Stephenson, Coordinator, Access and Library Services
Omar El Akkad, American War: “A second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle.”
Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth: “Necromancers unraveling a mystery in a haunted space mansion, complete with epic sword fighting, deep world-building, and laugh-out-loud profane humor.”
Mozart once said, “Art lies in expressing everything, the sad as well as the gay, the horrible as well as the enchanting, in forms which remain beautiful.”
We love quotations like that—wise, witty, pithy, and stylish all at once. We love collecting great quotes, and as a library you could say we collect a great many of them. On our digital reference shelves, you can find hundreds of anthologies of quotations, aphorisms, proverbs, epigrams, bon mots, folk sayings, and old saws.
Quotations come in handy, whether you’re writing a paper, working on a presentation, struggling to craft a clever wedding toast—or a dignified obituary—or even just looking for inspiration.
Great quotations have the power to impose perspective and definition on lived experience—or, as the nineteenth-century novelist Samuel Butler put it even better, to “enclose a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.”
There are times when we stumble on a quotation that comes surprisingly close to home, like this verse from Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera The Mikado: “Though the night may come too soon, we have years and years of afternoon.”
It certainly feels that way to many of us right now, with so many monotonous days and weeks trapped at home, and goodness knows how many more stretching out ahead. But there’s something gratifying and almost consoling to see someone else put it so cleverly.
So this week, while our Duke students are busily working on final papers and filling them with illustrative quotations of their own (properly cited, we have no doubt), it seemed like a good time to offer some quotable words of our own.
We’ve put together a little zine anthology of quotations we’ve been thinking about during this difficult time. The title says it all: Print, Fold, Ponder: A Wee Zine of Wise Words We Need Now.It’s a little collection of quotes about optimism, hope, leisure—words that inspire us to look on the bright side of what we’re going through—but also about the seriousness of the situation we’re in. It’s like Mozart said—a little bit of the sad as well as the gay, the horrible as well as the enchanting.
Keep it for yourself, give it to a neighbor, or leave it for a delivery person as a little token to let them know someone’s thinking of them. Just as we’re thinking of you and looking forward to seeing you back in the library one day. You can quote us on that.
Instructions: How to Print, Fold, and Make This Zine
You will need a printer. Or, you can hand-copy what you see on the screen on your own sheet of paper and make your own!
If you’re interested in the book he mentions in the video (Watcha Mean, What’s a Zine?: The Art of Making Zines and Minicomics), we have a digital version you can check out through HathiTrust (Duke NetID required). Enjoy!
All submissions must be received by June 30, 2020.
Aptman Prizes
The Aptman Prizes recognize undergraduates’ excellence in research, including their analysis, evaluation and synthesis of sources.
Any undergraduate student who uses library resources to complete a paper and project as part of his or her undergraduate coursework at Duke may be considered for an Aptman Prize.
The Middlesworth Awards recognize excellence of analysis, research, and writing by Duke University students in the use of primary sources held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
All papers or projects from Duke undergraduate or graduate students that are based largely or wholly on sources in the Rubenstein Library are eligible.
The Holsti Prize recognizes excellence in undergraduate research using primary sources for political science or public policy.
Undergraduate papers that use primary sources and were written for a course, independent study, or thesis in the Political Science or Public Policy departments are eligible.
Looking for an easy way to help people this holiday season?
From November 15 – December 15, you can exchange “Food for Fines” at the Duke library nearest you.
For every unopened, unexpired, non-perishable food item you donate, we will waive $1 of your library fines (up to $50 max).
All libraries on East and West Campus are participating except for the Duke Law Library, and it doesn’t matter which library you owe fines to. You can drop off your donation at the library of your choice, and we’ll apply it to any library fines at any Duke library.
Donations will be collected and distributed by the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC. The Food Bank serves a network of more than 800 agencies across 34 counties in Central and Eastern North Carolina, including soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, and programs for children and adults.
You can also donate non-food essentials for infants, kids, and seniors, such as diapers, wipes, cleaning products, and paper towels. The chart below lists the items currently needed most.
No library fines? No problem! You can still donate and help North Carolinians in need.
The fine print
Limit $50 in forgiven fines per person.
Any fines already paid or transferred to the bursar cannot be waived.
No expired food items or glass containers, please.
Waived fines only apply to late fees. Charges for damaged or lost books cannot be waived.
All Duke libraries will waive fines for other Duke libraries (except the Duke Law Library). For example, if you owe $5 to the Divinity Library, you are not required to drop off your donation at the Divinity Library. You can visit any library on East or West Campus and your Divinity Library fines will be waived.
Every year the Duke University Libraries run a series of essay contests recognizing the original research of Duke students and encouraging the use of library resources. We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2018-2019 library writing and research awards.
Recognizing excellence of analysis, research, and writing in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Undergraduate Prize:Sierra Lorenzini for “Fair Haired: Considering Blonde Women in Film and Advertising,” nominated by Dr. Kristine Stiles
Graduate Prize:Michael Freeman for “P. Duke Inv. 664R: A Fragmentary Alchemical Handbook,” nominated by Dr. Jennifer Knust
Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using primary sources for political science or public policy.
Amanda Sear for “To Smoke or to Vape? E-cigarette Regulation in the US, the UK, and Canada,” nominated by Dr. Ed Balleisen
Yue Zhou for “Learning Languages in Cyberspace: A Case Study of World Languages Courses in State Virtual Public Schools,” nominated by Dr. Leslie Babinski
Valerie Muensterman for “Did You Forget Your Name?”
Caroline Waring for “The Roof”
Blaire Zhang for “Sapiens”
Join Us at the Awards Reception!
We will be celebrating our winners and their achievements at a special awards reception coinciding with Duke Family Weekend. All are invited to join us for refreshments and the opportunity to honor the recipients.
The Locus collection includes some 16,000 rare and noteworthy monuments of science fiction and fantasy, many in their original dust jackets.
The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University has acquired the archives of the Locus Science Fiction Foundation, publisher of Locus, the preeminent trade magazine for the science fiction and fantasy publishing field.
The massive collection—which arrived in almost a thousand boxes—includes first editions of numerous landmarks of science fiction and fantasy, along with correspondence from some of the genre’s best-known practitioners, including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Octavia E. Butler, James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon), Dean Koontz, Robert A. Heinlein, and hundreds more.
Locus started out in 1968 as a one-sheet science fiction and fantasy fanzine. Since then, it has evolved into the most trusted news magazine in science fiction and fantasy publishing, with in-depth reviews, author interviews, forthcoming book announcements, convention coverage, and comprehensive listings of all science fiction books published in English. It also administers the prestigious annual Locus Awards, first presented in 1971, which recognize excellence in science fiction and fantasy.
Over the course of five decades in print, the magazine’s editors and staff have collected and saved correspondence, clippings, and books by and about science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. What emerges from this trove of material is a tapestry of a diverse and thriving community of writers, publishers, and editors, all working to create new and modern genres of speculative literature.
This rare advanced reader’s copy of the first edition of Game of Thrones has a distinctly different look and feel from the popular HBO series.
Of the magazine’s original three co-founders—Charles N. Brown, Ed Meskys, and Dave Vanderwerf—only Brown remained after the magazine’s first year. He would continue to edit the publication until his death in 2009, earning the magazine some thirty Hugo Awards in the process and becoming a colorful and influential figure in the publishing world. A tireless advocate for speculative fiction, Brown was also a voluminous correspondent and friend to many of the writers featured in the magazine. Many of them wrote to him over the years to share personal and professional news, or to quibble about inaccuracies and suggest corrections. The letters are often friendly, personal, humorous, and occasionally sassy.
Reacting to a recent issue of Locus that featured one of her short stories, the science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler wrote, “I am Octavia E. Butler in all my stories, novels, and letters. How is it that I’ve lost my E in three places in Locus #292? Three places! You owe me three E’s. That’s a scream, isn’t it?”
One also finds frequent remembrances and retrospectives of departed members of the Locus community, such as Ursula K. Le Guin’s poignant reflections on the passing of Philip K. Dick. After Brown’s own death, the magazine continued publication under the auspices of the Locus Science Fiction Foundation, a registered nonprofit. The magazine launched a digital edition in January 2011 and has published both in print and online ever since.
In addition to the correspondence, story drafts, and other manuscript material (which has now been processed), the collection includes some 16,000 rare and noteworthy monuments of science fiction and fantasy from Brown’s extensive personal library, such as first editions of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, J. R. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and hundreds more.
“Historical literary treasures abound in the Locus collection, from full runs of the pulps to vintage first editions to contemporary works,” said Liza Groen Trombi, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Locus Magazine. “And its preservation is deeply important. It is the product of decades of collecting and curating, starting in the 1940s, the Golden Age of science fiction, when Locus’s founding publisher Charles N. Brown was an avid reader with a deep love of genre, through his time working within the science fiction field, and up to the present day under the current Locus staff. Housing those core works in an institution where they’ll be both accessible to scholars and researchers at the same time as they are carefully preserved is a goal that I and the Locus Science Fiction Foundation board of directors had long had. I am very happy to see them in the dedicated care of the curators and librarians at Duke.”
“The opportunity to acquire the Locus Foundation library is a tremendous one for Duke,” said Sara Seten Berghausen, Associate Curator of Collections in the Rubenstein Library. “Because it’s a carefully curated collection of the most important and influential works of science fiction of the last several decades—most in their original dust jackets, with fantastic artwork—it complements perfectly our existing collection of utopian literature from the early modern period through the mid-twentieth century.”
Locus started out as a one-sheet science fiction and fantasy fanzine and grew into the most trusted news magazine in science fiction and fantasy publishing.
