Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people—people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.
– E.B. White
We just had to share this video with some of our fellow bibliophiles out there.
On February 21, 2013, Duke undergraduate and graduate students gathered in Perkins Library to show off their personal book collections for the Andrew T. Nadell Book Collectors Contest.
Since 1947, the Friends of the Duke University Libraries have organized the contest in alternate years to promote reading for enjoyment and the development of students’ personal libraries. Eighteen students participated in this year’s contest—a record turnout! Here’s what they had to say about the books they love best. Enjoy!
Congratulations to the winners of the 2013 Andrew T. Nadell Book Collectors Contest!
The announcement earlier this week that the journal Cultural Anthropology was going open access in 2014 has generated a lot of excitement in academic circles.
Cultural Anthropology is the journal of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association. It is one of 22 journals published by the AAA, and it is widely regarded as one of the flagship journals of its discipline. The journal is edited by Charles D. Piot and Anne Allison, both professors of cultural anthropology at Duke University.
Here in the Libraries, we’re especially excited about this development, not only because it’s a great step in promoting broader access to academic research, but because we will be supporting the back end of the publication process.
In fact, this is the fourth peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly journal the Libraries are helping to publish. As part of a series of efforts at Duke to promote open access as an institutional priority, the Libraries piloted an open-access publishing service in 2011, starting with three journals: Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies(published in print since 1958); andererseits, a journal of Transatlantic German Studies; and Vivliofika, a journal of 18th-century Russian Studies.
The addition of Cultural Anthropology confirms the success of that pilot and takes the experiment to a new level. Cultural Anthropology is a major, high-impact journal read by scholars around the world. It is also one of the first flagship journals in the interpretive social sciences to transition to a fully open access model. (Although the push for open access has spread throughout medicine and the sciences, it has been slower to catch on in the humanities and social sciences.)
The Society for Cultural Anthropology recently redesigned the journal’s website, which will act as the front end of the online publication. (The new design nicely complements the print version distributed to subscribers.) But the back end of the editorial process will use a free, open-source platform known as Open Journal Systems that is hosted and managed by the Duke University Libraries.
The Open Journal Systems software was developed by the Public Knowledge Project, a partnership of Canadian and U.S. universities and libraries, specifically to manage the overhead of creating and sustaining academic journals. More than 11,500 scholarly journals currently use the software as their publishing platform.
Open Journal Systems is structured to help editors manage the publishing process, from receiving submissions to peer review, editing, layout, and publication. It allows both editors and contributors to track and manage articles as they move through the pipeline, so that the publication process is prompt, efficient, and transparent.
In recent years, as scholars have sought to increase the reach and impact of their work using new technologies, and universities and funding agencies have pushed for greater access to the research they support, open-access publishing has emerged as an alternative to the traditional fee- and subscription-based model of scholarly publishing, which limits access to those who can pay for it. “Libraries have always worked to increase access to information, and at Duke we’ve made a concerted effort to support emerging practices in scholarly communication,” said Paolo Mangiafico, Coordinator of Scholarly Communications Technology. “So we are glad to be able to partner with Duke scholars and their scholarly societies to experiment with new models to achieve these goals.”
The new student exhibit in Bostock Library explores the juvenile press in France from 1939 to 1945. The exhibit was designed and curated by students in Professor Clare Tufts’s Fall 2012 course, Comics and Culture: Images of Modern France in the Making (French 414/Visual and Media Studies 312).
When Paris was liberated in the summer of 1944, a beautifully illustrated, 29-page hardback comic book appeared on the market seemingly overnight. This publication, La bête est morte! (The Beast is Dead!), presented a pictorial account of war among animals who symbolized all of the major players of World War II. Hitler was portrayed as the big bad wolf, Mussolini as a hyena, and the Japanese as yellow monkeys. Meanwhile, the occupied French were glowingly depicted as docile rabbits and industrious squirrels beset by barbarian hordes from other countries. Their savior, a great white stork wearing a Lorraine cross, clearly symbolized Charles De Gaulle and the Resistance. The story does not touch on the subject of French collaboration.
During this time, comics provided French children and adolescents a regular diet of fact, fiction, and outright propaganda about the Germans, the Vichy regime, the Allies, and eventually the Resistance. The exhibit highlights a selection of representative publications, focusing on the messages they conveyed to their youthful audience. As an art form and means of mass communication, the comic book medium was used to form a post-war generation of young adults primed to accept and support the prevailing political ideology.
In particular, the student exhibit traces the history of the following publications:
Three weeklies available in France on the eve of the war: Le Journal de Mickey, Jumbo, and Coeurs vaillants/Ames vaillantes (Stout-Hearted/Brave-Souled), which migrated south to unoccupied France and underwent significant changes in content and format.
The comic Le Téméraire (The Audacious), which started publication in Paris during the Occupation; and the weekly Vaillant (Valiant), born with the Liberation and filled with realistic images of fighting and resistance.
The exhibit also includes presentations on the Nazi Propaganda comic Vica and the comic book La Bête est morte! Annotations written by students are available in English and French.
The exhibit is located in the International and Area Studies exhibit cases on the 2nd floor of Bostock Library, across from the International and Area Studies Offices. (Map and directions available here.) It will be on display until March 15.
Date: Wednesday, February 13 Time: 5:00 p.m. reception, 5:30 talk Location: Gothic Reading Room, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (Map) Contact: Aaron Welborn, aaron.welborn@duke.edu, 919-660-5816
Join the Libraries for a public conversation with Rose Styron and R. Blakeslee Gilpin, editors of the recently published Selected Letters of William Styron (Random House, 2012) at 5 p.m. Wednesday, February 13, in the Rubenstein Library’s Gothic Reading Room. The event is free and open to the public.
Photo credit: Alison Shaw
Born in Virginia, William Styron (1925-2006) was a graduate of Duke University (1947), a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and the author of numerous award-winning books. His first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, was published to critical acclaim when Styron was just twenty-six years old. His controversial The Confessions of Nat Turner won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize, while Sophie’s Choice was awarded the 1980 National Book Award. Darkness Visible, Styron’s groundbreaking recounting of his ordeal with depression, was not only a literary triumph but became a landmark in the field.
Styron’s letters contain some of his most memorable meditations on the craft of writing. They also open a window onto his friendships with Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, John and Jackie Kennedy, Arthur Miller, James Jones, Carlos Fuentes, Wallace Stegner, Robert Penn Warren, Philip Roth, C. Vann Woodward, and many of the other leading writers and intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century. The book takes readers on a journey from FDR to George W. Bush through the trenchant observations of one of the country’s greatest writers.
