Category Archives: Library Hacks

Exploring the Cost of Course Materials for Undergraduates: Toward an Affordable, Equitable Duke Education

Post by Ella Young, Research and Public Services InternCartoon illustration of people's hands holding up books, notebooks, and other printed materials.


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.

Have you taught an undergraduate course within the past 5 years? Click here to complete the survey!

What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)?

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.

We invite teaching faculty at Duke to click here to complete the survey!

All responses are anonymous.

Don’t-Miss Database: CAB Abstracts

Photo of unnamed grassy, mountainous region with title CAB Abstracts superimposed

Post contributed by Jodi Psoter, Librarian for Marine Science

CAB Abstracts searches books, articles, conference papers, and reports from over 120 countries in fifty languages. This resource focuses on the applied life sciences field, including agriculture, forestry, human nutrition, veterinary medicine, and the environment. Date coverage is from 1973 to the present. Additionally, your search results will include references from the archive (1910-1972) for seventeen print journals.

Why Should You Use This?

With an international focus and an interdisciplinary scope, this is a great resource for climate and environmental research topics including ecology, marine science, climate change, aquafarming, forestry, soil science, engineering, and hydrology. The international coverage provides English-language abstracts for all non-English language publications.

Screen shot of a citation record with the language field identified by a red box

Cool Features

When I work with students, I remind them that not everyone describes a concept using the same word. A database’s thesaurus helps to find the single word that will retrieve results even if an author uses a variation of your search term. It’s like finding a keyword #hashtag for your topic. The following screenshot shows that “oyster culture” is the preferred word when looking for information about “oyster farming.”

Screenshot of a thesaurus search for oyster farming in CAB Abstracts with the preferred term oyster culture highlighted.

Database Tips

CAB Abstracts is just one database that DUL purchases from EBSCOhost. Click the “Choose Database” link to replicate your search in multiple databases. Bonus: This works in all the EBSCOhost databases not just CAB Abstracts!

Screenshot highlighting Choose Databases option in CAB Abstracts

Screenshot listing databases for simultaneous searching in CAB Abstracts

Similar Resources

Additional databases where you can search for the intersection of climate and other disciplines include: Gender Watch, Communications & Mass Media Complete, and Points of View Reference Center. Check out our Research Databases page for more great resources!

Questions?

Contact Jodi Psoter, Librarian for Marine Science.

Unraveling the Mysteries of the Renaissance: My Unexpected Journey in the Medieval/Renaissance FOCUS Cluster

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.


18th-century illustration of a caiman holding a false coral snake in its mouth.
A dynamic scene of a caiman holding a false coral snake in its mouth, from Maria Sibylla Merian’s Surinam Album.

What drew you to sign up for Scientific Revolutions: Music, Medicine, and Literature the Renaissance FOCUS program? And specifically Professor Tom Robisheaux’s class “Renaissance Doctors, Engineers, and Scientists”?

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.

18th-century illustration of spiders crawling on plant branches
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.

18th-century illustration of butterflies and caterpillar
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.

Pratt Students Comb Libraries for Spring Library Scavenger Hunt

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).

Don’t-Miss Database: The Japan Times Archives

Screenshot of The Japan Times Archives basic search pagePost contributed by Matthew Hayes, Librarian for Japanese Studies and Asian American Studies

The Japan Times Archives offers a searchable collection of digitized issues of Japan’s largest and longest running English-language newspaper, covering the years 1865 through the present. The database also includes access to digitized issues of several subsidiary newspapers, including The Japan Advertiser, The Japan Times & Mail, The Japan Times and Advertiser, and The Nippon Times.

Why Should You Use This Database?

For faculty and students working in English, this database offers perhaps the most comprehensive cross-section of current events in Japanese history, society, and politics, especially as they relate to the international community. The chronological coverage is also unmatched as users can explore articles from Japan’s closed-country period shortly before 1868, through wartime and postwar periods of the mid-twentieth century, and beyond to Japan’s current moment.

Cool Features

The coolest feature of this database is the ability to run full-text searches in any issue. This is made possible through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. This means that if a user is looking for articles on a very specific topic—even a single keyword—during a narrow run of issues, they can have results in a few seconds. For example, if a user wants to gather articles on the Anpo protests, a series of massive and violent demonstrations protesting the United States-Japan Security treaty, and which were most concentrated in 1960, they might search for “protest” and narrow to the mid-year period of 1960, as below:

Screenshot of search interface with “protest” used as search term, dates defined as May through June 1960, and issues set to “main.”

This search will return more than 500 results with the term “protest” either in the headline or article text. Users can then browse to find the article that suits their needs.

June 16, 1960, article covering the Anpo protests.

Database Tips

Don’t limit yourself to newspaper articles! Advertisements are also a great way to better understand the commercial and visual design histories of Japan. In addition to local products and events, many issues also advertised international products. If users are interested in how Japan participated in international commercial markets, or what types of appeals were made to local consumers, there are thousands of options here.

March 22, 1897, advertisement for Murai & Bros. tobacco products, which were manufactured in Winston, North Carolina.

January 1, 1939, advertisement for Tokyo New Grand Restaurant.

Similar Resources

A few of Duke’s other Japanese historical newspaper databases include Yomiuri Shimbun 讀賣新聞 (in Japanese), Asahi Shimbun 朝日新聞 (in Japanese), and Mainichi Shimbun 每日新聞 (in Japanese). Rubenstein Library also holds the Masaki Motoi Collection of Japanese Student Movement Materials, which contains several original issues of left-wing student newspapers from 1959 through 1977.

Questions?

Contact Matthew Hayes, Librarian for Japanese Studies and Asian American Studies.

Two Events to Launch a New Book Series: Studies in the Grateful Dead

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) 

Get Shown the Light: Improvisation and Transcendence in the Music of the Grateful Dead, by Michael Kaler, Associate Professor at the Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy, University of Toronto Mississauga.

 


Date: Friday, April 5 
Time: 6:00 p.m. 
Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room (Rubenstein Library 153) 

Live Dead: The Grateful Dead, Live Recordings, and the Ideology of Liveness, by John Brackett, an independent scholar and author of John Zorn: Tradition and Transgression, and coeditor of The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis: Expanding Approaches. 

 


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 

Your End-of-Semester Library Toolkit, Fall 2023

You’re almost there! Here are some resources to power you through the end of the semester and beyond.

End-of-Semester Events

Miniature Therapy Horses at Lilly Library – Sunday, December 10th from 11 AM to 1 PM. Take a break from studying and drop by Lilly Library to de-stress with the miniature therapy horses from Stampede of Love and relax with some snacks and hot cider!

Lilly Relaxation Station – Monday, December 11th to Monday, December 18th. Take a break and refresh during Reading and Exam Period! Open 24/7: Puzzles, games, Play-Doh, origami, coloring… just chill for a bit in Lilly’s 1st floor classroom! Light snacks will be provided in the evening December 11th through the 14th.

Crafternoon at Perkins: Holiday Edition – Monday, December 11th from 11:30 to 1PM. Stuck on what to gift Grandma or how to craft the perfect card for a friend? Stop by the lobby outside of Perkins Library to make origami ornaments, creative holiday cards, and other crafts. You supply the creativity, and we supply the materials – cardstock, origami paper, googly eyes, and much more!

To Help You Study

Take a Break

Take Care of Yourself

The Library @ Home

The library is always here for you!  Maybe you already know that you can access many of our online resources from home or that you can check out books to take home with you.  We also have movies and music that you can stream and some e-books that you can download to your devices. Here are some of the resources we have to do this!

Streaming Video includes:

Kanopy: Watch thousands of award-winning documentaries and feature films including titles from the Criterion Collection.

SWANK Digital Campus: Feature films from major Hollywood studios.

See the full list: bit.ly/dukevideos.

Overdrive Books:

Go to duke.overdrive.com to access downloadable eBooks and audiobooks that can be enjoyed on all major computers and devices, including iPhones®, iPads®, Nooks®, Android™ phones and tablets, and Kindles®.

Streaming Music includes:

Contemporary World Music: Listen to music from around the world, including reggae, Bollywood, fado, American folk music, and more.

Jazz Music Library:  Access a wide range of recordings from jazz classics to contemporary jazz.

Medici.tv: Browse an online collection of classical music, operas and ballets.

Metropolitan Opera on Demand:  For opera fans, a large selection of opera videos from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

Naxos Music Library:  Huge selection of classical music recordings—over 1,925,000 tracks!

Smithsonian Global Sound: Find and listen to streaming folk and related music

See the full list: library.duke.edu/music/resources/listening-online

Don’t-Miss Database: Qwest TV EDU

Screenshot of Qwest TV EDU database landing page

Post contributed by Laura Williams, Head of the Music Library.

Qwest TV EDU is a video streaming channel showcasing Black music and global sounds. Created by music legend Quincy Jones, the database features a wide range of musical genres and styles, including jazz, the blues, soul, funk, world music, electronic music, classical music, and much more.

Why Should You Use This?