Berghausen notes that Brown and Locus created not only this collection, but a community of writers, and those relationships are documented throughout the archival collection as well. “The research and teaching possibilities are almost unlimited,” she said. “From political theory to history, art, anthropology and gender studies, there are materials in the collection that could enrich the study of so many topics.”
The collection is already being used in courses at Duke. This semester, English professor Michael D’Alessandro brought his class on utopias and dystopias in American literature to the Rubenstein Library to examine some of the Locus materials first-hand.
“It’s a curious strength Duke has that I didn’t expect,” said D’Alessandro. “I taught this course previously at Harvard, and even the archives there didn’t have anything like this collection, which adds a whole new breadth and depth to the class.”
WHEN: Thursday, April 25, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. (Reception at 4:00, with program starting at 4:30 p.m.)
WHERE: Korman Assembly Room (Perkins Library Room 217), Perkins Library 2nd Floor, Duke West Campus (Click for map)
Walt Whitman, who was born 200 years ago this spring, once wrote:
Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries, For that which was lacking among you all, yet needed most, I bring.
He was probably not talking about chocolate. But that won’t stop this proud library from bringing some to his birthday party!
Join us on April 25 as we celebrate Whitman’s bicentennial, with readings and remarks by Richard H. Brodhead, Duke’s ninth president, on why he loves the “Good Gray Poet” and you should, too. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about America’s most famous bard, now is your chance to take a short course (with no grades or quizzes!) from one of the foremost experts on the subject.
Guests will also be invited to view original Whitman manuscripts and materials from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which holds one of the largest and most important Whitman collections in the world, right here at Duke.
Free and open to the public. And yes, there will be chocolate.
About Richard H. Brodhead
Richard H. Brodhead served as President of Duke University from 2004 to 2017. As President, he advanced an integrative, engaged model of undergraduate education and strengthened Duke’s commitment to access and opportunity, raising nearly $1 billion for financial aid endowment. Under his leadership, Duke established many of its best-known international programs, including the Duke Global Health Institute, DukeEngage, and Duke Kunshan University. Closer to home, Duke completed major renovations to its historic campus and played a crucial role in the revitalization of downtown Durham.
Brodhead received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, where he had a 32-year career as a faculty member before coming to Duke, including eleven years as Dean of Yale College. A scholar of American literature and culture, he has written and edited more than a dozen books, including on Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004, and he was named the Co-Chair of its Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences and co-authored its 2013 report, “The Heart of the Matter.” He has been a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation since 2013.
Brodhead’s writings about higher education have been collected in two books, The Good of this Place (2004) and Speaking of Duke (2017). For his national role in higher education, Brodhead was given the Academic Leadership Award by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He is currently the William Preston Few Professor of English at Duke.
Women’s work. The phrase usually conjures up domestic duties or occupations largely associated with women—such as teaching, nursing, or housekeeping. The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection upends those associations. By bringing together materials from across the centuries, Baskin reveals what has been hidden—that Western women have long pursued a startling range of careers and vocations and that through their work they have supported themselves, their families, and the causes they believed in.
In 2015, Lisa Unger Baskin placed her collection with Duke’s Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, part of the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Comprising more than 10,000 rare books and thousands of manuscripts, journals, items of ephemera, and artifacts, it was the most significant collection on women’s history still in private hands—an enormous body of material focusing on women’s work in all its diversity.
This exhibition provides a first glimpse of the diversity and depth of the collection, revealing the lives of women both famous and forgotten and recognizing their accomplishments.
After its premiere at Duke, the exhibit will travel to New York City and be on display at the Grolier Club, America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles, December 11, 2019 – February 8, 2020.
To accompany the exhibition, the Rubenstein Library and the Grolier Club have co-published a 160-page full-color catalog, which will be available for sale at the opening reception on February 27, and at a related symposium on “Women Across the Disciplines,” scheduled for April 15-16, 2019, at the Rubenstein Library.
Free guided tours of the exhibition will be offered every Friday at 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., March 8 – June 14. Sign up for a tour online.
The exhibition catalog was co-published by the Rubenstein Library and the Grolier Club.
Exhibit Opening and Reception: Please Join Us!
Date: Wednesday, February 27 Time: 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. Location: Gothic Reading Room and Ahmadieh Family Commons, Rubenstein Library 2nd Floor
Featuring collector and exhibit co-curator Lisa Unger Baskin in conversation with Naomi L. Nelson, Associate University Librarian and Director, Rubenstein Library. Also featuring introductory remarks by Edward Balleisen, Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies. Free and open to the public.
Many of the books Bob Loomis edited during his career at Random House continue to be read and discussed decades after their publication.
WHEN: Wednesday, October 24 TIME: 4:00-5:00 p.m. WHERE: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room (Rubenstein Library 153)
Join the Duke University Libraries and Department of English for an informal conversation with Bob Loomis, the legendary Random House editor and Duke alumnus (T ’49), as he discusses the lively literary culture on campus during his post-war undergraduate years.
Loomis worked for Random House from 1957 to 2011, eventually rising to Vice President and Executive Editor. He holds a revered place in the publishing industry as an editor known for nurturing writers whose books went on to great success, including Maya Angelou, William Styron, Shelby Foote, Calvin Trillin, Edmund Morris, Daniel J. Boorstin, and many others.
Loomis’s fellow students at Duke included Styron, Guy Davenport, and New York Magazine founder Clay Felker. He was also a student of celebrated Duke English Professor William Blackburn.
Refreshments provided. Please register to help us estimate attendance.
Looking for an easy way to help people affected by Hurricane Florence?
From October 10-26, you can exchange “Food for Fines” at the Duke library nearest you.
For every unopened, unexpired, non-perishable food item you donate, we will waive $1 of your library fines (up to $25 max).
All libraries on East and West Campus are participating, and it doesn’t matter which library you owe fines to. You can drop off your donation at the library of your choice, and we’ll apply it to any library fines at any Duke library.
Donations will be collected and distributed by the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC. The Food Bank serves a network of more than 800 agencies across 34 counties in Central and Eastern North Carolina, including soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, and programs for children and adults.
You can also donate non-food essentials for infants, kids, and seniors, such as diapers, wipes, cleaning products, and paper towels. The chart below lists the items currently needed most.
No library fines? No problem! You can still donate and help North Carolinians in need.
The fine print
Limit $25 in forgiven fines per person.
Any fines already paid or transferred to the bursar cannot be waived.
No expired food items or glass containers, please.
Waived fines only apply to late fees. Charges for damaged or lost books cannot be waived.
All Duke libraries will waive fines for other Duke libraries. For example, if you owe $5 to the Law Library, you are not required to drop off your donation at the Law Library. You can visit any library on East or West Campus and your Law Library fines will be waived.
Here in the library, we’re taking the summer months to evaluate some of our communications efforts.
In particular, we’re asking for your feedback on our email newsletter, which goes out every other week during the academic year. (What’s that? You don’t subscribe to our email newsletter? We can fix that right now!)
Your responses will help us make sure we’re sending you the most interesting and relevant library news from Duke.
At the end of the survey, you’ll have the option to enter a drawing for this handsome Duke University Libraries tote bag and journal. Guaranteed to make you look even smarter!
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant will fund implementation of shared staffing model across 7 academic libraries and the Dryad Digital Repository.
The Duke University Libraries will greatly expand data curation services to the Duke community as part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Data Curation Network (DCN).
Designed to support researchers seeking data curation assistance, the three-year DCN grant will establish a shared network of data curation staff across seven academic libraries and the Dryad Digital Repository that expands the curation capabilities of all the members.
Researchers at Duke will be able to draw on a wide range of data experience with the DCN, extending the data curation staff beyond those in the Duke Libraries as established from the recommendations of the Digital Research Data Services Faculty Working Group. As data curation becomes more discipline-specific, the DCN will allow a much more specialized level of curation than is possible at any one institution.
DCN members include the following partners: University of Minnesota Libraries, Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University, University of Michigan Library, University Library at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cornell University Library, Penn State University Libraries, and the Dryad Digital Repository.
Currently, staff at each of these institutions provide their own data curation services. But because data curation requires a specialized skill set — spanning a wide variety of data types and discipline-specific data formats — institutions cannot reasonably expect to hire an expert in each area.
The intent of the DCN is to serve as a cross-institutional staffing model that seamlessly connects a network of expert data curators to local datasets and to supplement local curation expertise. Data curators bring the disciplinary knowledge and software expertise necessary for reviewing and curating data deposits to ensure that the data are reusable. The project aims to increase local capacity, strengthen collaboration between libraries and disciplinary projects, and ensure that researchers and institutions ethically and appropriately share data.
“The Data Curation Network allows Duke Libraries to expand its deep commitment to research data management through a partnership that will empower Duke researchers to share their data with the wider academic community,” said Joel Herndon, Head of Data and Visualization Services in the Duke Libraries.
Data curation is a relatively new service at universities as funders increasingly require that the raw data from sponsored research be preserved and shared. In addition, many publishers now either require or encourage that data sets accompanying articles be made available through a publicly accessible repository. Finally, many researchers wish to make their data available regardless of funder requirements both to enhance their impact and also to propel the concept of open science.
This project builds on previous work that includes the July 2017 report: “Data Curation Network: A Cross-Institutional Staffing Model for Curating Research Data,” which is available on the project website, datacurationnetwork.org.
For more information about the grant and/or data curation in Duke Libraries, please contact askdata@duke.edu.
Your opinion counts! Share your thoughts about ways to improve and enhance library services, collections, and spaces in a one-hour moderated focus group. In return, we’ll feed you!
Here in the Libraries, we’re always trying to up our game. To help us serve our Duke students and faculty better, we conduct periodic focus groups with undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members.