Styron’s papers are held at Duke in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event.
Detail from “Le Traître” (The Traitor), a lithograph depicting Alfred Dreyfus that is part of a new exhibit on caricature and the Dreyfus Affair in the Rubenstein Library.
Exhibit Reception—Please Join Us! Date: Wednesday, January 30 Time: 4:00 p.m. Location: Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (Map) Contact: Meg Brown, meg.brown@duke.edu, 919-681-2071
Few legal cases in French history have been so decisive, and so divisive, as the twelve-year trial, re-trial and eventual acquittal of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus, a Jewish military officer, was falsely accused in 1894 of selling military secrets to the German army. The trial sparked a flurry of anti-Semitism in the popular press and inspired Émile Zola’s famous open letter of outrage, “J’Accuse!”
A new exhibition in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke examines how the Dreyfus Affair was depicted in the French popular press, with a particular focus on visual illustrations in newspapers and periodicals that covered the trial.A Mockery of Justice: Caricature and the Dreyfus Affair encourages viewers to reconsider the significance of this historical episode that continues to resonate in the present day. As Zola pointed out, the Dreyfus Affair was about more than one man’s guilt or innocence. Also at stake were the very principles upon which the French Republic rested: liberté, égalité, fraternité. More than one hundred years later, the Dreyfus Affair offers a vivid lesson on the dangers of racial prejudice, blind loyalty to the military, and unthinking nationalism.
Cover illustration from “Le Petit Journal” (1895) showing Alfred Dreyfus being stripped of his military honors and titles.
Drawing on the Rubenstein Library’s extensive collection of late-19th and early 20th-century French periodicals, the exhibit also features a rare series of colorful and attention-grabbing posters that were disseminated throughout Paris at the time. The posters, collectively known as the Musée des Horreurs, were published pseudo-anonymously and feature unflattering caricatures of prominent Jews, Dreyfus supporters, and other individuals involved in the Dreyfus Affair. Another set of posters, known as Musée des Patriotes, glorifies the so-called anti-Dreyfusards, who publicly condemned Dreyfus and sought to undermine his defense.
Exhibit Details A Mockery of Justice: Caricature and the Dreyfus Affair December 12, 2012 – March 9, 2013
Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library (Click here for map) Duke University West Campus
Public Hours: Monday-Friday, 8am–7pm; Saturday, 9am–7pm; Sunday, 10am–7pm
Hours may vary during the holidays. Please check our posted library hours for more information.
During the upcoming academic winter break (December 17-January 8), Perkins, Law, and Ford libraries will be moving interlibrary loan operations from a locally hosted computer server to OCLC, a non-profit computer service and research organization.
As part of this transfer of service, all data associated with document delivery operations (ILLiad) will need to be transferred to OCLC. To prepare library files for this transfer, we will be shutting down access to our local interlibrary loan service on the morning of Friday, December 14. OCLC will begin building the interlibrary loan files on their computers on Monday, December 17, a process they expect to take a few days.
During this process, neither library staff nor library patrons will have access to their ILLiad accounts or files, and all system functionality will be inaccessible for transaction processing. Please plan ahead for requesting materials. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience as we work to update our system.
Ashanti Kente cloths, from the exhibit “Interwoven Histories: Luxury Cloths of Atlantic Africa” in Lilly Library
Date: Tuesday, November 27 Time: 5 p.m. Location: Thomas Room, Lilly Library (Map) Contact: Greta Boers, greta.boers@duke.edu
Please join the staff of Lilly Library on Tuesday, November 27, for a gallery talk about a new library exhibit on African weaving.
“Interwoven Histories: Luxury Cloths of Atlantic Africa” draws from the private collection of Professor J. Lorand Matory and Ms. Olubunmi Fatoye-Matory, celebrating the genius of West African weavers, dyers, printers, appliqué artists, and embroiderers who have employed a cosmopolitan array of techniques and materials to create wearable art. They draw their designs from ancient African sources and from as far afield as Indonesia to supply markets, museums, interior designers and couturiers in Africa, Europe and the Americas.
These cloths express not only dignity, heritage, and style but also the old reality of internationalism and changing fashion in Africa, a continent often falsely associated with cultural isolation and stasis.
Moreover, like African drumming, African cloth speaks. Many weaves and printed designs convey literal messages that swathe the body in counsel, consolation, prayer, and warning on the occasion of births, weddings, coronations, elections, diplomatic negotiations, and deaths.
These richest of textile arts from Ghana and Nigeria illustrate tradition and change from the period of independence until the present.
The Center for African and African American Research at Duke University and the Duke University Libraries invite you behind the veil of vivid texture and color and into the world of West African taste, class, and history.
North Carolina has a long history of support and activism on behalf of immigrant communities. But only recently have immigrant activists begun to view their work from a human rights perspective.
That will be the topic of a community discussion on immigration and human rights at 5:30 p.m., November 12, in the Rare Book Room of Duke’s Perkins Library. “Harvesting a Legacy of Action: Immigration Activism and Human Rights” will feature a panel of experts discussing the challenges and possibilities of placing immigration activism within a human rights framework.
The panel will be moderated by Robin Kirk, co-director of the Duke Human Rights Center. Panelists will include Guadalupe Gamboa, Senior Program Officer for Worker Rights at Oxfam America; Ramon Zepeda, Youth Organizer for Student Action with Farmworkers and labor activist and organizer; and Paul Ortiz, History Professor at the University of Florida.
The panel discussion is part of a larger series of events around the state celebrating the 20th anniversary of Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF), a nonprofit organization that brings together students, community members, and farmworkers in the Southeast to work for justice in the agricultural system. What began as a small group of Duke Public Policy students documenting farmworker conditions has since grown to an independent nonprofit with a national impact. The organization’s papers are held by Duke’s Human Rights Archive in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Three exhibitions currently on display at the library explore the human experience of farmworkers and the history of SAF. The exhibits reflect historical and contemporary concerns with student activism, access to safe and healthy food, organized labor, and immigration. The exhibits run through December 9, 2012.
The exhibits and panel discussion are sponsored by SAF, the Duke University Libraries, the Center for Documentary Studies, the Franklin Humanities Institute BorderWorks Lab, the Duke University Service Learning Program, and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.