Qwest TV provides several major categories to explore in its catalog, including concerts, documentaries, and a rich trove of archival material with showstopping performances by legendary artists. Videos in Qwest TV span historic recordings from the 1950s right up to the present day, showcasing the storied history of musical styles and influences around the world.

The archive features some extraordinary live performances, including a 1963 Parisian concert by the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald, and a 1982 performance by the legendary Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, with dazzling virtuosic solos by the young Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis.

Ella Fitzgerald Live at the Olympia, Paris (1963)
Ella Fitzgerald Live at the Olympia, Paris (1963)
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers Live at the Village Vanguard (1982)
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers Live at the Village Vanguard (1982)

Cool Features

One of the most interesting ways to delve into Qwest TV’s offerings is through recommendation lists created by Guest Curators who bring wide-ranging perspectives to their selections. Qwest TV also features some original content, such as Twelve Qwestions, a series of exclusive interviews. In anticipation of Gregory Porter’s visit to Duke in February 2024 through Duke Arts, you can explore his curated list of selections, a Twelve Qwestions interview, a documentary about the two-time Grammy Award-winning singer, as well as a live performance:

Gregory Porter “Liquid Spirit” -- Live at Jazz a la Villette Festival (2013)
Gregory Porter “Liquid Spirit” — Live at Jazz a la Villette Festival (2013)

Database Tips

A myriad of browsing categories connect content in a variety of interesting ways, highlighting Fresh Talents and Gems from the Vaults, as well as bringing together imaginative groupings such as Space is the Place (a celebration of spiritual jazz), the somewhat enigmatic New Ancient Strings, and an exploration of electronica in Africatronics.

One of the most exciting videos I discovered is a recent concert from the New World Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Eddins which “explores a symphonic world that influenced and was influenced by the musical heritage of the African diaspora.” Stunning performances by the orchestra and celebrated American soprano and scholar Dr. Louise Toppin are illuminated throughout by the historical commentary and insights provided by noted musicologist Dr. Tammy Kernodle, making this concert nothing short of extraordinary from both a musical and scholarly standpoint.

New World Symphony - Harlem Renaissance2023
New World Symphony – Harlem Renaissance
2023

Similar Resources

Other related streaming databases that might be of interest are the Naxos Music Library Jazz, Smithsonian Global Sound, and Medici.tv EDU, which features a similar international lineup of live concerts and documentaries, but with more emphasis on classical music, opera, and ballet. You’ll find more on our Online Listening and Viewing page.

Questions?

Contact Laura Williams, Head of the Music Library.

Help Us Help You. Take the Perkins Library Customer Service Experience Survey!

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. 

Examples of this work are our Biennial User Satisfaction Surveys, a study on the needs and experiences of Black students at Duke, and efforts to gain insight on the needs and experiences of first-generation students at Duke.  

In building on our tilt towards actively listening to the ones for whom we come to work daily, we welcome you to provide us with feedback on your visits to Perkins!  

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.  

For more information about this survey, please contact Annette Tillery at annette.tillery@duke.edu or Brandon Britt at brandon.britt@duke.edu. 

Don’t-Miss Databases: Proquest Black Studies

Image from Proquest Black Studies

Proquest Black Studies combines primary and secondary sources, leading historical Black newspapers, archival documents, government materials, video, writings by major American Black intellectuals and leaders, and essays by top scholars in Black Studies. Years of coverage include 1650 to the present.

Why Should You Use This?

Anyone looking for primary sources in African American studies should start here. Proquest Black Studies provides access to a wide range of primary sources under one platform. You’ll find records of organizations including the Black Panther Party and the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs Records, 1895-1992. Jump start your research on historical figures (e.g., pilot Bessie Coleman) by browsing the Featured People list. You can also search the full text of eleven historical Black newspapers.

Bessie Coleman, First Licensed African American Woman Female Pilot
Bessie Coleman, First Licensed African American Woman Female Pilot

Cool Features

Documentaries, speeches, interviews, newsreels, and other types of videos are added features. I enjoyed watching Langston Hughes reading his poem “The Weary Blues” accompanied by a jazz band.

Langston Hughes: Performance "The Weary Blues" with Jazz Accompaniment
Langston Hughes: Performance “The Weary Blues” with Jazz Accompaniment

Database Tips

You can search the entire database for any terms you want to find, but choose the Basic Search page for an overview of the types of collections available and choices for browsing.

Similar Resources

Other online primary source databases for African American studies include African American Communities (focusing on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and North Carolina) and HistoryMakers Digital Archive (video oral histories of African Americans). You’ll find more on our Research Databases page.

Questions?

Contact Heather Martin, Librarian for African and African American Studies.

Congratulations to Our Research and Writing Award Winners!

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!

Lowell Aptman Prize

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. 

Chester P. Middlesworth Award

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 

Ole R. Holsti Prize

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 

Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award

Recognizing outstanding creative writing by first year students and sophomores.

  • Camden Chin for “The Value of a Dollar”
  • Erin Lee for “Chuncheon”
  • Kulsoom Rizavi for “Sound of Otherness”

The William Styron Creative Writing Award

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.

Date: Friday, November 3
Time: 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Location: Breedlove Conference Room (Rubenstein Library 349)

Grad Students: Satisfy Your RCR Credits with the Libraries during Fall Break, Oct. 16-17


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!

ONLINE: From Publication to Product: Take Your Research Out of the Lab and into the Environment (RCR Workshop GS717.14) Monday, October 16, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

ONLINE: Applying a Project Management Mindset to Your Academic Life (RCR Workshop GS717.15) Monday, October 16, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

ONLINE: Shaping Your Professional Identity Online (RCR Workshop 717.13) Monday, October 16, 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

ONLINE: Expand your Toolbox for International Research (RCR Workshop GS717.16) Monday, October 16, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

ONLINE: Library Toolbox for Responsible Research in the Sciences and Engineering (RCR Workshop GS 714.05) Tuesday, October 17, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

ONLINE: Public Humanities (RCR Workshop GS717.12) Tuesday, October 17, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

IN-PERSON: Project Management Lab: Moving from Idea to Action (RCR Workshop GS717.17) Tuesday, October 17, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Murthy Digital Studio.

Best wishes for a pleasant fall break from Duke University Libraries!

Congratulations to Our National Book Collecting Contest Winner!

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.

The National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest is the Final Four of book collecting competitions, bringing together the winners of more than three dozen local competitions at colleges and universities across the United States, including Duke. It is sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), the Center for the Book, and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress.

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!

Duke Engineering Exposition at Rubenstein Library, Sept. 27

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

This informal open house will feature numerous items from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library on Duke’s West campus.

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!

Who said that? Librarian tips for verifying quotes.


In a digital world where famous quotations are used in memes and inspirational social media posts, often, like a game of telephone, quotes evolve into something that differs significantly from the original words spoken or written. Verifying the authenticity of quotes can take time and effort. Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Head of Humanities and Social Sciences and Librarian for Literature, has provided tips and tricks to streamline the search process!


Tips:

  • When using an online authentication website, i.e., The Quotations Page, don’t use the whole quote because you might get inaccurate results if it’s incorrect. Consider using a word or phrase from the quote plus the author’s name.
  • Try searching using a quotation reference volume (such as the Oxford Essential Quotations) available digitally from the library. Digital reference books can be searched using the same method described above: author’s name plus a keyword or phrase from the original quote.
  • Another quick tool to consider is using Google Books and searching by the author or person’s name plus keywords or phrases from the quote. If the quote exists, an excerpt is likely going to come up. If cited, you can follow the citation from the eBook to the original document where the words were issued, such as correspondence, diaries, speeches, interviews, etc.

    Most of all, don’t get discouraged; sometimes, it is impossible to nail down a precise quotation. Recently, Arianne worked with a scholar trying to verify a quote attributed to Edward O. Wilson: “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.” She hunted for the quote in the general quote collections, science-specific quotation sources, and Google Books, which cited Biophilia; however, Biophilia did not provide this quotation, leaving the origins of those words as a mystery indicating somewhere along the way words were modified. The scholar went so far as to reach out to Edward O. Wilson, who was unsure of its origins! This example demonstrates the complexities of verifying quotations and that, occasionally, there’s no definitive answer. Still, it is always good to do due diligence before using a quotation in a paper or article. We hope with these tips, it may be possible for you to get at close as possible to the approximation of who said what! For more suggestions, visit Arianne’s Literature in English research guide.


     

Understanding the Experiences and Needs of International Students at Duke

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. 

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource? Meet Lilly Library’s Class of 2023

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?
Meet Lilly Library’s Class of 2023

There is life outside of Lilly! Congratulations to Celine!

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know Celine W., one of our graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate her as much we do.

Duke – and Lilly! – Senior Celine

A Lilly selfie with Celine
  • Hometown: Colleyville, TX
  • Family/siblings/pets:
    An older sister (with the cutest dog, Zoey!) and a younger brother
  • Academic major: Literature
  • Activities on campus:
    Asian American Studies Working Group
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library):
    Relaxing at the Duke Gardens
  • Favorite off-campus activity:
    Ice cream at Pincho Loco
  • Favorite campus eatery: Beyu Blue!!
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Wheat

Behind the Curtain at Lilly

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: I would like to sleep in the Stacks!! I think setting up a sleeping bag and napping amongst the shelves would be very cozy!!