We want to know what you really think. Focus groups help us improve our existing services and develop new ones to meet emerging needs. Click on the links below to be part of a focus group session.
Focus Groups for Undergraduates
Wednesday, April 11
3:30 – 4:30 p.m. Perkins 118 On the Menu: Monuts Donuts and Joe Van Gogh Coffee Register for this session
Thursday, April 12 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Perkins 118 On the Menu: Pre-dinner snacks Register for this session
Focus Groups for Graduate Students
Friday, April 13
9:30 – 10:30 a.m. Perkins 118 On the Menu: Monuts Donuts and Joe Van Gogh Coffee Register for this session
Wednesday, April 18
2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Perkins 118 On the Menu: Monuts Donuts and Joe Van Gogh Coffee Register for this session
A selection of books by authors in the Class of 1968 will be on display in the Mary Duke Biddle Room during Reunions Weekend, April 13-14.
Duke alumni will be gathering on campus soon to celebrate their annual class reunions. One class in particular is marking a special milestone—members of the Class of 1968 will come together for their fiftieth reunion this spring.
To help them commemorate the half-century mark, the Duke University Libraries and the Duke Alumni Association are proud to present a display of books by authors from the Class of 1968.
The display includes some 67 titles written by 25 different alumni authors. The range of genres and subject matter is impressive, encompassing everything from novels to academic studies of French history and journalistic memoirs of covering the White House. It’s an inspiring reminder of the creativity, talent, and intelligence that each class of Duke graduates carries with it out into the world, and the many ways Duke alumni leave their mark.
The books will be on display April 13-14 in the Mary Duke Biddle Room galleries.
Visitors are encouraged to drop by any time during the Biddle Room’s hours of operation (Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.) and help us celebrate the achievements of the Class of 1968.
Special thanks to Bill Lawrence T’68 and Gary Nelson T’64 P’95, a member of the Duke Alumni Association Board of Directors, for coordinating the display.
A number of senior leadership changes are under way at the Duke University Libraries, reflecting the emphases of our strategic plan—Engage, Discover, Transform—and aligning our operations with evolving developments and directions in academic libraries, scholarship, and publishing.
Dracine Hodges
In January 2018, Dracine Hodges, Assistant University Librarian for Technical Services, was promoted to Associate University Librarian for Technical Services, serving as a member of the Libraries’ Executive Group.
Hodges came to Duke in March 2016 as Head of Technical Services, a newly created position. In that role, she oversaw the broad structural reorganization of the Libraries’ Technical Services departments, working with staff to define challenges and identify ways to meet those challenges strategically. That work resulted in the restructuring of Technical Services into the new departments of Continuing Resource Acquisitions, Monograph Acquisitions, Metadata and Discovery Strategy, Serials and Retention Management, and Resource Description. The new structure is better able to meet the evolving demands of a modern research library. In her new role as AUL, Hodges also oversees the Libraries’ Conservation Services department. This recognizes the breadth of responsibility of Conservation Services, which like other Technical Services departments works with both general and special collections.
“We are very pleased that Dracine has agreed to join the Executive Group,” said Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs. “This appointment is a recognition of the broad scope of responsibility she has in overseeing multiple departments as well as the complex and vital role that Technical Services plays in supporting the research enterprise.”
Prior to coming to Duke in 2016, Hodges was a tenured Associate Professor and Head of the Acquisitions Department at the Ohio State University Libraries. She has published several book chapters and well-cited peer-reviewed articles related to collection development models and diversity in libraries. She is a member of the Advisory Board for the IMLS-funded Institute for Research Design in Librarianship and an active member of the ALCTS division of the American Library Association. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Wesleyan College and an MLIS from Florida State University.
Hodges’s appointment comes just as another member of the Libraries’ Executive Group prepares to step down. In May 2018, Robert L. Byrd, Associate University Librarian for Collections and User Services, will retire after 40 years of service to the Duke University Libraries.
“An account of Bob’s professional contributions to the Duke University Libraries, and to the university, would go on for pages,” said Jakubs. “Perhaps most notably, he has been the force of quiet persistence behind our special collections. It was his vision, beginning decades ago, that ultimately led to the creation of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.”
Robert L. Byrd
Byrd was educated at Duke (BA, 1972), Yale (M.Phil., 1975), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (MSLS, 1978). He first worked at Duke as a library clerk in the Manuscript Department. After receiving his MSLS degree, he was appointed Assistant Curator of Manuscripts for Reader Services, then Manuscripts Librarian, then Curator of Manuscripts. In 1989-90, Byrd spearheaded the union of the separate Rare Book and Manuscript departments, creating the Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library, which he continued to direct until 2010. In 2015, Duke formally dedicated the Rubenstein Library, bringing Duke into the company of its peers as the home of a named special collections library.
In the four decades he has worked at Duke, Byrd has negotiated the acquisition of some of the Libraries’ most noteworthy and distinctive collections. He has also contributed much beyond the Libraries, serving on numerous university committees and important initiatives, including the reaccreditation process, the launch of Duke Kunshan University, and the Perkins Project, a 15-year-long effort to renovate and re-imagine Duke’s West Campus library complex. A celebration of his career and many contributions to the University will be held on May 7 in the Gothic Reading Room at 4 p.m. His last day at Duke will be May 11.
When Byrd retires in May, he will be succeeded on the Libraries’ Executive Group by David Hansen, Director of Copyright and Scholarly Communications. Hansen’s new title will be Associate University Librarian for Research, Collections and Scholarly Communication. This model highlights a focus on the research lifecycle, from research/instruction to publication and access to scholarship, and also reflects a major theme of the Libraries’ strategic plan, Engage, Discover, Transform.
David Hansen
“Although we will clearly miss Bob, I am excited at the prospect of Dave’s leadership in this expanded role, and his participation in the Executive Group,” said Jakubs. “As the head of the Office of Copyright and Scholarly Communications, Dave has forged important relationships with faculty across campus and reinforced the broad and essential role of the Libraries in the research and publication process. We will have the benefit of a smooth transition over the coming months.”
Hansen is a widely-read and respected expert on copyright and libraries. He has worked at Duke since November 2016. Since that time, Hansen and his staff have led efforts to increase Duke’s open access footprint and expand the accessibility of Duke faculty publications through Duke’s open access repository. Working with partners across campus, he has also helped to expand financial support for Duke researchers who wish to publish their work in open access journals. And he has been deeply involved in efforts to include rightsstatements.org metadata into digitized library collections in order to more clearly communicate the copyright status of library holdings. “Dave is a thoughtful, experienced, and committed leader who recognizes the complexity of the Libraries’ relationship with the university and the broader academic community,” Jakubs said.
Finally, Hansen and his staff have strengthened the Libraries’ role in campus copyright issues by developing the Copyright Consultants Program. The program provides copyright training for front-line library staff to better assess and resolve copyright questions in their interactions with faculty, students, and other researchers. His office also oversees the Triangle Scholarly Communications Institute (SCI).
Prior to coming to Duke, Hansen served as Clinical Assistant Professor and Faculty Research Librarian at the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library at the University of North Carolina’s School of Law. He has also worked as a Digital Library Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Law. A graduate of UNC-Charlotte’s Belk College of Business/Department of Economics, Hansen earned his JD and his MSLS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Timothy M. McGeary
With the retirement of Robert Byrd and the promotion of Dracine Hodges and David Hansen to the Libraries’ Executive Group, one final leadership change will also take effect. Timothy M. McGeary, Associate University Librarian for Information Technology, will have a new title—Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies and Technology. Under McGeary’s leadership, the newly reorganized division of Digital Strategies and Technology will take on a broader engagement with Duke’s campus on digital strategies and the impact the Libraries have in areas such as user experience, research data and scholarship, digital preservation, open source library systems, strategic assessment of library data and services, and technology collaboration and governance.
The other members of the Libraries’ Executive Group include Ann Elsner, Associate University Librarian for Administrative Services; Tom Hadzor, Associate University Librarian for Development; and Naomi Nelson, Associate University Librarian and Director of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
The Duke University Libraries are pleased to present an evening with author Colson Whitehead at 6 p.m., Wednesday, February 7, in Page Auditorium.
The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required for entry and available through the Duke University Box Office.
To reserve a ticket, visit the Duke Box Office in person in the Bryan Center, go to its website (tickets.duke.edu), or call (919) 684-4444. (Note: Ticket reservations made online or by phone carry a $1.50 per ticket service charge.)
Public parking ($5) will be available in Parking Garage IV (Bryan Center Parking Garage) at 125 Science Drive, with overflow parking in the Chemistry Lot at the intersection of Towerview Road and Circuit Drive. ADA parking will be available in the Bryan Center Surface Lot. (See directions and more information about parking for events at Page Auditorium.)
Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Underground Railroad, winner of the 2016 National Book Award and 2017 Pulitzer Prize. In the novel’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is not a metaphor, but rather a secret network of tracks and tunnels that have been built beneath the Southern soil. It is through this web of stations that the novel’s heroine, an escaped slave named Cora, flees the unrelenting brutality of the Georgia plantation on which she was born.
Whitehead’s other books include The Noble Hustle, Sag Harbor, The Intuitionist, and The Colossus of New York, among others. Whitehead’s reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in a number of publications, such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper’s and Granta. He has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Dos Passos Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for John Henry Days. He lives in New York City.
Copies of Whitehead’s books will be available for sale at the event, and a booksigning with the author will follow his talk.
Whitehead’s talk on February 7 will be recorded and made available to subscribers to the Duke University Libraries newsletter. If you can’t make the live event, you may sign up for our newsletter and get notified when the recording is available to view.