We have two great programs lined up for the election, both featuring expert commentary and analysis by Duke faculty experts.
November 6: Election Returns and Results
Returns, Reflections and Refreshments!We’ll be broadcasting the election returns live while Duke professors of political science and public policy help you understand the developments. Plus, you can sample some of President Obama’s and Governor Romney’s favorite snacks!
Date: Tuesday, November 6 Time: 8:00 p.m. – Until Location: Lilly Library, Room 103 (map) Contact: Dave Munden, dave.munden@duke.edu, 919-660 9465
Jerry Hough
James B. Duke Professor of Political Science
Professor Hough teaches courses on the U.S. Presidency. A well-known figure in comparative politics and especially the Soviet Union, his recent research centers on the American state and democracy. This semester, Professor Hough is teaching “The American Presidency.” His most recent book is Changing Party Coalitions: The Strange Red-Blue State Alignment. Appearing 8-9 pm
John Aldrich Pfizer-Pratt University Professor of Political Science
Professor Aldrich specializes in American political behavior, and his current research focuses upon campaigns and elections. This semester, he is teaching “From Voting to Protests,” and his most recent book is Why Parties? A Second Look. Appearing 9-10 pm
Nick Carnes Assistant Professor of Public Policy Faculty Affiliate, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy, Duke Population Research Institute
Professor Carnes specializes in economic and social inequality in American Politics. This semester, he is teaching “The Politics of the Policy Process.” His most recent article accepted for publication is “Does the Numerical Underrepresentation of the Working Class in Congress Matter?” Appearing 10pm-Midnight
November 7: Beyond the Election: The Day After
Duke faculty experts evaluate the election results. Light refreshments served.
Date: Wednesday, November 7 Time: Refreshments 3:30 p.m., Program 4:00-5:00 Location: Lilly Library, Thomas Room (map) Contact: Dave Munden, dave.munden@duke.edu, 919-660 9465
Peter Feaver Professor of Political Science
Professor Feaver specializes in international relations, security studies, and civil-military relations. He served on the National Security Council staff in the White Houses of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He’s currently Director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (TISS) and also directs the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy (AGS). He co-authored Paying the Human Costs of War and Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations. This semester he is teaching “American Grand Strategy.”
Bruce Jentleson Professor of Political Science and Public Policy
Professor Jentleson specializes in U.S. foreign policy, global governance, and conflict prevention and peacekeeping. He has served as senior advisor to the U.S. State Department and as foreign policy advisor to several senate political campaigns. He currently serves as a member of the Responsibility to Protect Working Group co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and Rich Williamson, and as co-director of Amidst the Revolutions: U.S. Strategy in a Changing Middle East, a project of the Center for a New American Security. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including the upcoming fifth edition of American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (2013), The End of Arrogance: America in the Global Competition of Ideas, and Global Governance in a Copernican World. This semester, he is teaching “Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy.”
Both events are part of a series—Election 2012: Debates, Results, and Beyond—focusing on the presidential debates and election. All events are free, open to the public, and held at Lilly Library on Duke’s East Campus.
Lilly Library gratefully acknowledges the support of the Sanford School of Public Policy and East Campus Residence Life.
We invited Duke students to “be our Super PAC” and make a mock election video explaining why Duke University Libraries get their vote. We received a number of creative submissions. Eligible video entries were posted to this blog and the Libraries’ Facebook page, where we invited people to vote for their favorite. It was the very embodiment of the democratic process.
Now we are pleased to announce the winning video, produced and directed by Duke undergrads Jordan Thomas (’15) and Reem Alfahad (’15). For their creativity and filmmaking skills, Jordan and Reem won two student wristbands to the Duke vs. UNC men’s basketball game in Cameron Indoor Stadium, February 13, 2013.
Jordan’s and Reem’s video demonstrates not only their great imagination, terrific sense of humor, and talent, but also their superb appreciation for what we try to provide our students, faculty, and library users here at Duke. They also did a great job of making it look, feel, and sound like an actual campaign ad!
But don’t take our word for it. Watch the video, hit that like button, and remember to go vote!
The Victory Bell will be publicly displayed in Perkins Library on Friday, November 2, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Visitors will be invited to ring the bell themselves. Photo courtesy of Duke Athletics.
UPDATE: President Richard H. Brodhead and Coach David Cutcliffe will be on hand to ring the bell in Perkins Library on Friday at 1:15 p.m.
The Victory Bell is given to the winner of the annual Duke-UNC football game. The tradition goes back to 1948, when the idea was conceived by Duke head cheerleader Loring Jones, Jr., and UNC head cheerleader Norm Speer as a way to foster more friendly relations between the two campuses. (For more on the history of the Victory Bell, read this blog post by the Duke University Archives.)
This is the first time the bell has been in Duke’s possession since 2003. Now is your chance to see it up-close, give it a ring, and support Duke’s football team as they prepare to face Clemson this Saturday at 7 p.m. in Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium.
The Victory Bell will be on public display in the entrance lobby of Perkins Library this Friday, November 2, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Historical photographs and Duke football memorabilia from the Duke University Archives will also be displayed and University Archives staff will be on hand to answer questions.
Once an hour, on the hour, visitors will be able to ring the Victory Bell themselves. You can also ring it outside of the library when the bell first arrives at 10 a.m. and when it is leaving at 2 p.m.
So stop by the library this Friday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and join us as we celebrate another historic Duke victory!
Check out the video below to see the Victory Bell in action as Duke football players and fans react to the dramatic Oct. 20 win over UNC.
Date: Friday, October 26, 2012 Time: 5:00 p.m. Location: Thomas Room, Lilly Library, Duke East Campus (Map) Contact: Danette Pachtner, danette.p@duke.edu, 919-660-5886
Documentary Filmmaker Wu Wenguang
Join us for conversation and light refreshments with celebrated documentary filmmaker Wu Wenguang, one of the founding figures in Chinese independent documentary film. His work includes Bumming in Beijing, At Home in the World and most recently Treatment.
The talk is part of a series of presentations at Duke this week on The Memory Project. Four visiting Chinese filmmakers, including Wu Wenguang, screen their work on memories of the Great Famine (1959-1961). The Memory Project is based at Caochangdi Workstation in Beijing. From the Chinese capital, young filmmakers fanned out to return to family villages and their own pasts, real and imagined, to inquire about the Great Famine—a disaster whose memories have been actively abandoned by the state. But the films reveal as much about the wish for memory as of memory itself, and of the interesting role of film in such projects of retrieval.