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: There’s this Vivienne Westwood book that’s bound in the iconic tartan pattern, and I know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but it looks incredible and is filled with so many historically important runway looks.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at library? Least favorite?
A: I love talking to the patrons and learning about their research! Especially when they come by to pick up a bunch of books from reserve! I do get a question about printing every shift, so I could do without that.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: Learning how to use the dumbwaiter or the microfiche, it’s like learning a piece of technology that would’ve been so revolutionary before.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: Using the dumbwaiter!! It feels like I’m living out a retro library experience!

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: I think any type of work where I get to talk to people and help them interact makes my life richer and grows my empathy toward serving others. I’m studying to become a doctor, and take every experience where I can help others as a learning experience!

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: The beautiful interior. Lilly was my home in freshman year, and I’m excited to see it become home to many students in the future.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I’m taking a gap year before medical school, and will be working at a hospital.

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: A panda!!

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Celine and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries “family”. We appreciate Celine’s stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

What Is a Vital Lilly Library Resource? Meet the Lilly Class of 2023

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?
Meet Our Lilly Class of 2023

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know Hailey B.,  one of our graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate them as much we do.

Hailey, Lilly student assistant and Duke Class of 2023

Duke – and Lilly! – Senior Hailey

  • Hometown: Palm Harbor, FL
  • Family/siblings/pets: I have one (much) younger 3-year-old half-sister and a dog named Carter
  • Academic major: Psychology, plus minors in Computer Science and Math
  • Activities on campus: Duke University Marching Band (DUMB), Duke Cyber, Durham Chi Omega
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library 😉 ): Being at Duke games with the marching/pep band! My personal favorite is Duke WBB games
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Trying new restaurants with friends
  • Favorite campus eatery: Krafthouse
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: HeavBuffs

Behind the Curtain at Lilly

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Probably the Thomas Reading Room at Lilly – it’s the most beautiful space and I’d love to wake up to the sunlight through those big windows. Plus the couches are great.

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: Most interesting is definitely “First Person Singular” by Haruki Murakami. It’s a collection of short stories all about different narrators, all told from first person singular point of view. It’s super cool and I totally recommend it. Most strange would be a book of poems told entirely from the point of view of a cat – it was incredible. Also interesting that both my picks include playing with POV – maybe that kind of thing just really gets me.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at library? Least favorite?
A: My favorite part is for sure the people – everyone who works at Lilly is incredible and they’re the best coworkers. I can always count on one of the other students or staff librarians brightening my day. My least favorite thing as an avid reader is that I constantly have to resist the urge not to check out 40 books every time I work a shift.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: I found out I had made it to the final interview round for a really competitive job while I was on shift and everyone was so happy and helped me celebrate. It was a really special moment.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: I honestly don’t think I’ve ever done anything super crazy – probably just printing out so many pages at one time that I stood at the printer for like 20 minutes.

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: Customer service is always applicable! Plus a great eye for detail and the ability to learn new things quickly.

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: Similar to my favorite part, I’ll miss the people. I’ll have to come back and visit so I can see some of them again! Note: Please do! We always love seeing our “Lilly alumni”!

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I’m currently interviewing for jobs (I have another one this week, wish me luck) with nonprofit organizations and will be working for 1 gap year, before attending law school in Fall 2024. Longer-term, I plan to work in social justice law.

Q: What is the animal that you most identify with? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: I’ve been told I remind people of a chinchilla – I’m not entirely sure what that means but I love chinchillas so I’ll take it. Other answers I’ve received: orange cat, pangolin, and panther.

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to them and our other graduates, treasured members of our Lilly Library “family”. We appreciate Hailey’s stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish them all the best!

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource? Meet Our Class of 2023!

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?
Meet Our Class of 2023

Young woman
Meet “Lilly'” Class of 2023 – Emma

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know Emma L., one of our graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate her as much we do.

Duke – and Lilly! – Senior Emma

Young woman
A Lilly selfie with Emma
  • Hometown: Oak Park, IL
  • Family/siblings/pets:
    One younger sister. The closest thing I have to a pet is a lot of houseplants.
  • Academic major: Biology and Chemistry
  • Activities on campus: Research, Duke Symphony Orchestra, avid Cameron Crazie
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library 😉 ): Duke Symphony Orchestra!
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Walks at Eno
  • Favorite campus eatery: Late-night Pitchforks
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: The Parlour

Behind the Curtain at Lilly

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: The bottom floor of the Biddle library, it’s so calm and quiet.

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: The locked stacks at Lilly have some really cool, really old books! No one book in particular stands out to me, but I love working in that room and seeing all the titles and publication years in there.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at library? Least favorite?
A: The people are my favorite thing by far! I’ve met so many wonderful people at Lilly, from the librarians to the other student workers to the people who come up to the front desk. My least favorite part is when I just barely miss the bus after my shift, which isn’t even to do with Lilly.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: There was a tornado warning during one of my shifts this year, so we had to gather everyone up and go down to the basement. It only lasted 15-ish minutes, but it was interesting while it lasted.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: I’ve done several shifts without shoes on because it was raining so hard that they were too wet to wear by the time I got to work.

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: I’ve learned how to make searches specific enough to find what I’m looking for when finding sources for research. It’s also really helped me learn how to troubleshoot a printer (always a good skill to have).

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: How friendly everyone who works there is! Especially having worked at Lilly for four years, I’ll miss all the people (especially the librarians) who I met as a freshman. My favorite part of working an early shift this year is that I get to chat with everyone as they come in, and I’m sad I won’t get to do that anymore.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I’ll be pursuing a PhD in molecular microbiology at Tufts in Boston!

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: A cat, purely because of how much they love napping in the sun

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Emma and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries “family”. We appreciate Emma’s stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

What is a Vital Music Library Resource?

What is a Vital Music Library Resource?

Cierra at work in the Duke Music Library

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know  Cierra H., one of the Duke Music Library‘s graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate her as much we do.

Duke (and Music!) Senior Cierra

  • Hometown: Roanoke Rapids, NC
  • Family/siblings/pets: Three younger siblings, Three dogs
  • Academic major: Biology
  • Activities on campus: Duke Med BEC Fellows/Root Causes/Project FEED, Duke Jazz Ensemble
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library): Working in my research lab
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Bowling
  • Favorite campus eatery: Il Forno / Sazon
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Guasaca

Behind the Curtain at the Music Library

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: The Music Library because it is always quiet in the evenings, there is plenty of space as well as a piano which would be fun to play.

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: There was once a book full of slang that I thought was interesting. We tend to read more of the serious works and to read something that was serious, but lighthearted, was fun.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at the Music Library? Least favorite?
A: My favorite part is finding new books to read and helping people out at the desk. It is also therapeutic to re-shelve or process new books as well as pull items. I don’t think I have a least favorite thing about working at the library.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: I will never forget two things. One is the freebies event we had where we gave away a bunch of scores and books. The second is when Jamie put up a skeleton behind the circulation desk named Skylar who pretended to be conducting music on Halloween .

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: I haven’t done anything crazy in the library.

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: I’ve learned to catalog books and how to better interact with people. I’ve gotten to work with some amazing staff and make friends amongst my peers that also work here. There is never a dull moment and some of the socialization skills I’ve gained will be useful in my future.

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: I will miss the staff: Laura, Sarah, and Jamie (and Jamie’s emails every week). They were very welcoming at first and over the two years, they have gotten to know me on a personal level and I’ve enjoyed every conversation we’ve had.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: Clinical research for two years while applying to medical schools.

Q: What is your spirit animal? … Well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: A dolphin

Graduation in May means the Duke Music Library will say farewell to Cierra and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries “family”. We appreciate Cierra’s  stellar work and dedication to Music and wish her all the best!

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource? Class of 2023

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?

Kari at the Lilly Collection Spotlight

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know Duke senior Kari N.,  a  David M. Rubenstein Scholar and one of our graduating student assistants, and you’ll appreciate her as much we do.

Duke  (and Lilly!) Senior Kari

One of Lilly’s “Class of 2023” – Kari
  • Hometown: Chicago
  • Family/siblings/pets: I am an only child to my mother, Kimberly. I have a cat named Lex, sometimes lovingly called Lexthaniel or Lex Luther.
  • Academic major: Sociology with a concentration in Crime, Law, and Society. Education minor
  • Activities on campus: Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc, ARAC
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library):
    Going to the gardens and relaxing
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Going out to try a new restaurant
  • Favorite campus eatery: Ginger and Soy
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Juice Keys

Behind the Curtain at Lilly

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Definitely the breakroom. The couch will automatically put me to sleep.