Whitehead’s appearance at Duke is presented as the Weaver Memorial Lecture, a speaker series hosted every other year by the Duke University Libraries in memory of William B. Weaver, a 1972 Duke graduate and founding member of the Library Advisory Board. Previous speakers have included Barbara Kingsolver, Oliver Sacks, Dave Eggers, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and David Rubenstein, among others.
Special thanks to our co-sponsors for this event: The Office of the President, Office of the Provost, and Department of English.
Left your textbook in your dorm room? Borrow our copy!
As the spring 2018 semester gets underway, we want to remind students that you can check out copies of textbooks for the largest courses on campus from the library.
The books include required texts for some of Duke’s most popular courses in Economics, Chemistry, Math, Computer Science, Biology, Psychology, and other subjects. They can be checked out for three hours at a time and are available at the Perkins Library Service Desk. Some textbooks are also available at Lilly Library on East Campus.
Here’s a complete listing of courses that have textbooks on reserve in the library. (This list is also available on our website. More courses may be added as orders come in.) Courses listed in red also have copies available at Lilly Library.
COURSE NUMBER
COURSE TITLE
AAAS 335
HISTORY OF HIP-HOP
BIOCHEM 301
INTRO BIOCHEMISTRY I
BIOLOGY 223
CELL AND MOLEC NEUROBIO
BIOLOGY 201L
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
BIOLOGY 202L
GENETICS AND EVOLUTION
CHEM 201DL
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY I
CHEM 202L
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY II
CHEM 210DL
MOD APPS CHEM PRINCIPLES
CLST 262
ANCIENT ATHLETES
COMPSCI 330
DESIGN/ANALY ALGORITHMS
COMPSCI 250D
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
ECE 110L
FUND OF ELEC AND COMP ENGR
ECON 208D
INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMETRICS
EGR 244L
DYNAMICS
EVANTH 260
HUMAN COGNITIVE EVOLUTION
GLHLTH 101
FUNDAMENTALS OF GLOBAL HEALTH
MATH 230
PROBABILITY
MATH 202D
MULTIVAR CALCULUS FOR ECON
MATH 216
LINEAR ALGEBRA & DIFF EQUATION
MATH 353
ORD AND PRTL DIFF EQUATIONS
MATH 112L
LABORATORY CALCULUS II
MATH 212
MULTIVARIABLE CALCULUS
NEUROSCI 101
BIO BASES OF BEHAVIOR
PHYSICS 142L
GENERAL PHYSICS II
PSY 104
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
PSY 105
ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
PSY 101
INTRODUCTORY PSYCHOLOGY
SPANISH 203
INTERMEDIATE SPANISH
STA 101
DATA ANALY/STAT INFER
Please note:Textbooks on reserve are not intended to take the place of students purchasing textbooks for their courses. Due to budget limitations, the Libraries are unable to purchase textbooks for every course at Duke.
For questions related to textbook reserves at Perkins Library, please contact: perkins-reserves@duke.edu.
For questions related to textbook reserves at Lilly Library, please contact: lilly-requests@duke.edu
Duke Self-Checkout is a fast, easy way to check out books from the Duke University Libraries.
Starting this week, you can now use your smartphone to check out library books in Perkins and Bostock Libraries, without having to bring them to the desk on the main floor.
Make sure to let Duke Self-Checkout access your camera, send you notifications, and use your location.
Open the app and log in with your Duke NetID and password. Click the ‘+’ sign in the top right corner to activate your camera.
When you find a book you want to check out, use the app on your phone to scan the library barcode. The app will blink green when it recognizes the barcode and check the item out to you right there. That’s it!
Remember to demagnetize your book before you leave the building!
If you want leave the building with your book, make sure you stop at one of the Duke Self-Checkout stations to demagnetize your book so it doesn’t set off an alarm.
Don’t have a phone or don’t want to download the app? Use the iPad at the Duke Self-Checkout stations, located in Perkins near the Perkins / Bostock Lobby, and in Bostock at the Edge Service Desk.
Duke Self-Checkout is also available at the Marine Lab Library.
Re:Publishing: Publishing as Conversation Friday, December 1, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. The Edge Workshop Room (Bostock 127)
Scholarly publishing is often treated as one-way communication: send some knowledge out into the world, then hope others learn from it and maybe cite it somewhere down the road. But how can we make publishing an opportunity to engage with others? How can it be a conversation while avoiding trolls, hecklers, and defeatists?
This event will feature a moderated discussion among members of the Duke community about these ideas and more, exploring what it means to approach scholarly publishing as a conversation and how to find, seed, and engage in broader discussion of your scholarly work.
This event is part of the Re:Publishing series co-sponsored by Duke University Libraries, Center for Instructional Technology (CIT), Digital Humanities Initiative, Digital Scholarship Services (Duke University Libraries), Forum for Scholars and Publics, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Office of Copyright & Scholarly Communication (Duke University Libraries), Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, PhD Lab in Digital Knowledge, Duke Initiative for Science & Society and Wired! Lab for Digital Art History and Visual Culture.
Every year the Duke University Libraries run a series of essay contests recognizing the original research of Duke students and encouraging the use of library resources. We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2016-2017 library writing and research awards.
Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using sources from the Libraries’ general collections.
Honor Thesis Prize:Anna Mukamal for “Creative Impulse in the Modern Age: The Embodiment of Anxiety in the Early Poetry of T. S. Eliot (1910-1917)”
Third/Fourth-Year Prize:Jack Harrington for “In The Empire’s Back Yard: The Radicalization of Public Opinion In Ireland and It’s Impact on the Anglo-Irish War (1913-1920)”
First/Second-Year Prize:McKenzie Cook for “World War I and The London Theatre”
Recognizing excellence of analysis, research, and writing in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Maegan Stanley for “In Honest Affection and Friendlinesse”
Hannah Rogers for “Subversion as Service: The Life and Controversy of Jeanne Audrey Powers”
We will be celebrating our winners and their achievements at a special awards reception coinciding with Duke Family Weekend. All are invited to join us for refreshments and the opportunity to honor the recipients.
Man and woman looking over a brochure for a political candidate before election day in Lowndes County, Alabama, November, 1966, Photograph by Jim Peppler, Courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama.
What can the immediate past teach us about voting rights, self-determination, and democracy today? A new website created by the SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University explores how the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—the only youth-led national civil rights group—organized a grassroots movement in the 1960s that empowered Black communities and transformed the nation. Told from the perspectives of the activists themselves, the SNCC Digital Gateway: Learn from the Past, Organize for the Future, Make Democracy Work (snccdigital.org) highlights SNCC’s thinking and work building democracy from the ground up, making those experiences and strategies accessible to activists, educators, and engaged citizens today.
Generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the site uses documentary footage, audio recordings, photographs, and documents to chronicle how SNCC organizers, alongside thousands of local Black residents in the Deep South, worked to enable Black people to take control of their lives. The gateway unveils and examines the inner workings of SNCC over the course of its 12-year existence—its structure, how it coordinated sit-ins and other direct action protests, and how it organized voter registration efforts and economic cooperatives to effect social change. SNCC had more field staff than any civil rights organization and was considered the cutting edge of the civil rights movement.
The SNCC Digital Gateway also presents the voices of today’s young activists in the Movement for Black Lives, sharing their views on the impact of SNCC and the southern civil rights movement of the 1960s on their activities today. “Reading through the SNCC Digital Gateway website is like taking a masters class in community organizing,” explains Jennifer Bryant, a community organizer based in Washington, D.C. “The primary source documents provide a deeper understanding of how SNCC was structured, the day-to-day work of field organizers and how campaigns were shaped. The site serves as a reminder that the civil rights movement was fought by everyday people. It provides hope that in these perilous times, we too can fight and win.” Courtland Cox, chairman of the SNCC Legacy Project, who served as an organizer in Mississippi and Alabama in the 1960s, explains, “Our experiences have created a level of ‘informational wealth’ that we need to pass on to young people. This unprecedented collaboration with Duke University hopefully will pilot a way for other academic institutions to re-engage history and those who make it.”
The website is a product of a groundbreaking partnership among veteran civil rights activists of the SNCC Legacy Project, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke, Duke University Libraries, and civil rights scholars. Wesley Hogan, director of the Center for Documentary Studies, who has written extensively about SNCC’s work and legacy explains, “The way we are working together—activists, archivists, and scholars—is a powerful new model. This project gives us a unique opportunity to understand the work of the local people who broke apart Jim Crow that would otherwise be lost to future generations.”
For more information, contact:
Wesley Hogan, Director, Center for Documentary Studies
(919) 660-3610
wesley.hogan@duke.edu
A weevil (family Curculionidae), one of many insects on display as part of the of the new Incredible Insects exhibit.
Incredible Insects: A Celebration of Insect Biology
On display June 13 – October 15, 2017
in the Chappell Family Gallery and Stone Family Gallery, Perkins and Rubenstein Libraries, Duke West Campus (Click for map)
Insects are the most numerous and diverse animals on earth. They can be found in almost every environment. Because of their tremendous diversity, they play many important roles in nature, as well as in human society—enchanting us with their beauty, unsettling us with their strangeness. Whether revered or reviled, these fascinating and ubiquitous organisms can truly be said to have conquered the planet.
A new library exhibit offers a glimpse into the multifaceted world of insects, including research on insects conducted here at Duke.
There are three times as many species of insects than all other animals (mammals, birds, fish reptiles, amphibians) combined. The number of individual insects is estimated to be in excess of a quintillion (that’s a 10 with 18 zeros behind it).