Click here for complete film descriptions and screening information.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee will discuss his book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer at 6 p.m. Wednesday, November 28, in Duke University’s Page Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Mukherjee is a leading cancer physician and researcher at Columbia University. Ten years in the writing, The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago to the epic battles of modern times to cure, control, and conquer it. Mukherjee examines this shape-shifting and formidable disease with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The book won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2010 by the New York Times.
A Rhodes scholar, Siddhartha Mukherjee graduated from Stanford University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.
Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event.
Admission is free, but tickets are required and are available through the Duke Box Office. Visit tickets.duke.edu for more information.
EVENT PARKING: A limited number of free parking spaces will be available on a first-come, first-served basis on the West Campus Quad in front of Duke Chapel starting at 5 p.m. (Click here for map to the West Campus Quad). Parking will also be available in the Bryan Center Parking Garage (Parking Garage IV) for a $5 charge. (Click here for map to Bryan Center Garage.)
Media are invited to attend the event, but recording is not permitted. Members of the media interested in covering the talk should contact Aaron Welborn, Director of Communications, Duke University Libraries, at 919-660-5816 or aaron.welborn@duke.edu by November 26.
Alexander Kosolapov, “Untitled from Gorby Series.” From the Subverted Icon exhibit at the Nasher.
A new exhibit of post-Soviet artwork is currently on display in the Nasher Museum of Art’s Education Gallery through December 23, and it’s well worth a visit.
The exhibit, The Subverted Icon: Images of Power in Soviet Art (1970-1995),explores the ways in which artists in late- and post-Soviet Russia represented, confronted, and challenged state-sponsored propaganda, Soviet architecture, and the populist art of earlier generations. It was curated by students in Professor Pamela Kachurin’s “Soviet Art After Stalin” seminar. There’s a good review in the October 18 issue of the Duke Chronicle.
For those interested in a little extra credit, Duke is home to one of the oldest and most extensive Slavic research collections in the southeastern United States. Here’s a taste of some additional readings and resources to whet the appetite of your inner Russophile:
Americans in the Land of Lenin, a digitized collection of photographs of daily life in the Soviet Union (1919-1921 and 1930) drawn from the papers of Robert L. Eichelberger and Frank Whitson Fetter in the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Date: Monday, November 19, 2012 Time: 10:00 a.m. Location: Perkins Library, Room 217, Duke West Campus (Map) Contact: Kevin Smith, kevin.l.smith@duke.edu
Fair Use Ascendant:
Where Do We Stand After the Recent Copyright Victories for Higher Ed?
A presentation and discussion for librarians and faculty Lead by Kevin Smith, Director of the Copyright and Scholarly Communications Office
In the past four months, we have seen positive rulings in two major copyright cases brought against universities and their libraries, and the dismissal of a third. These ruling have confirmed the importance of fair use in higher education, and they suggest that libraries and faculty members should feel more confident embracing fair use for certain kinds of online activities.
Come learn about these decisions—we will review each briefly and also discuss the ARL Code of Best Practices in Fair Use—and join a discussion about the opportunities they create.
Date: Monday, October 29, 2012 Time: 5:00 p.m. Location: Rare Book Room, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (Map) Contact: Aaron Welborn, aaron.welborn@duke.edu, 919-660-5816
Men and women 150 years ago grappled with information overload by making scrapbooks — the ancestors of Google and blogging. From Mark Twain to Susan B. Anthony, abolitionists to Confederates, African American janitors to farmwomen, people cut out and pasted down their reading.
Ellen Gruber Garvey, author of Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance (Oxford, 2012) opens a new window into the feelings and thoughts of ordinary and extraordinary Americans. Her groundbreaking book reveals a previously unexplored layer of American popular culture. “Scrapbooks are a democratic archive,” says Garvey. “They tell us what the 99 percent of the past read and cared about.”
Garvey is Professor of English at New Jersey City University. Her talk is titled “Strategic Scrapbooks: Nineteenth-Century Activists Remake the Newspaper for African American History and Women’s Rights.” The talk will also include a display of historical scrapbooks from the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which Garvey consulted in the writing of her book.
Free and open to the public. A reception with refreshments will follow the program.
We want to thank everyone who participated. We received some great entries, each of which makes a compelling case for choosing the Duke University Libraries as your source for knowledge, inspiration, and fun.
Now it’s time to watch the democratic process in action.
Take a look at the three video entries below (each one is less than 90 seconds), and let us know which one is your favorite. You can vote here on our blog, or on our Facebook page by “liking” your favorite video.
Popular voting begins today (October 8) and ends October 22. The Library Administration and Library Advisory Board will tally the winning votes and announce the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd placelater this month.
What do our candidates stand to win? Here’s a look at the fabulous prizes…
1st Place: Two (2) student wristbands to the Duke vs. UNC men’s basketball game, February 13, 2013, at Cameron Indoor Stadium 2nd Place: $200 gift certificate to Sushi Love restaurant 3rd Place: $150 gift certificate to Cuban Revolution restaurant
So watch the videos, and help us pick a winner!
Video 1: Submitted by DeAnne Georges (Undergrad, Class of 2013)
Video 2: Submitted by Jordan Thomas (Undergrad, Class of 2015) and Reem Alfahad (Undergrad, Class of 2015)
Video 3: Submitted by Yi Zhu (Undergrad, Class of 2013)
Duke library users and Duke alumni will soon have a trove of new ebooks at their fingertips.
Approximately 1,500 scholarly monographs by Oxford University Press and its affiliates are now available as ebooks in the library catalog, with approximately 9,000 more to come later this year.
The development is part of an innovative deal brokered by Oxford University Press and the Triangle Research Libraries Network consortium (TRLN).
The ebooks are fully searchable and allow for unlimited user access, so that multiple people can read them at the same time. In addition, one shared print copy of each humanities and social science title will be held at Duke’s Library Service Center and be available for use by all TRLN institutions (Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, NCSU, NCCU).
“The partnership allows for expanded access to scholarly material, with less overlap, at a lower cost to each TRLN institution,” says Aisha Harvey, Head of Collection Development at Duke University Libraries. “It also gives researchers the option of using a print or digital copy, depending on their personal preference.”