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: I didn’t realize how many fashion books Lilly had. That was super cool. I got to look through some Chanel and Louis Vuitton books.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at the library? Least favorite?
A: Favorite part has definitely been learning about Duke history and hearing more about how things have changed over time from head librarians. Also, starting to recognize the people who come in often.
Least favorite: shelf-reading, OMG (it seems we’ve seen this response from more than one of our students)

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: When the little ponies (miniature therapy horses) were outside for finals week. They were so cute 🙂

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: I stayed there for hours (to study) and watched tv the whole time.

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: I think it’s helped me a lot with getting into a routine, knowing how to answer the phone for a business, and interacting with different aged people (from little kids to seniors)

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: Honestly, just sitting at the desk and watching who comes in.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: Currently, figuring out what my long-term career will be, but right now, I will be spending the summer working, traveling, and taking a bit of a break.

Q: What is your spirit animal? … Well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: An emu. I can’t explain. It’s just energy if you will.

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Kari’s and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries “family”. We appreciate Kari’s stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

Your End-of-Semester Library Toolkit, Spring 2023

You’re almost there! Here are some resources to power you through the end of the semester and beyond.

End-of-Semester Events

Academic Resource Center Consultations – The ARC is offering individual consultations at Perkins and Lilly for students to plan and prepare for final exams and projects. Schedule a consultation in advance or just drop-in! Consultants will be in Perkins near the front desk Thursday, April 27 and Friday, April 28 from 11 AM to 4 PM. ARC consultants will be in Lilly Library Monday, May 1st from 11 AM to 4 PM.

Lilly Relaxation Station – Friday, April 29th to Saturday, May 6th. Take a break and refresh during Reading and Exam Period! Open 24/7: Puzzles, games, Play-Doh, origami, coloring… just chill for a bit in Lilly’s 1st floor classroom! Light snacks will be provided in the evening May 1st through the 4th.

Crafternoon – Monday, May 1st from 2 to 4 PM. Stop by Perkins Library to relax and clear your mind with various crafting activities: coloring, origami, make-your-own bookmarks and zines, and more!

To Help You Study

Take a Break

Take Care of Yourself

The Library @ Home

The library is always here for you!  Maybe you already know that you can access many of our online resources from home or that you can check out books to take home with you.  We also have movies and music that you can stream and some e-books that you can download to your devices. Here are some of the resources we have to do this!

Streaming Video includes:

Kanopy: Watch thousands of award-winning documentaries and feature films including titles from the Criterion Collection.

SWANK Digital Campus: Feature films from major Hollywood studios.

See the full list: bit.ly/dukevideos.

Overdrive Books:

Go to duke.overdrive.com to access downloadable eBooks and audiobooks that can be enjoyed on all major computers and devices, including iPhones®, iPads®, Nooks®, Android™ phones and tablets, and Kindles®.

Streaming Music includes:

Contemporary World Music: Listen to music from around the world, including reggae, Bollywood, fado, American folk music, and more.

Jazz Music Library:  Access a wide range of recordings from jazz classics to contemporary jazz.

Medici.tv: Browse an online collection of classical music, operas and ballets.

Metropolitan Opera on Demand:  For opera fans, a large selection of opera videos from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

Naxos Music Library:  Huge selection of classical music recordings—over 1,925,000 tracks!

Smithsonian Global Sound: Find and listen to streaming folk and related music

See the full list: library.duke.edu/music/resources/listening-online

Get a Durham County Library Card in Perkins, Apr. 25

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.

If you love the hundreds of popular e-books and audiobooks you can get online through Duke’s library system, consider the THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS MORE you have access to through the Durham County Library!

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 have any questions about acceptable forms of ID or proof of address, visit the Library Cards page on the Durham County Library website. 


Pro-Tip Footnote

* 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.

How to Use Interlibrary Loan


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.

You Passed! Now Pass It On. Donate Your Textbooks to the Library.


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.)

Find Out More

For more information about our textbook donation program, please contact Jeremy Martin, Reserves Coordinator in Perkins Library.

Students: We Need Your Input! Earn a $20 Gift Card!


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!

Conducting Research After You Graduate

After you graduate, you will lose some of your access to resources at Duke University Libraries. You can still conduct research, but it may require you to do more digging. Here are some tips to help you!

Options at Duke Libraries

Local Academic Libraries

If you are relocating to a community with a nearby university or college, you can often use some of their library resources. Check their website for exact details of services and policies. Here are common things to look for:

  • Do they have a Friends of the Library program?
  • Can you use some of their online databases if you visit their library?
  • Do they have a rare books and manuscripts collection?

Local Public Libraries

Though they will have less of an academic focus than our libraries, you may be pleasantly surprised by what your public library can provide!

  • Get a free library card at your local library. Sometimes for a small fee you can also get library cards to access resources at the libraries in surrounding towns. 
  • Find out what kinds of online databases they have. They may have access to newspapers, data sets, journal and magazine articles, streaming films, etc.
  • Find out how their interlibrary loan program works. 

Digital Collections

Many libraries and museums have digitized some of their collections. Examples:

Online Repositories

There are legitimate online scholarly repositories that may share scholarly articles (often preprints). Examples:

New Residency Program for Early Career Librarians


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.

Thursday, April 6, 2023
3:00 p.m. EST
https://duke.zoom.us/j/95991230185

Libraries Announce Senior Leadership Appointments

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.

ChatGPT and Fake Citations

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

Tackling the Law of Text and Data Mining for Computational Research

Guest post by Dave Hansen, Executive Director of the Authors Alliance (and a former Duke Library staff) and co-PI of “Text and Data Mining: Demonstrating Fair Use,” a project supported by the Mellon Foundation. 


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

Ivy Plus Libraries Support Open Access to Federally Funded Research

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

Duke Libraries Receives Significant Gift from Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies

International and Area Studies at Duke University Libraries

This post was contributed by Matthew Hayes, Librarian for Japanese Studies and Asian American Studies in the International and Area Studies Department of Duke University Libraries.

Duke University Libraries is pleased to announce the receipt of a large-scale gift from Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies Paul Groner. Dr. Groner received his PhD from Yale University, where he trained under Stanley Weinstein, and spent the majority of his career teaching at the University of Virginia. His research has largely focused on the Japanese Tendai school of Buddhism, which rose to prominence during the 10th century and encourages combinatory practice based on the Lotus Sutra, one of the preeminent scriptures in East Asian Buddhism. Dr. Groner has written prolifically even beyond this focus and has also conducted significant studies on disciplinary precepts and ordination, the status of nuns in medieval Japan, and later Buddhist educational systems in Japan. Dr. Groner’s donation to Duke Libraries reflects not only his rigor exercised across a career of scholarship, but also his ongoing support of the future of scholarship in Buddhist Studies and East Asian Studies.

Dr. Groner inaugurating the 2023 APSI Spring Speaker Series on February 16, 2023 with a talk on the observance of precepts in medieval Japanese Buddhism. Image: Renate Kwon for APSI.

Part I of Dr. Groner’s donation was physically received in March 2022 and consisted of nearly 1,200 English volumes, 600 Japanese volumes, and more than 100 Chinese volumes. Among the contents of this donation are biographical works focused on the lives and works of major figures across the Tendai, Zen, and Shingon schools of Japanese Buddhism, especially during the early medieval period. There are commentarial and expository works focused on concepts important to the study of East Asian Buddhism, such as emptiness, non-self, the nature of the mind, and disciplinary ethics. Likewise, while regional coverage of Dr. Groner’s donation is generally confined to East Asia, there are dozens of works related to religion in South and Southeast Asia. Part II of this donation will arrive in two years, once Dr. Groner has completed the last of his projects. This second portion will be similar in scale, though will contain far more Japanese volumes than in Part I and will focus more acutely on early medieval Japanese Tendai Buddhism.

From top: Saichō to Tendai no kokuhō: Tendaishū kaishū 1200-nen kinen 最澄と天台の国宝: 天台宗開宗: 一二〇〇記念, an exhibition catalog focused on images of Saichō, the founder of the Japanese Tendai tradition and focus of one of Dr. Groner’s major monographs, titled Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School (University of Hawai’i Press, 2000); Shōbōgenzō Eihei kōroku yōgo jiten「正法眼蔵」「永平広錄」用語辞典, a reference dictionary focused on key terms found in two seminal works by Sōtō Zen founder Dōgen; Sho, gaten sakuhinshū 書・画展作品集, an anthology of exhibit images showcasing religious calligraphy in various Asian languages. These and other selected items from Dr. Groner’s donation are currently on display in an exhibit on new arrivals to the East Asian Collection. The exhibit is located on the second floor of Bostock library, across from the International and Area Studies (IAS) suite. Images by author.

Taken together, both portions of this donation fill a significant chronological and sectarian gap in Duke’s current holdings and will help to elevate Duke Libraries as a major repository of East Asian Buddhist materials in the American Southeast. On behalf of Duke University Libraries, we look forward to future scholars benefitting from Dr. Groner’s generous bibliographic support of East Asian Buddhist Studies, and the study of East Asian religion more generally, for decades to come.