The exhibit is divided into several sections, including insect evolution and diversity, coloration and camouflage, types and stages of insect metamorphosis, the roles of insects in human history and culture, and a fascinating look at two of nature’s greatest mysteries: the migration of the monarch butterfly and the clockwork-like appearance of periodical cicadas.
Periodical cicadas are one of the most remarkable phenomena of nature. They suddenly appear in the millions every 13 or 17 years. Then they disappear as suddenly as they came,
Exhibit visitors can also hear sound recordings of insect calls at a nearby kiosk and see up-close images of insects taken with electron microscopes.
Around the corner from the Chappell Family Gallery, viewers can step inside the Rubenstein Library’s Stone Family Gallery and peruse several selections of rare books that complement the exhibit. The exhibit curators selected these works because they represent some of the earliest scientific investigations to discover general aspects of biology and natural history through the study of insects.
Image of a fly drawn by Robert Hooke in his Micrographia (1667), one of several rare historical volumes on entomology on display in the Stone Family Gallery.
Incredible Insects was curated by a team of entymology students, faculty and staff from the Duke biology department.
CAPTURING THE MOMENT: CENTURIES OF THE PASSOVER HAGGADAH
Opening Reception and Guest Speaker Professor Kalman Bland, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies
DATE: Wednesday, March 22 TIME: 5:30 p.m. WHERE: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library
Join us to celebrate the opening of a new exhibit of the Passover Haggadah, a Jewish text written for the Passover Seder meal. This exhibit explores the long and interesting history of the Haggadot (pl. of Haggadah) and how their illustrations and texts shed light on cultural, religious and political changes.
On display in the Jerry and Bruce Chappell Family Gallery (near the main entrance to Perkins Library) February 23 – June 11.
DATE: Wednesday, April 5 TIME: 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. LOCATION: The Edge Workshop Room (Bostock 127) Register Now
From hashtag activism to public policy unfolding on Twitter, social media is trending as an important data source for our understanding of today’s socio-political atmosphere. In what ways can social media data provide researchers with a glimpse into social behaviors and human interactions? How are researchers harnessing, analyzing, and making sense of social media data? What are the ethical considerations of capturing and using this data?
Join us in the Ruppert Commons for Research, Technology and Collaboration (“The Edge”) as Dr. Negar Mottahedeh, Dr. Daniel Vallero, and Dr. Jennifer Ahern-Dodson discuss the role of social media as a source for their own research, as well as the limitations and ethical considerations at play.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, entry from the 2014 contest
WHAT: Edible Book Festival
WHEN: Friday, March 31, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.
WHERE: Perkins Library, Room 217
Girl with a Pearl Onion, entry from the 2012 contest
Calling all bibliophiles, foodies, pun aficionados, and spectators: Duke’s Edible Book Festival is seeking submissions for its annual contest on March 31.
The Edible Book Festival is an international event started in 1999 that invites people to share “bookish foods” and to celebrate the literal and figurative ingestion of culture.
Duke’s festival is sponsored by Duke University Libraries and will take place on Friday, March 31, 1:00-3:00 p.m. in Perkins Library Room 217.
The event features a contest of edible books, voting for favorite entries, and prizes for winners. Contestants and attendees are also invited to to bring gently used books to donate to a drive for Book Harvest, a nonprofit organization that provides books to local children in need.
To Stir, with Love, entry from the 2014 contest
To participate, individuals are asked to submit edible art that has something to do with books as shapes or content. Prizes will be awarded for Most Edible, Least Edible, Punniest, and Best in Show.
The festival is open to all Duke faculty, staff, students and the general public. Entries should be delivered to Perkins 217 between 12:00 and 12:30 p.m. the day of the event.
Are you stuck in a reading rut? Is your desire for abstraction not getting any action?
This Valentine’s Day, spice up your reading life and take home a one-night stand for your nightstand.
Check out our Blind Date with a Book display February 9-17 in Perkins Library next to the New and Noteworthy section.
Our librarians have hand-picked some of their all-time favorite literary crushes. Trust us. Librarians are the professional matchmakers of the book world. If these titles were on Tinder, we’d swipe right on every one. (Not that you should ever judge a book by its cover.)
Each book comes wrapped in brown paper with a come-hither teaser to pique your interest. Will you get fiction or nonfiction? Short stories or travelogue? Memoir or thriller? You won’t know until you “get between the covers,” if you know what we mean.
Not looking for commitment? No problem. Let us hook you up with a 100-page quickie.
Or maybe you’re the type who likes it long and intense? Here’s a little somethin-somethin that will keep you up all night for weeks. Aw, yeah.
Either way, be sure to let us know what you think. Each book comes with a “Rate Your Date” card. Use it as a bookmark. Then drop it in our Blind Date with a Book box when you return your book to Perkins. You’ll be entered to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card.
So treat your pretty little self to a mystery date. Who knows? You might just fall in love with a new favorite writer!
When: Friday, March 3, 2017 Time: 9:00 p.m. to Midnight Where: Perkins and Bostock Libraries, 1st Floor Admission: Free Dress: Semi-Formal Attire, or Dress as Your Favorite Mystery Character
The Library Party is a unique Duke tradition. For one night only, Perkins and Bostock Libraries throw open their doors for a night of music, food, and un-shushed entertainment. The event is free and open to the entire Duke community.
After a couple of years on hiatus, the Library Party is back! Once again, the Libraries are partnering with the Duke Marketing Club to organize this year’s event. The theme—“Mystery in the Stacks”—is inspired by classic works of mystery and detective fiction.
The event will feature live music, costumes, decorations, food and beverages, and plenty of mystery!
Senior Toast at 10:30 p.m. Join us in von der Heyden for a special champagne toast to the Duke Class of 2017, with remarks by Senior Class President Kavita Jain.
Keep the Mystery Going The Library Party will be followed by a Freewater Presentations screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in Griffith Theater at 12:15 a.m.
Many thanks to our not-so-mysterious co-sponsors: the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Markets & Management Studies, Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, and Duke Student Government.
What: Research talks, coffee, and dessert Where: The Edge Workshop Room (Bostock 127) When: Friday, December 9, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
You’ve seen their projects around campus—come find out what these students are working on! Join us for a series of lightning talks given by students working on projects in the Ruppert Commons for Research, Technology and Collaboration (also known as “The Edge”) or with significant collaboration from Duke University Libraries. They will discuss their research and future plans.
The participating students are working on projects with:
Following the lightning talks and a panel Q&A, join presenters for a coffee and dessert reception to celebrate a successful semester.
Interested in project space in The Edge for the spring 2017 semester? We’re now accepting applications. Submit an applicationonline or email us at edge@duke.edu for more information.
Sponsored by The Edge: The Ruppert Commons for Research, Technology and Collaboration
The Duke University Libraries are offering $250 to faculty who are interested in learning about open educational resources for the courses they teach. Details below.
What are open educational resources (OERs)?
Open educational resources are teaching and learning materials that are free. Unlike traditional textbooks or course packets that students must purchase every semester, OERs are released under an open license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OERs can include textbooks, full courses, lesson plans, videos, tests, software, or any other tool, material, or technique that supports free access to knowledge.
What is the Duke University Libraries OER Review Project?
The OER Review Project is a collaborative effort of the Duke Endowment Libraries, which includes all libraries at institutions supported by the Duke Endowment—Duke, Davidson College, Furman University, and Johnson C. Smith University. Faculty at all four schools are being offered $250 stipends to review OERs for potential use in their courses. (Limit 10 stipends per university.)
How does the program work?
Meet with a library staff member to learn more about OERs and select OERs to review.
Review each of your OERs by a determined date. We supply the review form.
Fill out a short survey about participating in the program.
10 lucky faculty members will get $250!
Who can participate?
All Duke faculty members. We’re interested in working with faculty from a variety of schools and academic programs. To learn more, please contact:
Haley Walton
Outreach Coordinator for Open Access
haley.walton@duke.edu
Kim Duckett
Head of Research and Instructional Services
kim.duckett@duke.edu
Date: Thursday, October 13 Time: 4:00 p.m. Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library (map)
Eric Fair, an Army veteran, served as an interrogator in Iraq working as a military contractor. He was stationed at the Abu Ghraib prison and in Fallujah in 2004. In his new memoir, Consequence (Henry Holt & Co., 2016), Fair writes about feeling haunted by what he did, what he saw, and what he heard in Iraq, from the beating of prisoners to witnessing the use of sleep deprivation, stress positions, diet manipulation, isolation, and other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
In this talk, Fair will discuss the fallout from that experience, from a war-strained marriage and a heart transplant to the moral struggle of speaking out publicly against his country’s use of torture on prisoners.
Free and open to the public. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Copies of the book will be for sale at the event.
Exhibits in the Trent History of Medicine Room (shown here), Mary Duke Biddle Room, and Stone Family Gallery in the Rubenstein Library will all be open on Saturday for Duke Commencement weekend.
The Rubenstein Library exhibit suite (Mary Duke Biddle Room, Stone Family Gallery, and Josiah C. Trent History of Medicine Room) will all be open on Saturday, May 14, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., for Duke Commencement weekend.
Library visitors can see Virginia Woolf’s writing desk, a copy of the Bay Psalm Book (first book printed in what is now the United States), our double-elephant folios of Audubon’s Birds of America, and many other treasures from the Rubenstein Library.
WHAT: Talk and Q&A with French writer and journalist Philippe Lançon
WHEN: Wednesday, April 20, 5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library Room 153
Reception to follow.
French writer and journalist, Philippe Lançon, will speak at Duke University on the vital force of reading and writing in the face of terror attacks.
His talk, “Comment lire et écrire après un attentat (How to read and write in the wake of an attack),” will be in French with an English synopsis provided. The Q&A will also be conducted in English. A reception will follow.