This access agreement is one of the first of its kind to allow shared e-book access among cooperating libraries. Another noteworthy aspect is that the ebooks will be fully available to all Duke alumni. Most ebooks in the Libraries’ collection are not accessible to alumni, due to copyright and licensing restrictions. But the new arrangement expands the Libraries’ offerings to Duke graduates. (A variety of library services and resources are already available for free to all Duke alumni, including some of our most popular databases.)
“The Triangle Research Libraries Network has a very long history of successful collaboration in building print collections,” said Sarah Michalak, University Librarian and Associate Provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chair of the TRLN Executive Committee.
Last year, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, TRLN sponsored a “Beyond Print” summit to explore opportunities and challenges associated with ebook acquisitions and shared institutional access. The ebook deal with Oxford University Press is one outcome of those discussions.
“The agreement with OUP offers a welcome opportunity to experiment with approaches discussed at the summit, provide high-quality content to our users, and learn more about how students and researchers want to access scholarly output in a dual electronic-plus-print environment,” said Michalak.
Ebook and ejournal usage continues to rise in academic libraries across the country. In 2011, the Duke Libraries adopted an ebook advocacy model in order to guide collection decisions and advocate to publishers on behalf of researchers’ needs.
Framing the Debate: Professors Mac McCorkle and Don Taylor
Date: Wednesday, October 3 Time: 8:00 p.m. Location: Lilly Library, Room 103 (map) Contact: Dave Munden, dave.munden@duke.edu, 919-660 9465
Mac McCorkle
Associate Professor of the Practice of Public Policy and Director of Graduate Studies, Master of Public Policy Program
Don Taylor
Associate Professor of Public Policy, Sanford School; and Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine and Nursing, Duke Medical Center
Are you planning to watch the presidential debates? So are we! And we’re recruiting Duke’s own resident experts to help you understand the issues and deconstruct the sound-bites.
Mac McCorkle and Don Taylor of Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy will present “Framing the Debate,” a preview of the first Obama-Romney debate on domestic policy. Their talk begins at 8:00 p.m. in Lilly Library Room 103, followed by the live broadcast of the debate beginning at 9:00 p.m. Bring your friends, or meet some new ones!
The event is the first in a series—Election 2012: Debates, Results, and Beyond—focusing on the upcoming presidential debates and election. All events are free, open to the public, and held at Lilly Library on Duke’s East Campus.
And if you just can’t get enough election fever, enter our “Vote for the Library” Video Contest. You could win two tickets to the Duke/UNC men’s basketball game! Deadline: October 5.
Date: Monday, October 22 Time: 3:00 p.m. Location: Perkins Library, Room 217 (map) Contact: Paolo Mangiafico, (919) 613-6317, paolo.mangiafico@duke.edu
To celebrate international Open Access Week this year (October 22-28), the Libraries have lined up an exciting talk and you’re invited to attend. Jason Priem (http://jasonpriem.org/), a doctoral student at UNC-SILS and pioneer of the idea of “altmetrics” (alternative ways of tracking the impact of scholarly work), will be speaking about how open access and new measuring and filtering tools are changing scholarly publishing. Here’s how Priem describes it:
As the movement toward universal open access (OA) gathers momentum, the most salient OA questions are changing from “if” and even “when,” to “what will an OA world look like?” Is open access an incremental improvement, or will it lead to fundamental shifts in the way scholarship is communicated, filtered, and disseminated? In this talk, I’ll argue that the latter is the case: new ways of measuring scholarly impact on the social Web — “altmetrics” — will allow real-time, crowdsourced filtering of diverse scholarly products, leading to a new landscape of interoperable services that replace traditional journals. I’ll also demonstrate ImpactStory, an open-source tool for gathering altmetrics, and show how it can be used to promote OA, open data, and open source to faculty.
This event is open to the public. We hope you can join us!
It’s election season, and there are a lot of hearts and minds to win out there. We want yours.
We’re asking Duke University students to make a short “election” video for the Duke University Libraries.
Is Perkins your ideal of hope and change? Does Lilly have the cure for the knowledge economy? Should librarians rule the world?
Be our Super PAC. Help us make the case for the Duke University Libraries with a mock political campaign ad. Need inspiration? Check out some of the latest commercials by both political parties.
The rules are simple. You must be a registered Duke student. Your video must be 90 seconds or less. It should look, feel, and sound like an actual political commercial. And it should make a compelling case for choosing the Duke University Libraries as your source for knowledge, inspiration, and fun.
Parody, irreverence, swelling music, patriotism, fear mongering, and nostalgia are encouraged.
The Duke University Libraries will select the best videos and post them on our Facebook page, where you can vote for your favorite. The top three winners will be announced November 2, 2012.
Big prizes!
Skip K-Ville and go straight to the game!
GRAND PRIZE:Two (2) student wristbands to the Duke vs. UNC men’s basketball game, February 13, 2013, at Cameron Indoor Stadium
2nd Place: $200 gift certificate to Sushi Love restaurant 3rd Place: $150 gift certificate to Cuban Revolution restaurant
The new Multimedia Project Studio location in Bostock Library
Contest rules
You must be a registered undergraduate or graduate student at Duke with a valid DukeCard in your name.
Videos will be judged according to the following criteria: creativity, persuasiveness, production qualities, and humor.
Your entry must obey all laws, including all applicable copyright and privacy laws. This also applies to any music samples used in your video.
You agree to let the Duke University Libraries place your entry on its website and use your video in its promotional and educational efforts.
If filming in a library, be courteous and respectful of people studying.
Your video should be no longer than 90 seconds, including credits. Videos longer than 90 seconds may be disqualified or returned for editing.
You are responsible for any tax implications if you win a gift card.
Students may work individually or in groups. Winning videos will receive only one prize. If you work in a group, you split the prize.
Entries must be submitted by midnight on Friday, October 5, 2012, to be eligible. No extensions. Anything submitted after this date will not be considered.
The Duke University Libraries reserves the right to reject or return for editing any video that doesn’t comply with these guidelines or violates the Duke University student code of conduct.
How to submit your video
You may submit your video one of two ways:
Online submissions 1. Upload your video to YouTube or Vimeo
2. Send an email to Aaron Welborn, Director of Communications, at aaron.welborn@duke.edu, including:
A link to your video
Your name and contact information (email and phone)
Your expected graduation date (indicate whether you are an undergraduate or graduate student)
3. We will send you a confirmation email that we received your video within 24 hours.
In-Person Submissions 1. Save your video to a CD, DVD, or flash drive
2. Put it in an envelope addressed to: Vote for the Library Video Contest. Inside the envelope, please include:
Your name and contact information (email and phone)
Your expected graduation date (indicate whether you are an undergraduate or graduate student)
3. Deliver your entry to the Libraries Administration Office, Perkins Library Room 112, by 5:00 PMon October 5, 2012.(Note that in-person submissions must be dropped off earlier than online submissions.)