 

 

ProQuest One Literature

Proquest One Literature brings together one of the most comprehensive collection of primary texts, ebooks, reference sources, full-text journals, dissertations, video and more, for access to historical and contemporary content by and about celebrated and lesser-known authors from around the world. The international literature focus is especially useful!

After you search, the results are helpfully divided in to categories such as criticism, primary texts, reference works, dissertations, book reviews, etc. You can also limit results by aspects like peer reviewed, publication date, subject, and language.

Another nice search feature of this resource is that you can find both literary criticism and primary texts for poetry, drama, and prose. If you specifically search the primary texts, you can search by author nationality, author ethnicity, literary movement or period, or gender.

I also really enjoyed the Poets on Screen collection that is part of this database, where you can watch clips of poems being read aloud, sometimes by the poet.

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

If you need to do research about a literary text, author, literary movement, or genre, this is a great resource to begin your search!

This Valentine’s Day, Go on a Mystery Date with a Book


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!

Students: Take Our Survey. You Could Win a $150 Amazon Gift Card!

A woman adding a fifth star to a large rating box.
Your feedback matters! We use data from this survey to make service enhancements, expenditures, and other library improvements. See the list of examples below for changes we’ve made in response to previous user surveys.

Here in the Libraries, we’re always trying to up our game. That’s why every two (or three) years we invite Duke students to take part in a brief user survey to help us better understand their experiences and thoughts on library spaces, collections, and services.

The survey takes about 5 minutes to complete and will remain open between now and February 15, 2023.

As a special thank you for participating, all student respondents will be entered into a raffle for a $150 Amazon gift card.

When libraries and students work together, everybody wins. Take a look at some of the improvements we’ve made in the past as a direct result of our user surveys.

Changes We Made in Response to Past User Surveys

  • Artwork that reflects diverse backgrounds: You asked for improvements to the artwork in our spaces to better reflect the diversity of the Duke community. We formed a visual diversity committee and completed several projects to feature new artwork in our spaces.
  • Inclusive spaces statement and signage: You asked for visible confirmation that Duke Libraries are open to everyone. We worked with students to develop an Inclusive Spaces Statement,  used welcoming “Libraries are for everyone” artwork for buttons and wall art in Lower Level 2, and also posted wall-mounted “Welcome to the Library” signage near library building entrances.
  • Increased textbook lending: You asked for more textbooks to be available from the library. We purchased textbooks for the 100 highest enrollment classes at Duke and made them available for three-hour checkout at the library.
  • Easier access to online articles and research materials: You asked for help getting access to library resources while off campus. We collected helpful tools and instructions into a single, clear page.
  • All-gender restrooms: You asked for more publicity around the all-gender restrooms in the libraries. We created new signage in Perkins and Bostock libraries to direct people to the all-gender restrooms.
  • Hot/cold water dispensers: You asked for access to hot filtered water 24/7. We added two hot/cold water dispensers to Bostock (floor 3) and Perkins (floor 4).
  • Better incident reporting: You asked for easier ways to report problematic incidents in the library. We created a new library incident reporting form that can be submitted anonymously.
  • Library space design: You asked for our study spaces to work better for a range of needs. We formed a team to review how library spaces can be designed to support student needs, and we also worked directly with patrons with disabilities to learn more about their experiences with library spaces.
  • Help finding books: You asked for help navigating the book stacks on floors with dense shelving. We added signage near stairwells and entrances to point people in the right direction for different book ranges.
  • Lower Level 2 improvements: You asked for a better vibe in Perkins Lower Level 2. We replaced the carpet, changed the paint color, and added brighter lighting.

Curious about other things we’ve learned from past surveys? Check out our 2020 survey summary and our 2018 survey summary.

Feedback is what helps the Libraries grow, and the more input we get, the better we’ll be able to renovate, rethink, and improve.

So please, take a couple minutes of your time to complete the 2023 survey—and thank you for your help in making the Duke University Libraries a better place.

$1,500 Prize for Book Collecting

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.

Submissions due by March 31, 2023

More information: bit.ly/bookcollectors

First Prize

Undergraduate division: $1,500
Graduate division: $1,500

Second Prize

Undergraduate division: $750
Graduate division: $750

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 website for more information and read winning entries from past years. Contact Kurt Cumiskey at kurt.cumiskey@duke.edu with any questions.

Remembering Our Friend, Sara Seten Berghausen

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.

Donate Children’s Books to Book Harvest

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:

  • Select books from Book Harvest’s online wishlist.
  • 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.

Learn more about Book Harvest on their website.

Your End-of-Semester Library Toolkit, Fall 2022

Students studying at table

You’re nearly there! Here are some resources to power you through the end of the semester and beyond.

End-of-Semester Library Events

Miniature Therapy Horses at Lilly Library – Sunday, December 11th from 11 AM to 1 PM. Take a break from studying and drop by Lilly Library to de-stress with the miniature therapy horses from Stampede of Love and relax with some snacks and hot cider!

Let’s Create: Zine Making PartyMonday, Dec. 12th, 2:30 to 4 pm, and Thursday, Dec. 15th, 11 am to 12:30 pm in The Oasis, Room 418, Perkins Library – Studies show creating art reduces stress and enhances well-being. So come make a zine with us during finals week to reflect on your semester. Zine making materials and snacks will be provided. 

 Crafternoon – Tuesday, December 13th from 3 to 5 PM. Stop by Perkins Library to relax and clear your mind with various crafting activities: coloring, origami, make-your-own bookmarks and zines, and more!

Lilly Relaxation Station – Sunday, December 11th to Monday, December 19th. Take a break and refresh during Reading and Exam Period! Open 24/7: Puzzles, games, Play-Doh, origami, coloring… just chill for a bit in Lilly’s 1st floor classroom!

To Help You Study

Take a Break

Take Care of Yourself

The Library @ Home

The library is always here for you!  Maybe you already know that you can access many of our online resources from home or that you can check out books to take home with you.  We also have movies and music that you can stream and some e-books that you can download to your devices. Here are some of the resources we have to do this!

Streaming Video includes:

Kanopy: Watch thousands of award-winning documentaries and feature films including titles from the Criterion Collection.

SWANK Digital Campus: Feature films from major Hollywood studios.

See the full list: bit.ly/dukevideos.

Overdrive Books:

Go to duke.overdrive.com to access downloadable eBooks and audiobooks that can be enjoyed on all major computers and devices, including iPhones®, iPads®, Nooks®, Android™ phones and tablets, and Kindles®.

Streaming Music includes:

Contemporary World Music: Listen to music from around the world, including reggae, Bollywood, fado, American folk music, and more.

Jazz Music Library:  Access a wide range of recordings from jazz classics to contemporary jazz.

Medici.tv: Browse an online collection of classical music, operas and ballets.

Metropolitan Opera on Demand:  For opera fans, a large selection of opera videos from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

Naxos Music Library:  Huge selection of classical music recordings—over 1,925,000 tracks!

Smithsonian Global Sound: Find and listen to streaming folk and related music

See the full list: library.duke.edu/music/resources/listening-online

Mobile Apps: Research, Read, and Watch on the Go


Have you wondered if there are mobile apps that could assist you in conducting research from a smartphone or tablet? We did, and here are the ones we’ve tried and verified. These apps are accessible to you as a student, researcher, or faculty member affiliated with Duke. Each application was easy to download, authenticate, sign in, and begin using! Follow the hyperlinks for step-by-step instructions on uploading and using.


The Ebsco Mobile App is designed for library users to access library resources for scholarly research on the move. What can you do? Download and read EBSCO eBooks™., listen to your PDF articles via audio play, save articles for later reference, pull up your previously viewed or searched results, stay organized with access to the items you’ve saved across devices, and share articles or links with your peers easily. Imagine you’re on the C-1 bus thinking about that one research question you need to find peer-reviewed literature to answer. With the Ebsco app, you can type in your question and pull up relevant articles before you reach your stop!


The Ask a Librarian App is a hands-down winner. After you set up Duke University Libraries as your default library (instructions here), you can reach out via email or phone, but most importantly by chat, and a real-live librarian (no bots here!) will support you in answering all of your research questions. Chatting is as easy as texting! We love the convenience of this app and being able to help you find the resources you need in real-time. Hours of operation are here.


The DukeMobile App is an excellent shortcut for getting to the library catalog on the go. When you go to the menu bar, you’ll see an open book icon that says “Library” click on that, and then you’ll be taken straight to Duke University Libraries, where you can access all our digital resources. If you’re like us, sometimes our aha moments come when we’re away from the desk. If you’re walking between classes and think of a book or journal article you’d like to locate, you can instantly do so from your DukeMobile app without missing a step!


The Zotero App is a great research assistant that helps organize and manage your citations (and annotations), and now you can update references on the go. And if you prefer Endnote for your citation needs, there’s an app for you too! The Endnote Mobile App allows you to collect, collaborate, and create bibliographies anywhere. The benefit of both citation apps is that wherever you are, you can pull up your synced references and bibliographies, and if you are browsing an article on your phone that you want to save, you can quickly add it to your list.