Lançon will be speaking on a subject he knows all too well. A contributor to the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, he was participating in the editorial meeting the morning of the terrorist attack on January 7, 2015. He came out, injured, and ready to write again a week later.
Parisians rally at the Place de la Republique in support of the victims of the January 7, 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting. Photo by Olivier Ortelpa from Wikimedia Commons.
Lançon’s writing as a critic of literature and the arts is widely known and respected. For his work in Libération and XXI, he has won the Hennessy award as well as the Lagardère Journalist Award. Lançon has a particular interest in the fiction of Spanish America, especially Cuba.
Lançon is also the author of several novels and short stories, including L’élan (2011) and Les îles (2013), publishing playfully under a pseudonym as well.
In 2010, Lançon taught two courses on French literature and politics at Duke in the Department of Romance Studies. He first came to Duke as a Media Fellow in the Sanford School for Public Policy, now part of the Franklin Humanities Institute.
WHAT: International and Area Studies 25th Anniversary Celebration WHEN: Tuesday, April 12, 4:00 p.m. WHERE: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library RECEPTION: Featuring a selection of food and drink from around the world
Join us as we commemorate the founding of the International and Area Studies (IAS) department of the Duke University Libraries with a reception featuring food and drink from around the world.
Remarks by Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs
Peter Lange, Thomas A. Langford University Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and former Duke University Provost
Faculty Roundtable Our program will feature five Duke faculty members in area studies discussing their teaching and research and how they have worked with library.
Laurent Dubois (Professor of History and Romance Languages, Director of the Forum for Scholars and Publics) is currently teaching a class on the Modern Caribbean using materials about Haiti recently acquired by the Rubenstein Library.
Guo-Juin Hong (Associate Professor, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, Director of the Program in Arts of the Moving Image) will talk about curating exhibits on the photography of Sidney D. Gamble and using video oral histories that are part of the Memory Project.
Timur Kuran (Professor of Economics and Political Science, Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies) will discuss how the social sciences are integrating area studies and facilitating interactions among scholars working on different parts of the world. His observations will focus on the benefits to the study of Islam and the Middle East.
Charmaine Royal (Associate Professor, African & African American Studies and Director, Center on Genomics, Race, Identity, Difference) will talk about her research on the intersection of genetics/genomics and concepts of “race,” ancestry, ethnicity, and identity.
Sumathi Ramaswamy (Professor and Interim Chair, Department of History) will discuss using the tools of digital humanities to track the itineraries of the terrestrial globe in Mughal India.
Special Thanks to Our Co-Sponsors Asian/Pacific Studies Institute, Duke University Center for International Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Duke University Middle East Studies Center, Office of Global Affairs
That’s the question we’re asking Duke students and faculty today—and every day this week.
It’s National Library Week (April 10-16), and we’re celebrating by asking people to #ThankALibrarian and tell us how a librarian has helped them.
Has a librarian helped you with a paper or research project recently? Or maybe someone helped you check out a book or a DVD? Or maybe someone came to one of your classes and taught you about a new tool or database?
If so, now’s your chance to say thanks! (We’ll only blush a little).
Look for groups of librarians all around campus (East and West) this week. We’ll be taking pictures, posting them on our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts using the hashtag #ThankALibrarian.
Buttons!
You can also send us your own photo by downloading and printing this handy template. Write a message, take a photo, and post your photo with the hashtag #ThankALibrarian on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and tag us (@dukelibraries).
We’ll be giving away fun library buttons (because everyone loves buttons, right?). Plus you can enter a drawing to win one of our sweet Perkins-Bostock-Rubenstein library T-shirts.
You know you want one of these.
So if you see us out there, take a moment to stop and #ThankALibrarian!
Head coach David Cutcliffe holds up the New Era Pinstripe Bowl trophy after Duke defeated Indiana. Image by Duke Photography.
On Tuesday, March 1, Duke fans will get a chance to see the university’s latest athletic accolade up-close and in-person in Perkins Library.
The New Era Pinstripe Bowl trophy will be on public display across from the first floor service desk from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.Visitors are invited to stop by, take a photo with the trophy, and meet members of the Duke football team and Duke Athletics staff.
Historical Duke football memorabilia from the Duke University Archives will also be displayed, including game programs from the 1942 Rose Bowl, 1945 Sugar Bowl, 1955 Orange Bowl, and 1961 Cotton Bowl. Legendary coach Eddie Cameron’s own scrapbook from the 1945 Sugar Bowl will also be on display, containing photographs, clippings, letters, and souvenirs.
The New Era Pinstripe Bowl trophy commemorates the Blue Devils’ historic win over Indiana University, 44-41, at Yankee Stadium, in one of the most dramatic games of the 2015 postseason.
The game gave Duke its first bowl victory since 1961.
So stop by the library, get a photo, and join us as we celebrate another historic Duke victory!
Related Pinstripe Bowl coverage from Duke Athletics
Virginia Woolf’s custom-made writing desk, recently acquired as part of the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, is currently on display in the Rubenstein Library’s Michael and Karen Stone Family Gallery.
What: Virginia Woolf: Writing Surfaces and Writing Depths, with Dr. Leslie Kathleen Hankins Date: Thursday, March 3 Time: 4:00-5:00 p.m. Where: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library
Dr. Leslie Kathleen Hankins
Dr. Leslie Kathleen Hankins is a professor in the department of English and Creative Writing at Cornell College and past president of the International Virginia Woolf Society. She will give a talk on the various writing surfaces used by Woolf throughout her life, including the desk now on display in the Rubenstein Library that was acquired as part of the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection. How did this desk shape the apprenticeship of Virginia Stephen into a writer? What did she write at this desk? How did it launch her career? In addition to the desk at Duke, Hankins will discuss Woolf’s decorated writing table in Cassis, as well as an overstuffed chair and lap board in a storage room at Hogarth Press and in Woolf’s writing shed. Along the way, she will consider how Woolf’s desk selections demonstrate a nuanced negotiation of gender performance and the writing profession as she crafted an innovative writing space through standing/walking/and shabby chic desk strategies.
Members of all faiths are welcome to use the new Prayer and Meditation Room in the library.
In response to student requests, the Duke University Libraries are pleased to set aside a dedicated room on the second floor of Perkins Library for prayer and meditation.
Room 220 in Perkins Library is located near the open study area with wooden carrels on the library’s second floor. (See map below.) The room is a shared space open to all members of the Duke community to use either individually or in groups.
Anyone who wishes to use the space is asked to follow a few simple guidelines:
Prayer or meditation does not necessarily need to be silent, but it should be quiet enough not to disturb anyone studying in adjacent areas or rooms.
The Prayer and Meditation Room cannot be reserved and is not to be used for studying or for meetings.
If you use the room, please show respect toward others who use it. Keep the room clean, take your personal belongings with you when you leave, and do not sleep or bring food into the space.
We hope the room will be of use to members of all faiths who study and work in the library.
The Prayer and Meditation Room is located in Room 220 on the 2nd Floor of Perkins Library.
Duke University has received a $1.165 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the continued development of an open-source integrated library system.
Known as Kuali OLE (pronounced oh-LAY), for Open Library Environment, it is the first system designed by and for academic and research libraries to manage and deliver scholarly information. Three OLE Partners—Lehigh University, the University of Chicago, and SOAS at the University of London—have already implemented Kuali OLE in their library operations. The grant will support the further development, refinement, and adoption of the system by a broader group of public and private institutions.
Large research library systems manage and provide access to millions of books, journals, online resources, special collections, and other media. To do so, they rely on various commercial software products to handle the everyday work of ordering and paying for materials, cataloging them, loaning them to library patrons, and making disparate computer systems work together. These routine business functions are mission-critical for libraries, but the proprietary software that manages them can cost colleges and universities thousands or millions of dollars to license and maintain.
The goal of Kuali OLE is to replace some of the costly, inflexible systems many libraries currently rely on with an open-source, enterprise-level system that is freely available to libraries worldwide and supported by members of the library profession itself.
“The information environment has changed rapidly over the last few decades, but the technology of library management systems has not kept pace,” said Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke. “The development of OLE offers a welcome opportunity to design a system that is flexible, customizable, and nimble enough to meet the complex needs of today’s libraries and library users.”
The Open Library Environment has been in development, with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, since 2008. In that year, representatives from more than a dozen libraries convened at Duke to discuss a next-generation framework for managing library collections and resources—essentially a library system designed by and for librarians.
This grant from Mellon will support the next phase of OLE’s code development through December 2017 by strengthening the technical capacity of the Kuali OLE Core Team. This will enable OLE to respond and adapt to technical infrastructure changes. It will also allow for increased functionality and features for successful implementation at the other partner libraries, including Duke, Cornell, Indiana University, Texas A&M University, North Carolina State University, the University of Maryland, the University of Pennsylvania, and Villanova University.
The hope is that Kuali OLE’s implementation at a range of private and public institutions will generate interest and participation among more academic institutions and partners worldwide.
“We envision this project as both a pivot for OLE that leads to a stronger, more effective and sustainable technology infrastructure, and an opportunity to renovate our organizational model to address code, community ownership, and the speed of development,” said Tim McGeary, Associate University Librarian for Information Technology Services at Duke. “We are grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for recognizing the promise of the Kuali OLE project.”
Some 60 wax cylinders and 76 aluminum discs containing approximately 1,367 songs recorded in the 1920s and 1930s will be digitized as part of the project.
The collection includes some 1,367 songs recorded in the 1920s and 1930s on wax cylinders and aluminum discs. The recordings were made in the field by folklorist, professor of English, and Duke University administrator Frank Clyde Brown (1870-1943), who traveled across North Carolina collecting folk songs, sayings, stories, and other folklore between 1912 and his death in 1943. Brown collected songs from at least 52 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, representing all regions of the state.