Contest Timeline
Deadline for Submitting Videos: Midnight, Friday, October 5, 2012 (5:00 PM for in-person submissions)
The Duke University Libraries are now accepting applications for membership on the 2012-2013 Undergraduate Advisory Board, First-Year Advisory Board, and Graduate and Professional Advisory Board. Members of these student advisory boards will help improve the learning and research environment for Duke University students and advise the Libraries on topics such as study spaces, research resources, integrating library services into academic courses, and marketing library services to students.
All three boards are now taking applications or nominations. Deadlines for applying are:
Graduate and Professional Advisory Board: September 7
Undergraduate Board: September 9
First-Year Board: September 10
Members will be selected and notified by late September, and the groups will begin to meet by early October. More information is available on the Libraries’ website, where you will also find links to the applications and nomination forms.
For more information for any questions about these opportunities, contact:
Graduate and Professional Advisory Board
Robert Byrd
Associate University Librarian for Collections and User Services robert.byrd@duke.edu
919-660-5821
One side of the staircase will be closed for maintenance, and contractors will be using a strong-smelling solvent.
On Thursday and Friday, August 23 and 24, a contractor will be working on one side of the stairs in the Rubenstein Library entrance that lead from the first to second floor. One side of the staircase will be closed but the other side will be open.
The contractor will be using a solvent/cleaner that will produce a strong odor in the immediate area. It will be vented outside, but if you have any allergy or odor sensitivity issues you may want to utilize the main Perkins Library entrance to keep some distance from the area.
Duke Fire Safety will be testing the fire alarm system in Bostock, Perkins, and Rubenstein libraries on Friday, August 10, from 8:30 – 9:15 a.m.
The test will also be a fire drill. If you are in any of these buildings when the alarm sounds, you must evacuate the building. Fire Safety staff will be taking inventory of every alarm in Bostock, Perkins, and Rubenstein libraries to ensure that they are functioning during the test. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Duke Fire Safety conducts fire drills on a routine basis around campus in order to ensure that all Duke students, faculty, and staff know how to make an efficient and orderly escape from campus buildings in an emergency. For more information on campus fire safety, visit the Duke Fire Safety website.
DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University has acquired the papers of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a scholar, writer and theologian who is widely recognized as one of the most influential religious leaders of the 20th century, the school announced Monday.
Heschel was a highly visible and charismatic leader in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. He co-founded Clergy Concerned About Vietnam and served as a Jewish liaison with the Vatican during the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II.
Rabbi Heschel marching with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights activists in Selma. All images are from the Abraham Joshua Heschel Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The collection, which has never before been available to scholars, consists of manuscripts, correspondence, publications, documents and photographs spanning five decades and at least four languages. Included among the papers are notes and drafts for nearly all of Heschel’s published works, as well as intimate and extensive correspondence with some of the leading religious figures of his time, including Martin Buber, Thomas Merton, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Reinhold Niebuhr.
The papers also contain extensive documentation on Heschel’s life-long commitment to social justice, including planning documents, correspondence with organizers, speeches and even hate mail.
“The presence of the Heschel archive is a significant opportunity to draw together Duke’s traditional strengths in Jewish studies, American history and human rights,” said Laurie Patton, dean of Duke’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. “One of Duke’s paramount values is ‘knowledge in the service of society,’ and Heschel embodied that value in every sphere of life. We are thrilled to be able to house his papers at our university, and hope to create numerous opportunities for ethical and historical reflection on this extraordinary man’s work and life.”
Photographs and other items from the Heschel archive, including a 1935 Nazi-issued work permit.
“The acquisition of the Heschel papers assures scholars that the legacy of social activism, human rights and the highest standards of Judaic scholarship will be central to the pursuit of Jewish studies at Duke and many other places,” said Eric Meyers, the Bernice & Morton Lerner professor of religion and director of the Duke Center for Jewish Studies.
“I am delighted that my father’s papers have found a good home at Duke, which has long had an important research program in the fields of Jewish studies and religious studies,” said Susannah Heschel, daughter of Abraham Heschel and the Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. “Duke’s strong commitment to archival holdings related to Judaica and to human rights places my father’s papers together with those of his beloved student, Rabbi Marshall Meyer, and I know that Duke’s magnificent Rubenstein Library will make the material easily accessible to scholars from around the world.”
Notes and related materials from Heschel’s audience with Pope Paul VI during the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II).
“Together, these two collections represent almost a century of social justice thought and action and provide an important connection between the civil rights and human rights movements,” said Patrick Stawski, human rights archivist at the Rubenstein Library.
Born in 1907 in Poland, Heschel was descended from a long line of distinguished rabbis. Heschel believed that prayer and study could not be separated from public action. He famously marched side-by-side with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., and is credited with coining the civil rights slogan, “We pray with our legs.”
Heschel’s theological works include The Sabbath (1951), Man is Not Alone (1951) and God in Search of Man (1955). His writings continue to influence contemporary discussions of religion and social justice.
For more information, or for press inquiries, please contact: Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist, (919) 660-5823, patrick.stawski@duke.edu
All library furniture in Perkins and Bostock libraries is scheduled to be cleaned during the week of August 6-10, 2012.
Expect some vacuum noise and other minor disturbances while the work is being completed.
We apologize for the inconvenience, but we’re looking forward to offering everyone a clean, comfy place to sit when classes resume on August 27. (Only three more weeks of summer break? Say it ain’t so!)
Please bear with us with we upgrade ILLiad! (Photo by channah via stock.xchng)
On Saturday morning, July 21, approximately between 8:00 and 11:00 a.m., the Duke University Libraries will be performing an upgrade to the server which hosts ILLiad, our interlibrary loan program. The operation is planned to take two hours, and during this time users will not be able to access their interlibrary loan accounts.
We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience while we upgrade our system.
If you’re a fan of the NPR show “The Story” with Dick Gordon, be sure to tune in to today’s episode (“Sixteen Inches of Radio”) featuring Duke’s own Randy Riddle. Riddle is an Academic Technology Consultant in the Center for Instructional Technology. But in his spare time, he collects old radio transcription discs, a recording format dating from the 1930s. Not many of these original discs survive, since many were discarded over the years and some were made of experimental types of plastics that degrade over time.