What about library resources for research and pleasure? Forget Netflix; we recommend the Kanopy Mobile App for streaming educational documentaries, great films, and movies! Kanopy provides access to independent and documentary films ─  titles of unique social and cultural value from The Criterion Collection and Media Education Foundation. The beauty of the Kanopy app is that you can watch films on your phone or tablet regardless of where you are. Loung in the comfort of your dorm room while streaming that documentary you’ve been assigned for class!


Have you added the Libby by Overdrive Mobile App to your phone yet? Do it today, and start listening to popular fiction or nonfiction as an audiobook or curl up with a great eBook wherever you are. Libby offers offline access, which means when you download your selection, you can read or stream when you’re offline. The Libby app audiobooks are a great way to mix up your next gym workout and get to that booklist you’re dying to read!


We are always looking for mobile-friendly research resources that make your life easier. Please comment below the post if you have apps you use for research you’d like to share!


 

RESCHEDULED: Environmental Peacebuilding: A Conversation with Dr. Erika Weinthal


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.

Congratulations to Our Research and Writing Award Winners!

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!

Lowell Aptman Prize

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

Chester P. Middlesworth Award

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

Ole R. Holsti Prize

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

Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award

Recognizing outstanding undergraduate creative writing.

  • Jocelyn Chin for “Waiting at the Well: Essays”
  • 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.

Date: Friday, October 14
Time: 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Location: Carpenter Conference Room (Rubenstein Library 249)

Event Debrief: “Manuscript Fragmentation Across Cultures”

This post was authored by Matthew Hayes, Librarian for Japanese Studies and Asian American Studies.

On September 9, 2022, Duke faculty, librarians, archivists, graduate students, and affiliates from the Manuscript Migration Lab gathered in the Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall at Smith Warehouse to discuss how incorporating cultural diversity can broaden humanities research in general and, in particular, the young and interdisciplinary field of “fragmentology.”

The disassembly of manuscripts into fragments is something that happens over time, whether by accident or design. Despite the fact that fragmentation occurs in every textual culture, however, scholars who study medieval manuscripts have tended to ignore the contextual and cultural diversity of fragments. As a result, their primary sources (and objects of discussion) have often been only manuscripts from medieval Europe, to the exclusion of the rest of the world. This symposium was an attempt to broaden our perception of the term “fragmentology” to include these often-ignored cross-cultural realities.

To this end, symposium attendees were asked to consider several guiding questions: Can we apply the term “fragmentology” equally to textual cultures well beyond medieval Europe? How might we define the production, use, and value of manuscript fragments in cultural contexts that may have very different considerations in the production, use, and valuation of texts as objects? And what broad conclusions can we draw from these comparisons with regard to the role of fragmentary manuscripts in Europe and parts of East Asia? Each of the three invited speakers sought to answer these questions from their own regional perspective.

Dr. Christopher Nugent, Professor of Chinese at Williams College, was the first speaker and focused on the example of the literary anthology titled Repository of Rabbit Garden Questions (Tuyuan cefu 兔園冊府). The content of this anthology is delivered in a question-and-answer-style model and annotations added later were meant to prepare individuals for civil service examinations. Yet, among those manuscripts unearthed at Dunhuang, they only contain the first fascicle of this anthology. Dr. Nugent highlighted the tension between, on the one hand, textual contraction by way of fragmentation and, on the other, textual expansion by way of annotation, and enumerated several issues that remained in conversation throughout the afternoon: Why were fragments important to premodern communities that engaged with them? What does the fragmentation of manuscripts tell us about their reception and reuse over time?

Dr. Nugent referring to one of the cave interiors at Dunhuang. Photo by the author.

Dr. Nugent’s discussion concluded with further provocations surrounding heritage and repatriation by focusing on the figure of the French Sinologist Paul Pelliot (pictured below), known for having helped to excavate the “Library Caves” at Dunhuang and for removing large caches of texts that are now housed in museums and libraries around the world. Considering the fact that premodern Dunhuang was a multiethnic region historically occupied by not only Chinese, but also Mongol, Tibetan, and Uyghur peoples, among many other groups, Dr. Nugent asked: To whom do we repatriate these fragments? How do we mediate between modern territorialities and the multiethnic realities of premodern eras?

Paul Pelliot at work in the “Library Caves” at Dunhuang. Wikimedia Commons.

Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis, paleographer, codicologist, and Professor of Manuscript Studies at Simmons College, was the second speaker and explored some of the common criteria for fragmentation in medieval European contexts, with a focus on the status of collections within the United States. With regard to common criteria, Dr. Davis gave an overview of the practice of fragmentation in the context of loose leaves and ornamental cutting, but also of in situ fragmentary reuse, such as in new bindings and paste-downs. In all of these cases, we can observe sets of social practices that differed markedly from those explored by Dr. Nugent.

Dr. Davis covering some examples of in situ uses of fragments. Photo by the author.

Like Dr. Nugent’s discussion of the exploits of Paul Pelliot, Dr. Davis also focused on an infamous figure in the world of “book-breaking” named Otto Ege. Ege spent several decades of the 20th century disassembling the pages of dozens of medieval illuminated manuscripts, which he reassembled into “portfolios” according to his own loose themes; two of these are held by Duke Libraries (see below) and Dr. Davis referred to both during her talk. As Dr. Davis described, Ege has been a major influence on the current state of fragmented manuscripts in the United States and worldwide; he has produced “portfolios” of unidentifiable provenance under disjointed themes and has misidentified or misdated dozens of the fragments therein. One positive outgrowth of Ege work, however, has been recent initiatives to digitally reassemble the leaves from the Ege “portfolios.”

Cover of Ege’s “Fifteen original Oriental manuscript leaves of six centuries : twelve of the Middle East, two of Russia and one of Tibet : from the collection of and with notes,” Rubenstein Library, Duke University. Photo by the author.
Prayer scroll leaf fragment (Tibet) from Ege’s “Fifteen Original Oriental Manuscripts.” Photo by the author.

The final speaker of the symposium was Dr. Akiko Walley, Maude I. Kerns Associate Professor of Japanese Art at the University of Oregon. Dr. Walley’s talk focused on the production and use of sets of sutra fragments (kyо̄gire 経切) and “mirrors of hands” or calligraphic fragments (tekagami 手鏡) in early modern Japan. Dr. Walley introduced these genres by first exploring the phenomenon of statuary and architectural fragmentation. As she described, whether in the case of the broken-off heads of Buddha statues or broken rooftiles, the fragmented pieces are representative of the larger whole. Art historians can study these fragments as a means of learning about the whole, but even Buddhist devotees will ontologically value the head of the Buddha just the same as they would the entire statue.

Dr. Walley opening her talk with reference to statuary fragments and restoration practices. Photo by the author.

Kyо̄gire and tekagami functioned similarly insofar as they are fragmentary, but were also valued as a representation of the complete source from which they derived; kyо̄gire represent the entire sutra and, ultimately, every word spoken by the Buddha, while tekagami represent the calligrapher’s entire corpus of written work. These fragments were assembled into albums and other ornamental collections and were often displayed as an object of appreciation beginning in the Edo period (1603-1868). In this way, Dr. Walley introduced us to yet another type of social practice surrounding fragments, which differed from the cases of China and Europe.

Dr. Walley presents an image of a burned fragment of the Daihōkō butsu kegonkyō 大方廣佛華嚴經 (Skt: Avataṃsaka sūtra). Photo by the author.

During the Q&A portion of the event, symposium attendees picked up on several threads from the speakers’ talks, especially about the role of technology in the reassembly of fragments, imperatives to repatriate manuscript fragments, instances of talismanic or religious uses of fragments, methodological approaches to Quranic manuscript fragments, and other varieties of social practices surrounding the use of fragments. The event concluded with a group-wide acknowledgment that events like this one, which appears to have been the first of its kind among the young subfield of fragmentology, is only the beginning of a much more comprehensive dialogue surrounding the effectiveness of the term “fragmentology,” what is meant (and not meant) by the term “fragment,” and how cross-cultural considerations can help us to better understand these issues in the context of textual studies, librarianship, and archival and museum practices.

Two opposing leaves from Apidamo dapiposha lun” (“Great Exegesis of Abhidharma,” Rubenstein Library, Duke University). This is another example of Buddhist fragments and does not derive from Ege’s “portfolio.” Photo by the author.

The “Manuscript Fragmentations Across Cultures” symposium was  sponsored by the Manuscript Migration Lab and the Franklin Humanities Institute. For questions about this symposium, please contact its co-organizers, Matthew Hayes (Librarian for Japanese Studies and Asian American Studies) and Clare Woods (Associate Professor of Classical Studies).

Open Access Fee Fund COPE Set to Conclude in Summer 2022

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.

For questions and to offer feedback, please reach out to ScholarWorks, a Center for Scholarly Publishing at the Duke University Libraries: scholarworks@duke.edu.

New Opportunities to Make Your Publications Open Access

Cambridge Open Access

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.

Conducting Research After You Graduate

After you graduate, you will lose some of your access to resources at Duke University Libraries. You can still conduct research, but it may require you to do more digging. Here are some tips to help you!