“The recordings include music unique to North Carolina, as well as popular American folk songs, traditional British ballads, and a range of other tunes,” said Winston Atkins, Preservation Officer for Duke University Libraries and the principal investigator for the project. “Taken together, they represent an important and untapped primary source of American folk music in the early twentieth century.”
The songs have never been widely accessible due to the age and fragility of the recording technology Brown used, as well as the difficulty of transferring them to more modern media formats.
Because they are too fragile to be played as intended, the cylinders and discs will be digitized using a non-contact visual scanning technology known as IRENE.
“Until recently, there has been no non-destructive way to recover audio on historical wax cylinders and aluminum discs, which require a mechanical stylus and can be damaged if played today,” said Craig Breaden, Audiovisual Archivist in Duke’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
The Duke recordings will be digitized using a new non-contact technology, known as IRENE, at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts. IRENE takes ultra-high resolution visual scans of the grooves imprinted on the cylinders and discs and mathematically translates those into digital sound files that are remarkably faithful to the original recordings. Because there is no actual contact with the recording, IRENE’s scans can also capture sounds from damaged media.
Digitization will begin in the summer of 2016 and take approximately one year. The recordings will then be described and processed, and the collection will be made freely and publicly available through the Duke University Libraries website in 2018.
Undated photograph of Frank C. Brown from the Duke University Archives.
Born in 1870, Frank Clyde Brown began his career as a professor of English at Trinity College in Durham (the forerunner of Duke University) in 1909 and later became chairman of the department. Between 1924 and 1930, as Trinity expanded into Duke University, Brown served as the institution’s first comptroller, overseeing the construction of West Campus and the renovation of East Campus. He also served as university marshal, entertaining distinguished visitors to the new university.
In 1913, at the urging of legendary folklorist and musicologist John A. Lomax, Brown founded the North Carolina Folklore Society and was elected its first president. He later served as its secretary-treasurer, program chairman, and primary collector until his death in 1943. His efforts to record the sounds and nuances of North Carolina’s “folk” were part of a national trend in the early twentieth century to preserve American folk culture, aided by new technologies that allowed folklorists to make recordings in the field. The 1,367 songs captured by Brown are a significant part of that legacy.
The seven-volume Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, published posthumously by Duke University Press between 1952 and 1964, represents Brown’s lifetime of collecting. It is widely regarded as one of the premiere collections of American folklore ever published and is available online. Four of the seven volumes are dedicated to the music Brown recorded and include transcribed melodies and song lyrics. However, the editors of Brown’s work left out an estimated 400 songs he recorded. These “bonus tracks,” which are found on the wax cylinders and aluminum discs but not in the published collection, will be digitized as part of the project.
“All Day Singing.” Woodcut by Clare Leighton, from Vol. 2 of the Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, published by Duke University Press in 1952.
Brown’s original manuscripts and notes, which were used to compile the collection, along with his original recordings, are housed in Duke’s Rubenstein Library.
In 2015, two Duke faculty members—Victoria Szabo and Trudi Abel—incorporated some of the Frank C. Brown recordings into NC Jukebox, an interdisciplinary Bass Connections course introducing undergraduate and graduate students to digital history. Students conducted original research on the history of the recordings and tracked down the descendants of some of the singers and musicians. The course will be offered again in Spring 2017.
The grant to digitize Brown’s recordings is part of CLIR’s Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives awards program, a national competition that funds the digitization of rare and unique content held by libraries and cultural memory institutions that would otherwise be unavailable to the public.
During the winter break, we’re reconfiguring the Circulation and Reference Desks into a single combined library service point.
With the fall semester now over, we are going back into construction mode to complete five small projects in Perkins and Bostock Libraries. The majority of the projects are expected to be wrapped up by the start of the semester in January 2016.
Here’s a summary of the projects and what you can expect if you visit the library over the winter break.
New Perkins Library Service Desk: On the main level of Perkins Library, the Circulation and Reference Desks are being completely reconfigured into a new single library service point. Demolition of the existing desk area started this week and is expected to take a week or so. A new desk, consultation spaces, shelving area and processing area will be created in the existing space. While the work is going on, library services will be available by the Perkins archway entrance.
Bostock Floor 2: The spaces formerly occupied by Library Development, Communications, the Duke Collaboratory for Classics Computing, and Business Services will be renovated. Temporary walls have already been removed and pre-construction work has been completed. Once finished, the Data and Visualization and Digital Scholarship department heads and staff will relocate to offices in the renovated space. There will also be a meeting room within their combined suite. The DC3 (temporarily located in the 1928 Rubenstein Library tower offices) will return to a new space just down the hall from their former location.
The former home of Data and Visualization Services on the 2nd floor of Perkins Library is being transformed into a dedicated Dissertation Reading and Writing Lab for Duke graduate students.
Bostock Floors 2/3: The spaces formerly occupied by the Library Administration Office, Business Services, and Library Human Resources will be touched up, painted, and furniture will be returned to those areas. The former office for Library Human Resources will revert to a reservable meeting room for library staff.
Perkins Floor 3: The temporary stack and reading room spaces created for Rubenstein Library staff and services during the renovation will be returned to student/public spaces. The temporary walls have already been removed and some furniture has been returned. The shelves are clear and some shelving is being removed or relocated. Books and other materials will return to the third floor later in Spring 2016.
New Dissertation Reading and Writing Lab, Perkins Floor 2: The former Data/Visualization Lab on the 2nd floor of Perkins will become a new Dissertation Reading and Writing Lab. The space will be emptied, new carpet will be installed, and a number of open carrels and portable storage units will be installed in late January for use by graduate students. This space is expected to open in February or March.
Pardon our progress while we continue to improve your library!
Ever wonder who those teams of people are and what they’re working on? Come find out December 4!
What: Research-in-progress, coffee and dessert Where: The Edge Workshop Room (Bostock Library 127) When: Friday, December 4, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
You’ve seen the project teams in The Edge—come find out what they’re working on! In between LDOC festivities, join us in The Edge for a series of lightning talks given by Bass Connections project team participants about their team’s research work in progress and future plans. The participating teams are:
Following the lightning talks and a panel Q&A, join the team members for a coffee and dessert reception to celebrate a successful semester.
Interested in project space in The Edge next semester? We’re accepting applications for the Spring 2016 semester. Submit an application online or email us at edge@duke.edu for more information.
Date: Tuesday, October 6 Time: 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library
Join us for an evening of music and conversation in the Rubenstein Library as we explore the deep roots of the Mountain Music of North Carolina.
Terry McKinney–bluegrass, country, and gospel musician–will give a free performance as part of the Archives Alive course NC Jukebox, which explores the history of music making in early twentieth-century North Carolina.
This event is free and open to the public.
To learn more about the Archives Alive initiative, a joint venture of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library and Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, visit the website.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin will discuss her books, the American presidency, and leadership lessons from the White House at 6 p.m. Thursday, November 5, in Duke University’s Reynolds Industries Theater. The event is free and open to the public.
Doris Kearns Goodwin will be joined onstage by David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of The Carlyle Group and Chair of the Duke University Board of Trustees.
Goodwin will be joined on stage in conversation with David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of The Carlyle Group and Chair of the Duke University Board of Trustees. The event is one of several programs this year celebrating the opening of the renovated the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. She is the author of six critically acclaimed and New York Times best-selling books. She appears regularly on network TV programs and was an on-air consultant for PBS documentaries on Lyndon B. Johnson, the Kennedy Family, and Ken Burn’s The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.
Goodwin was born and raised on Long Island, New York. She received her B.A. from Colby College and her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. Goodwin served as an assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson in his last year in the White House. She later assisted Johnson in the preparation of his memoirs.
Goodwin’s monumental history of Abraham Lincoln, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005) reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The book won the Lincoln Prize, the New York Historical Society Book Prize, the Richard Nelson Current Award, the New York State Archives History Makers Award, and was the basis of the 2012 feature film Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day Lewis.
Goodwin’s most recent book, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism (2013), is a dynamic history of the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air. Dreamworks Studios/Steven Spielberg have acquired the film rights to the book.
Goodwin lives in Concord, Massachusetts, with her husband Richard N. Goodwin, who worked in the White House under both Kennedy and Johnson. The Goodwins have three sons.
The evening with Goodwin and Rubenstein will be presented as the Weaver Memorial Lecture, hosted every other year by the Duke University Libraries in memory of William B. Weaver, a 1972 Duke graduate and former member of the Library Advisory Board. The event is co-sponsored by the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Sanford School of Public Policy, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, and the Department of History. Copies of Goodwin’s books will be available for sale at the event.
Admission is free, but tickets are required and are available through the Duke Box Office. A small service charge may apply for tickets ordered by phone, online, or mail. Visit tickets.duke.edu for more information.
Recording during this event is not permitted. Questions? Contact Aaron Welborn, Director of Communications, Duke University Libraries, at 919-660-5816 or aaron.welborn@duke.edu.
Duke faculty can help us improve library services by participating in the Ithaka Faculty Survey!
This fall, the Duke University Libraries will be participating in the national Ithaka Faculty Survey.
On Wednesday, September 9, nearly 1,000 Duke faculty will receive an email invitation to participate. The survey will be open through Fall Break, and faculty will be encouraged to complete the online questionnaire throughout the month it is open.
We will use findings from the Ithaka survey to gain a better understanding of Duke faculty members’ research and teaching experiences, habits, and patterns. These findings will help us to direct resources and develop services to help meet their expressed needs.