On “The Story,” Riddle talks with guest host Sean Cole about his interest in old-time syndicated radio programs from the 1930s and 1940s—from popular shows like “Suspense” (which stayed on the air for 20 years) to less well-known gems like “The American Family Robinson,” a thinly-veiled propaganda series produced in the 1930s by the National Industrial Council (a front for the powerful National Association of Manufacturers). That show follows the life and times of Luke Robinson, a small-town newspaper editor, and his wacky family. The plot lines are typically pedestrian, but they are frequently interlaced with diatribes against Franklin Roosevelt’s “socialist” New Deal policies and praise for lower taxes and less regulation for business and industry (sound familiar?).
Riddle has generously donated many of his original transcription discs to the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke, where they are part of the Randy Riddle Collection of Race Records and Radio Programs. However, if you just want a taste of Riddle’s remarkable collection, you can hear selections of “Suspense,” “The American Family Robinson,” and many more old-time radio programs on his personal blog, where he writes about radio history and posts digitized versions of the transcriptions in all their original, scratchy glory.
Transcription disc label for “The American Family Robinson,” from Riddle’s collection. The show was sponsored by the National Industrial Council as part of their mid-1930s propaganda efforts to combat FDR’s New Deal economic policies.
Over the next few months, library users and visitors will start to see some noticeable changes as we prepare for the upcoming renovation of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. (For more background on the renovation, read this article from the Duke University Libraries Magazine. If you want the short version, check out this handy FAQ on the Rubenstein Library website.)
Construction work will begin in earnest in 2013 and continue through summer 2015. In the meantime, the Libraries are working to relocate special collection materials, services, and personnel to the 3rd floor of Perkins Library, which will become the temporary headquarters of the Rubenstein Library throughout the renovation. The move will be implemented in phases so that library operations and services can be maintained throughout the project, and so that classes and researchers can continue to work with special collections materials without interruption.
Books and library materials on the 3rd floor of Perkins Library are being relocated to Lower Level 2 in preparation for the Rubenstein Library renovation.
Books Move Out, Rubenstein Moves In
The first of those implementation phases starts next week. On Monday, June 11, movers will begin shifting books from the 3rd floor of Perkins Library to Perkins Lower Level 2. That work is scheduled to be completed by July 1, and the 3rd floor of Perkins Library will close to the public on July 5, as construction workers begin upfitting the space for the Rubenstein Library’s staff and collections.
One important caveat: Access to the study carrels on the 3rd floor of Perkins will continue and should not be affected. If you have a study carrel on that floor, you will still be able to get to it.
Collections on the Move
Because of space limitations, some special collections materials and general circulating collections that were previously housed on-site in the library are being moved to the off-site Library Service Center. However, these materials will still be available to faculty, students, and researchers throughout the course of the renovation. Nothing will be out of your reach.
Books and materials in the general collection can be easily retrieved from the Library Service Center by requesting them through the online catalog. If you have never requested something from the LSC, here’s a quick video that shows you how. (It typically takes less than 24 hours, and you can have materials delivered to the Duke library of your choice.)
Circulating books and materials held at the Library Service Center can be requested through the online catalog and are typically delivered in less than 24 hours.
Researchers interested in using special collection materials are encouraged to contact the Rubenstein Library in advance of their visit, so that materials can be retrieved for them. (See the Rubenstein Library Renovation FAQ for more information on requesting special collection materials during the renovation.)
At this time, the Rubenstein Library’s reading room and current space is scheduled to close on December 17, 2012, and reopen after winter break on the 3rd floor of Perkins Library on January 6, 2013.
Stay Tuned for More Renovation Updates
If you want keep up with the progress of the Rubenstein Library renovation, we have plenty of ways to keep you informed.
You can check back here for regular updates, or follow the Rubenstein Library’s blog, The Devil’s Tale.
Stewart Smith’s love of libraries started with fish, not books. As a boy, he used to sneak onto the grounds of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, to fish in their pond. But as he grew, so did his passion for the library itself. Stewart currently serves on Duke’s Library Advisory Board and, last year, he and his wife, Robin Ferracone T’75, made a $500,000 gift, which will be used to get the library closer to its highest priority: completing the renovation to Perkins Library begun in 2003.
Also a Duke parent of two sons, Stewart is confident that students will appreciate the completed library. Although Logan graduated in 2005 before most renovations were finished, Connor, who will complete his degree in 2012, is able to enjoy the benefits of the new Bostock Library, von der Heyden Pavilion, and the Link, a state-of-the-art teaching and learning center in the former Perkins basement. “The transformation in just a few short years has been remarkable,” Stewart says. “The library is a tremendous resource for the entire Duke community, and I’m glad that I can help support the renovations and expansion that will make it even better.”
Reynolds Price's final book, "Midstream," will be published in May 2012.
Date: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 Time: 7:00 p.m. Location: Gothic Reading Room, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (map) Contact: Will Hansen, (919) 660-5958 or william.hansen@duke.edu
To celebrate the publication of Reynolds Price’s final book, Midstream, as well as the fiftieth anniversary of his first book, A Long and Happy Life, the Libraries welcome a distinguished group of Price’s friends, family, and colleagues to discuss his life, work, and legacy.
Speakers include:
– Rachel Davies WC’72 AM ’89, student and friend of Reynolds Price
– Allan Gurganus, acclaimed author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and White People
– Susan Moldow, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Scribner, and editor of many of Reynolds Price’s books
– William Price T’63, former Director of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, and Reynolds Price’s brother
The event will include a display of materials from the Reynolds Price Papers in the Rubenstein Library, including early handwritten manuscripts of A Long and Happy Life, rare photographs and letters, and more.
Free and open to the public. A reception with refreshments will follow the program.
Duke students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other members of the Duke community are invited to a night of seriously graphic fun, sponsored by the the Duke Marketing Club and Duke University Libraries.
Bringing together the entire Duke community, Heroes & Villains will be an adventure of its own, drawing inspiration from the Duke University Libraries’ vast collection of comic books from all periods and genres.
When: Friday, February 24 What Time: 9 PM to Midnight Where: Perkins Library Admission: Free Dress: Cocktail Attire, or Your Best Heroic/Villainous Costume
Students: Midterms got you feeling like a mere mortal? Throw on your cape and utility belt. Things are about to get supernaturally weird in Perkins.