Options at Duke Libraries

Local Academic Libraries

If you are relocating to a community with a nearby university or college, you can often use some of their library resources. Check their website for exact details of services and policies. Here are common things to look for:

  • Do they have a Friends of the Library program?
  • Can you use some of their online databases if you visit their library?
  • Do they have a rare books and manuscripts collection?

Local Public Libraries

Though they will have less of an academic focus than our libraries, you may be pleasantly surprised by what your public library can provide!

  • Get a free library card at your local library. Sometimes for a small fee you can also get library cards to access resources at the libraries in surrounding towns. 
  • Find out what kinds of online databases they have. They may have access to newspapers, data sets, journal and magazine articles, streaming films, etc.
  • Find out how their interlibrary loan program works. 

Digital Collections

Many libraries and museums have digitized some of their collections. Examples:

Online Repositories

There are legitimate online scholarly repositories that may share scholarly articles (often preprints). Examples:

Your End-of-Semester Library Toolkit, Spring 2022

Students studying at table

You’re nearly there! Here are some resources to power you through the end of the semester and beyond.

End-of-Semester Library Events

Miniature Therapy Horses at Lilly Library – Saturday, April 23rd from 11 AM to 1 PM. Take a break from studying and drop by Lilly Library to de-stress with the miniature therapy horses from Stampede of Love and relax with some snacks!

Crafternoon – Tuesday, April 26th from 1 to 3 PM. Stop by Perkins Library to relax and clear your mind with various crafting activities: coloring, origami, make-your-own bookmarks and zines, and more!

To Help You Study

Take a Break

Take Care of Yourself

The Library @ Home

The library is always here for you!  Maybe you already know that you can access many of our online resources from home or that you can check out books to take home with you.  We also have movies and music that you can stream and some e-books that you can download to your devices. Here are some of the resources we have to do this!

Streaming Video includes:

Kanopy: Watch thousands of award-winning documentaries and feature films including titles from the Criterion Collection.

SWANK Digital Campus: Feature films from major Hollywood studios.

See the full list: bit.ly/dukevideos.

Overdrive Books:

Go to duke.overdrive.com to access downloadable eBooks and audiobooks that can be enjoyed on all major computers and devices, including iPhones®, iPads®, Nooks®, Android™ phones and tablets, and Kindles®.

Streaming Music includes:

Contemporary World Music: Listen to music from around the world, including reggae, Bollywood, fado, American folk music, and more.

Jazz Music Library:  Access a wide range of recordings from jazz classics to contemporary jazz.

Medici.tv: Browse an online collection of classical music, operas and ballets.

Metropolitan Opera on Demand:  For opera fans, a large selection of opera videos from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

Naxos Music Library:  Huge selection of classical music recordings—over 1,925,000 tracks!

Smithsonian Global Sound: Find and listen to streaming folk and related music

See the full list: library.duke.edu/music/resources/listening-online

You Passed! Now Pass It On. Donate Your Textbooks to the Library.

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.)

For Library Staff, Remote Work Is a Booklover’s Paradise

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!

Treat Your Pretty Little Self to a Mystery Date with a Book


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!

Native Americans in North Carolina: the Path from the Past to the Present

Native Americans in North Carolina:
the Path from the Past to the Present

The research and suggested resources presented in the article Imagining Duke’s Campus in 1000 AD inspire the Lilly Library exhibit: Native Americans in North Carolina: the Path from the Past to the Present. Tangible artifacts and reference material highlighting the history of Native Americans in North Carolina  carry us together on a journey over time to the campus experience of today. The exhibit presents historical evidence predating European contact, records and accounts of the university’s Native American student experience, and a look at the extent of Native American tribal reach in present day North Carolina.

North Carolina: The Arrival of Europeans

Book cover
A New Voyage to Carolina, John Lawson (1709)

When the first Europeans arrived in what they called Carolina, the 16th century surveyor John White depicted in detail the established villages and individuals living on the land near Roanoke. A century later John Lawson catalogued the peoples and bounty of the land he traveled. His account A New Voyage to Carolina (produced in 1709) revealed the diversity of nature especially flora and of the nations of Native Americans. An original edition of Lawson’s book is found in the Rubenstein Library collection but does not circulate.
For Duke community members with NetIDs who wish  to examine Lawson’s work, reprints and online versions are readily available.

Duke: The Arrival of Joseph S. Maytubby

Maytubby
Joseph S. Maytubby (Image from Duke University Archives)

The relationship between Duke and its Native American constituents goes back further in history than one might expect. In 1892, Trinity College (the predecessor to Duke University) saw the arrival of Joseph S. Maytubby on its campus in Durham. Maytubby, a member of the Chickasaw tribe became the first Native American to receive a degree from Trinity College. An excellent student, he served as president of the Hesperian Literary Society, was involved with the Trinity Archive literary magazine, played football, and, as a capstone to his stellar academic career, his oratory skills won the Wiley Gray Medal competition for the 1896 commencement.

Duke Magazine Retro: Native Americans at Trinity in the Nineteenth Century provides more insight into university history and Mr. Maytubby’s experience.

Today: the Path Continues

In present day, the Duke Native American Student Alliance serves as a resource and advocates on behalf of Native American Students on campus. Read its mission statement to learn more. One element of NASA’s stated mission is to advance the awareness of Native American culture throughout campus and the state.

Map of NC Tribal Communities – source: North Carolina Dept. of Administration

It is not generally known that North Carolina has the largest Native American population east of the Mississippi River. North Carolina is home to eight tribes recognized tribes by the state, including the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation – the only federally recognized Native American community in North Carolina.   This exhibit offers a glimpse into the complicated and often uncomfortable history of the Native American tale.

The Lilly Library exhibit Native Americans in North Carolina: the Path from the Past to the Present is on display until March 1, 2022.
Curated by Librarians Greta Boers and Carson Holloway. Artifacts on display are from the collections of Carson Holloway and Greta Boers.

“The Water Defenders” Wins 2021 Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America

The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed (Beacon Press, 2021), by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, is the winner of the 2021 Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America.

This is the thirteenth year of this prestigious award. The award is supported by the Duke Human Rights Center@the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Human Rights Archive at the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscripts Library.

The Water Defenders tells the story of courageous El Salvadorans who fought together to combat the exploitation of their country’s natural resources. As the writers note, while this story is about El Salvador, as importantly, it is “also about how global corporations—be they Big Gold or Big Pharma or Big Tobacco or Big Oil or Big Banks—move into poorer communities in countries all over the world.”

Broad and Cavanagh will accept the award and talk about their work at a virtual event on Tuesday, February 22, at 5:00 pm EST.

Robin Kirk, chair of the selection committee and co-director of the Duke Human Rights Center, noted that the book is both timely and representative of long-standing conflict around natural resources in Latin America. “Since Europeans first began exploiting the region’s wealth, native populations have fought back,” Kirk said. “But rarely have we been so well and intricately guided on how these fights take shape in villages and towns that rarely make the news. It is there, to paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, that human rights takes shape and gains real power to make positive change.”

The judges were unanimous in their praise. Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist at Duke’s Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, noted:

Broad and Cavanagh address how international global capital, particularly Big Mining, connects climate change and human rights in its pursuit of profit extraction at the cost of local communities. The authors tell this story by focusing in on a singular set of communities in El Salvador and the individual lives impacted by these vast processes. I liked how the authors historically situated the current fight for clean land and water as an extension of the long human rights struggles in Central America, and how those struggles created a very capable indigenous human rights movement. I was particularly drawn to the autochthonous nature of the activism that confronted the insurgent mining interests. The book underscores the agency of these activists, their intelligence and sophisticated understanding of the issues confronting their communities, as well as their agile deployment of human rights strategies to defend their communities.

Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, a senior legal adviser to Human Rights Watch and a former Méndez winner, noted that “This is an inspiring story about how people with limited resources were able to organize and protect their community. It’s well told, and highly relevant to current events, including protest movements over mining and environmental harm throughout the region.”

For Prof. Kirsten Weld, also a former Méndez winner and professor of history at Harvard University, the story was important and “told with brio, very readable and inspiring. It engages the politics of extractivism in a way that resonates beyond the Salvadoran case.”

When notified of the award, Broad and Cavanagh stated, “We are deeply honored by this Award which we accept in the names of the hundreds of environmental defenders who are murdered each year around the world for fighting for the most basic of human rights. So too are we honored by the fact that the Award is named for the venerable human right champion, Juan Méndez. May the victories of the Salvadoran water defenders inspire us all to rethink the possible.”

First awarded in 2008, the Méndez Human Rights Book Award honors the best current non-fiction book published in English on human rights, democracy, and social justice in contemporary Latin America. The books are evaluated by a panel of expert judges drawn from academia, journalism, human rights, and public policy circles.

See the Méndez Book Award website for more information and previous award winners.

Congratulations to Our Research and Writing Award Winners!

We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2020-2021 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!

Lowell Aptman Prize

Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using sources from the Libraries’ general collections.