Institutions that have participated in the past report that their findings were extremely useful for strategic planning and long-term goal setting, so we feel the timing of this survey is especially appropriate as the Provost’s Office embarks on a university-wide strategic planning process. Also, by participating in this national survey, we will have an opportunity to compare local findings with data from peer institutions.
If you are a Duke faculty member and receive a link to the survey, we hope you will participate. As a small incentive, all faculty who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing for a $75 Amazon gift card.
If you have any questions about the Ithaka Faculty Survey, please contact Emily Daly, Head of the Assessment and User Experience Department in the Duke University Libraries.
Remarks at 2:30 p.m. in the Gothic Reading Room
by Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian
and Vice Provost for Library Affairs
Help us celebrate the transformation of a library that is truly one of the crown jewels of Duke by joining us for a special open house for the entire Duke and Triangle-area community on Thursday, September 10, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Tour the new spaces and exhibits.
Meet and mingle with library staff.
Learn how the Rubenstein Library can support your research.
Free giveaways and light refreshments.
Free and open to the public.
Visitor Parking Information: Free parking will be available at Parking Garage IV (click for map), next to the Bryan Center, for visitors traveling to the open house from off-campus. Take a ticket when you enter the parking deck. When you exit, inform the parking booth attendant that you were visiting the Rubenstein Library Open House. The attendant will take your ticket and allow you to exit at no cost.
Virginia Woolf’s writing desk, part of the recently acquired Lisa Unger Baskin Collection, on display in the Mary Duke Biddle Room.
An extremely rare copy of the Bay Psalm Book (1640), the first book printed in what is now the United States, on loan by special arrangement with David M. Rubenstein. On display in the Michael and Karen Stone Family Gallery.
A new permanent exhibit on the history of Duke University, on display outside the Gothic Reading Room.
Our new Photography Gallery, featuring an exhibit on early 20th-century images of China by Sidney Gamble.
The new Rubenstein Library reading room, where researchers can explore our special collections.
More Opening Events and Exhibits
We’re lining up a number of events and exhibits to celebrate the opening of the Rubenstein Library throughout the fall of 2015. Check out our opening events site for a complete listing and stay tuned for regular updates.
About the Rubenstein Library Renovation
The construction crane looms over a gutted Rubenstein Library stack core, December 2013. See our Flickr album of renovation images for more.
The renovation of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, housed in Duke’s original West Campus library building, is the final phase of the Perkins Project, a 15-year-long effort to renovate and re-imagine Duke’s West Campus library complex that started back in 2000. (Read more about the history of the Perkins Project on our renovation website.)
Construction work on the Rubenstein began in late 2012, and the building will officially open to the public on August 24, 2015.
The 1948 library tower under scaffolding, August 2014.
The Rubenstein renovation has transformed one of the university’s oldest and most recognizable buildings into a state-of-the-art research facility where students, faculty, and visitors can engage with the Libraries’ collection of rare and unique scholarly materials.
The research, instruction, storage, and exhibition capabilities of the Rubenstein Library have all been greatly increased. The new library also features state-of-the-art closed stacks with high-tech security and a closely-monitored environment.
Workers re-hang portraits of historic Duke luminaries in the renovated Gothic Reading Room, July 2015.
Updates have also extended to the Mary Duke Biddle Room and the Gothic Reading Room. The charm and character of these signature Duke spaces has been preserved, but their finishes, furnishings, lighting, technology infrastructure, and exhibition facilities have all been enhanced.
Finally, the library’s main entrance has been redesigned with new doors, windows, and lighting to give the entire library complex a more unified and welcoming presence on the historic West Quad.
Mark your calendars and join us 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. on September 10!
Join the Duke University Libraries for a night of comics-themed trivia at Fullsteam Brewery in downtown Durham. Test your knowledge of superheroes, women in comics, comics and war, popular media depictions of comics, and more.
Duke’s Rubenstein Library is home to the Edwin and Terry Murray Comic Book Collection, which includes over 65,000 comics from the 1930s to the present, making it one of the largest archival comic collections in the world.
Our comics trivia night will take place at Fullsteam Brewery in downtown Durham on July 23.
Our comics trivia night will coincide with Durham Comics Fest on July 25, an annual, all-ages celebration of comics and graphic novels organized by the Durham County Library.
This event is free and open to the public, ages 21 and up.
If you regularly use WorldCat through the Duke University Libraries website, you might notice a small change soon.
Starting Tuesday, June 30, the Libraries will link to WorldCat through a new platform called WorldCat Discovery, instead of FirstSearch, the platform we’ve been using for some time. WorldCat Discovery is available online now at http://duke.on.worldcat.org/advancedsearch, and we invite you to take it for a test-drive!
Date: Thursday, April 2 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.: Food, Music, Art + More! All Day: Writeable walls open for artstigating (markers provided)! Location: The Edge, First Floor of Bostock Library More Info: Search “EdgeFest Duke” on Facebook
Don’t miss delicious food from Durham’s hot spots, including Juju, Monuts, Pie Pushers, NOSH, Mad Hatter, Pompieri Pizza, Toast & Cupcake Bar!
Stop by for mocktails, music and live entertainment from Poetry Fox, Inside Joke, #BusStopGuy, and DUI!
What’s EdgeFest? We provide the dry-erase markers. You provide the artstigatin’!
Starting at 9 a.m., the walls of The Edge are your canvas. By the end of the day, the walls will be covered with doodles, pictures, murals, and interactive displays by student groups, individuals, and fellow artstigators.
The creative fun starts at 9:00 a.m. and continues with a reception starting at 5:00 p.m.
Don’t miss EdgeFest on Thursday—the artstigatin’ will be wiped clean on Friday!
What If I’m No “Picasso”? Everyone is an Artstigator! We have awesome projectors onsite that you can use to project and trace anything you can put on your laptop. Need some inspiration? We’ll have some amazing art books on hand from Lilly Library’s collection to get your creative juices flowing!
Look for these posters around campus. And come to EdgeFest, April 2!
Please join us for a talk on changing models of scholarly publishing in the humanities, and how a transition to open access models might be funded and sustained.
Through the economic and structural reconfiguration made possible by the Internet, the potential for new modes of publishing scholarship have emerged. However, there has also been much alarm in the humanities disciplines, particularly at the proposed changes to economic models that could underwrite transitions to new models of publishing, such as open access.
In this talk, Dr. Martin Paul Eve, author of Open Access and the Humanities (Cambridge University Press, 2014) will explore the contexts, controversies and pragmatic paths for the future of open access and other potential transitions in scholarly publishing in the humanities.
Join the Duke University Libraries at Fullsteam Brewery in downtown Durham for a toe-tapping discussion about the history of the banjo with Laurent Dubois, Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke University.
Professor Dubois is currently writing a book about the banjo for Harvard University Press. He is the author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (2012), Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France (2010), and a frequent contributor to such magazines as the New Republic, Sports Illustrated, and the New Yorker. He will discuss the African roots and Caribbean and North American plantation origins of this versatile instrument and how it has evolved into a multifaceted cultural symbol.
“Beer and Banjos” will take place at Fullsteam Brewery in downtown Durham on Feb. 10.
Plus live banjo picking!
Professor Dubois will be joined by musicians Zeke Graves,David Garner, and Jay Hammond, who will demonstrate various banjo playing styles and showcase historical and contemporary instrument designs from their own collections.
This event is part of the Engaging Faculty Series, sponsored by the Friends of the Duke University Libraries. Beer and other refreshments will be available for sale by Fullsteam, and complimentary hors d’oeuvres will be provided by the Libraries.
Free and open to the public.
For more information, contact: Aaron Welborn
Director of Communications, Duke University Libraries
919-660-5816 aaron.welborn@duke.edu
You’re invited to a Duke University Libraries Open House!
Help us celebrate the completion of
Wednesday, January 14, 2015 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Bostock Library, First Floor
Remarks at 1:30 p.m. by Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs
Tour the new spaces, labs, and project rooms
Meet and mingle with library staff and The Edge support teams
Learn how The Edge can support your research and project work
Free giveaways
Enjoy refreshments by Parker and Otis
Floorplan of The Edge on the renovated first floor of Bostock Library
About The Edge To meet the needs of interdisciplinary, team-based, data-driven, and digitally reliant research at Duke, the Duke University Libraries have transformed the first floor of Bostock Library into a new academic service hub. With digital tools and collaborative workspaces, reservable rooms for project teams, and expanded technology and training facilities, The Edge: The Ruppert Commons for Research, Technology, and Collaboration is an attractive new research community destination in the heart of campus.
Free Exhibit Lecture
Students also learned about the history of Duke University in the Gothic Reading Room and searched for one of our former Duke Presidents. Other missions included finding the Oasis, Nicholas Family International Reading Room, Prayer and Meditation Room, Project Room #9, the OIT Help Desk in the Link, and the Librarian for Science and Engineering at the Perkins Service Desk.
Join us for two author talks this semester and the launch of a new book series from Duke University Press, 
Dracine Hodges
Richard H. Brodhead served as President of Duke University from 2004 to 2017. As President, he advanced an integrative, engaged model of undergraduate education and strengthened Duke’s commitment to access and opportunity, raising nearly $1 billion for financial aid endowment. Under his leadership, Duke established many of its best-known international programs, including the Duke Global Health Institute, DukeEngage, and Duke Kunshan University. Closer to home, Duke completed major renovations to its historic campus and played a crucial role in the revitalization of downtown Durham.
Featuring collector and exhibit co-curator Lisa Unger Baskin in conversation with Naomi L. Nelson, Associate University Librarian and Director, Rubenstein Library. Also featuring introductory remarks by Edward Balleisen, Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies. Free and open to the public.
Date: Thursday, October 13
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