Need more inspiration? Check out the Edwin and Terry Murray Comic Book Collection in Duke’s Rubenstein Library, one of the largest institutional collections of comics in the world!
Many thanks to our superhero sponsors: the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, the Deans of Trinity College, the Annual Fund, SOFC, Duke University Union, and the Sociology Department.
Charles Dickens at his last public reading in London, 1870
Join us for a special celebration of Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday!
When: Wednesday, February 8, 7:00 p.m. Where: Biddle Rare Book Room, Perkins Library (Map)
Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Charles Dickens performed in a series of dramatic public readings adapted from his own works, impersonating characters from famous scenes in Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, and other beloved novels. In celebration of Dickens’s 200th birthday in February, please join award-winning Duke author, Professor of the Practice of Theater Studies, and consummate Dickensian Michael Malone as he re-enacts these entertaining performances.
The event is held in conjunction with the exhibition Charles Dickens: 200 Years of Commerce and Controversy, on display outside of the Biddle Rare Book Room beginning January 30, featuring rare first editions of Dickens’s works and other materials from the holdings of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
A reception with refreshments will be held after the performance. This event is free and open to the public.
A $1 million pledge to endow the directorship of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University has been made by journalist, activist and women’s health care pioneer Merle Hoffman, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Thursday.
“The Bingham Center is one of the leading women’s history research centers in the U.S., documenting centuries of women’s public and private lives, including education, literature, art and activism,” Brodhead said. “We at Duke are grateful for this generous gift by Merle Hoffman, which will help further the Bingham Center’s mission to preserve and promote the intellectual and cultural legacy of women from all walks of American life.”men’s History and Culture at Duke University has been made by journalist, activist and women’s health care pioneer Merle Hoffman, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Thursday.
After abortion laws were liberalized in New York state in 1970, Hoffman founded Choices Women’s Medical Center, one of the first ambulatory surgical centers for women, which has become one of the largest and most comprehensive women’s medical facilities in the U.S.
In 2000, the Bingham Center acquired both Hoffman’s papers and the records of Choices Women’s Medical Center. Since then, the center has collected the papers of numerous other providers, clinics and reproductive rights organizations that document the work of activists, health care workers, attorneys and others involved in reproductive health.
The center also has a large body of works that documents four centuries of political activity surrounding women’s reproductive rights, thanks in part to several generous gifts from Hoffman, said Deborah Jakubs, Rita DiGiallonardo University Librarian and vice provost for library affairs.
“Associating Merle Hoffman’s name with the directorship creates an enduring connection between the Bingham Center’s leadership and Hoffman’s outstanding contributions to the health, safety and empowerment of women everywhere,” Jakubs said.
Hoffman is also the publisher and editor-in-chief of On the Issues Magazine, and her autobiography, Intimate Wars: The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Board Room,is settobe published in January 2012.
Hoffman said she decided to endow the center’s directorship as a way “to continue to support the visionary efforts by Duke University to honor and document the many courageous women who have fought their own ‘intimate wars’ in the long struggle for reproductive justice. I hope that the Bingham Center will become the bridge between theory and practice that will catalyze future generations to joyfully go further and deeper in the continual battles for women’s equality.”
Center director Laura Micham said Hoffman’s latest gift “will enable us to expand our activities and impact, bringing us closer to our goal of building one of the premier research centers for women’s history and culture in the world.”
The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture was established in 1988 to acquire, preserve and provide access to published and unpublished materials that reflect the public and private lives of women, past and present. It is named in honor of author, playwright, teacher and feminist activist Sallie Bingham.
Unidentified family photo, donated by Larry Henderson, Alabama.
One hundred oral histories of life in the Jim Crow South, complete with transcripts, have been digitized and made available on the Duke University Libraries website and iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store.
From 1993 to 1995, dozens of graduate students at Duke and other schools fanned out across the South to capture stories of segregation as part of “Behind the Veil,” an oral history project at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies (CDS). The students sought to preserve the stories before the men and women who survived Jim Crow passed away. The interviews — some 1,260 in all — were recorded on regular cassette tapes, transcribed and archived in Duke’s special collections library.
But many of the interviews were omitted from the book and documentary.
For example, in 1957, a group of African-American businessmen in Memphis launched a boycott of the city’s largest daily paper to protest the paper’s policy of not using courtesy titles, like Mr. or Mrs., when referring to blacks. The businessmen bought every copy they could find of The Commercial Appeal and threw them into the Mississippi River.
“I don’t care how prominent you were, you were just Willie Brown,” said Imogene Watkins Wilson, a schoolteacher whose husband edited the Memphis Tri-State Defender, the city’s leading African-American newspaper. “You weren’t Rev. Willie Brown, you weren’t Dr. Willie Brown, you weren’t Professor Willie Brown. And then, if [they] referred to your wife, she was Suzie. Not Mrs. Suzie, just Suzie.”
Wilson recollected the start of the seven-week boycott in a July 1995 interview with a Duke student, but her story never made the original project’s final cut. Now her memories — along with the personal accounts of scores of other Americans who lived through the Jim Crow era — are among the hundred stories that have been digitized and made available for free for researchers, genealogists, educators and others.
Another newly digitized story is told by Ernest A. Grant of Tuskegee, Ala., who recounts how his mother was forced to flee town for burning a white insurance agent with a hot iron after he made unwelcome advances toward her. And Jesse Johnson of Norfolk, Va., a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, describes officer training in the 1940s at Fort Lee, Va. as “the most segregated, the most prejudiced camp in the United States.”
News, Events, and Exhibits from Duke University Libraries
The Open Journal Systems software was developed by the 
Jerry Hough
John Aldrich
Peter Feaver
Mukherjee will be delivering 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 
Date: Monday, October 29, 2012
Mac McCorkle
Don Taylor
As the movement toward universal open access (OA) gathers momentum, the most salient OA questions are changing from “if” and even “when,” to “what will an OA world look like?” Is open access an incremental improvement, or will it lead to fundamental shifts in the way scholarship is communicated, filtered, and disseminated? In this talk, I’ll argue that the latter is the case: new ways of measuring scholarly impact on the social Web — “altmetrics” — will allow real-time, crowdsourced filtering of diverse scholarly products, leading to a new landscape of interoperable services that replace traditional journals. I’ll also demonstrate 
Robert Byrd
Greta Boers