  • 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.
  • First/ Second Year Winner: Eric Zhou for “History of Decriminalization of Capoeira in the 1930s,” nominated by Dr. Sarah Town.  

Chester P. Middlesworth Award

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 Winner: Mary Helen Wood for “‘The Very Reality of God:’ Jimmy Creech, The United Methodist Church, and the Fight for LGBTQ+ Acceptance in North Carolina,” nominated by Dr. Nancy MacLean.
  • Graduate: Jacqueline Allain for “Maria Griffin, et al.: Slavery’s Intimate World,” nominated by Dr. Trudi Abel.

Ole R. Holsti Prize

Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using primary sources for political science or public policy.

  • Chitra Balakrishnan tor “Creating Response Networks to Address Victims of Incel Activity.”
  • Savannah Norman for “Assessing the Evaluation Methods of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Latin American Compact Projects.”

Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award

Recognizing outstanding undergraduate creative writing.

Your End-of-Semester Library Toolkit, Fall 2021

You’ve almost made it! Here are some resources to help you power through the end of the semester and beyond.

End-of-Semester Library Events

  • The Paper Station – Thursday, Dec. 2nd from 7-9 PM near the Perkins service desk. Get drop-in help from writing studio consultants and librarians. De-stress by creating your own zine or bookmark!
  • Study Break at Lilly – Monday, Dec. 6th from 3-4:30 PM on the Lilly front steps. Take a break from studying and drop by Lilly for snacks, popcorn, and cider!

To Help You Study

Take a Break

Take Care of Yourself

The Library @ Home

The library is always here for you!  Maybe you already know that you can access many of our online resources from home or that you can check out books to take home with you.  We also have movies and music that you can stream and some e-books that you can download to your devices. Here are some of the resources we have to do this!

Streaming Video includes:

Kanopy: Watch thousands of award-winning documentaries and feature films including titles from the Criterion Collection.

SWANK Digital Campus: Feature films from major Hollywood studios.

See the full list: bit.ly/dukevideos.

Overdrive Books:

Go to duke.overdrive.com to access downloadable eBooks and audiobooks that can be enjoyed on all major computers and devices, including iPhones®, iPads®, Nooks®, Android™ phones and tablets, and Kindles®.

Streaming Music includes:

Contemporary World Music: Listen to music from around the world, including reggae, Bollywood, fado, American folk music, and more.

Jazz Music Library:  Access a wide range of recordings from jazz classics to contemporary jazz.

Medici.tv: Browse an online collection of classical music, operas and ballets.

Metropolitan Opera on Demand:  For opera fans, a large selection of opera videos from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

Naxos Music Library:  Huge selection of classical music recordings—over 1,925,000 tracks!

Smithsonian Global Sound: Find and listen to streaming folk and related music

See the full list: library.duke.edu/music/resources/listening-online

The Paper Station

Looking to de-stress and get research and writing help?

Join us at The Paper Station on Thursday, December 2nd from 7-9 pm near the Perkins service desk on the 1st floor of Perkins Library!

At The Paper Station, you can:

  • Meet with Thompson Writing Studio consultants for 20-minute lightning consultations and get handouts with writing tips.
  • Create your own zine or bookmark.
  • Find scholarly sources for your papers and projects with support from our librarians.
  • Learn Google Scholar tips and tricks like how to avoid paywalls.
  • Get help navigating citation manuals and using citation management tools.

This event is co-sponsored by Duke University Libraries and the Thompson Writing Studio.

Take Our Survey. You Could Win a $50 Amazon Gift Card!

We’re interested in feedback about your experience using Perkins & Bostock, Rubenstein Library study spaces, von der Heyden study spaces, and Lilly Library this fall. Please complete this SHORT (2-min!) survey, and be entered in a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card.

Your responses are confidential and will help us improve library services and spaces. Thanks in advance for your valuable input!

What Does It Mean When a Librarian Says…?

Thinking emoji
Twemoji12_1f914 by Twitter is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Post contributed by field experience student Sydney Adams. 

Sometimes it may seem like librarians are speaking another language. That’s normal, especially for undergraduate students new to academic research. Librarians use a lot of jargon! Here are some quick definitions for the next time you wonder “What is my librarian talking about?”

 

Call number – The unique combination of letters and numbers that you can use to find a book in Duke’s collection (ex: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is PR6068.O93 H375 2007). Duke uses the Library of Congress Classification Scheme which works well for large research libraries. This blog from the Divinity Library explains how to read Library of Congress call numbers. Ask at the front desk if you have trouble locating a book!

 

Database—An online collection organized by topic of articles, data, or citations that you can search for information related to class projects and more. Search for databases by title or subject on the Duke Libraries website. We have more than 1000!

 

Interlibrary Loan—A service that allows you to borrow materials from another library if we do not have them at Duke. You should never pay for an article while you’re here!

 

Scholarly Source—A source that elevates the quality of your research paper or project. Scholarly sources are written and reviewed by experts in your field of study and are usually published in academic journals, but they can also include published books, conference proceedings, and reports.

 

Special Collections—Collections of items, digital or physical, that are especially rare or unique. At Duke, our special collections are housed in Rubenstein Library. Learn more about Rubenstein’s collections and exhibits online. 

 

Stacks—The area where the library’s books and other materials are stored. At Lilly and Perkins & Bostock, we have “open stacks” where you can search for materials yourself. The stacks are labeled in yellow on our floor maps.

 

Subject SpecialistsLibrarians who serve specific schools, departments, and programs. Have a research question? Reach out to the subject specialist for your area of study!

Witness to Guantanamo Interviews Now Online

Post by Patrick Stawski, Human Rights Archivist in the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Screenshot of a video interview with Mourad Benchellali, a French national who was detained in Guantanamo from January 2002 until July 2004, when he was returned to France. One of 153 interviews now available in the Witness to Guantanamo Digital Collection.

As the nation prepares to mark the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Duke University Libraries are excited to announce the launch of the Witness to Guantanamo Digital Collection. Witness to Guantanamo includes 153 video interviews with former detainees and other individuals—attorneys, chaplains, guards, interrogators, interpreters, government officials, human rights advocates, medical personnel, and journalists—who witnessed the impact of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in the post-9/11 years. An additional 346 short clips from the full-length interviews are also included. English language interviews are accompanied by transcripts, and we are working to transcribe those in other languages as well.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, became the site of the detention center for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Peter Jan Honigsberg, professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, began Witness to Guantanamo (WtG) in fall 2008, after realizing that no one was collecting and preserving the voices and stories of “Gitmo.” He modelled the project after grassroots truth commissions and the Shoah Foundation’s collection of Holocaust survivor testimonies. Professor Honigsberg’s book, A Place Outside the Law: Forgotten Voices from Guantanamo, narrates many of the extraordinary, powerful, and rare stories he filmed over the course of a decade and across 20 countries. His book is a tribute to the humanity we all share.

The full set of interviews are now archived at the Rubenstein Library’s Human Rights Archive and available through the digital repository. Witness to Guantanamo is unique. No one else has done this work. While there are many collections and projects dispersed around the world containing documents, case files, and data about Guantanamo and the U.S. War on Terror, WtG is the only collection that foregrounds the voices of the individuals detained there and whose lives were forever changed by the experience. The video interviews cover a wide range of topics, including physical and psychological torture, lawlessness, religious faith, medical care, interrogations, interminable detentions without charges, sham hearings, women at Guantanamo, and acts of courage.

In one interview, former detainee Mourad Benchellali reflects on his efforts to turn his imprisonment from 2002 to 2004 into something positive, in the hope that by hearing his story, young people will not join ISIS or participate in suicide attacks. “I simply tell them my story, telling them, ‘This is what I found out. This is what I saw in Afghanistan,’” Benchellali says. “I tell them about being tortured. I tell them about bombings. I tell them how groups enlist you… I tell them all of this, and I say, ‘Be careful, here are the dangers you may run into over there, as I did. I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you, but you have to decide for yourself.’”

In another interview, detainee attorney Alkha Pradhan discusses the process of trying to defend her client, Ammar al Baluchi. At one point in her interview, she reflects on how the CIA deployed its classification policy to control her client: “You know, even though these are his memories, these are his experiences, the government continues to classify them and continues to prevent him from being able to tell the world about them… by virtue of being him, by virtue of being again, brown, non-citizen, Muslim detainee in the CIA system, everything he says is classified. Everything he thinks is classified.”

These first-hand testimonies reveal the physical, emotional, and political scars inflicted by Guantanamo. They also underscore how the treatment of detainees and the use of extra-legal procedures hobbled rather than enabled the rule of law and the quest for truth and justice. They are an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and people around the world to reflect on the path taken by the U.S. in the years following 9/11. The Human Rights Archive is planning an exhibit based on the Witness to Guantanamo collection for January 2022 at the Power Plant Gallery in downtown Durham to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the first detainees arriving at Guantanamo in 2002. More information about the exhibit will be coming soon.

Join Our Student Advisory Boards!

Help us improve the library experience at Duke and make your voice heard by joining one of our student advisory boards.

The Duke University Libraries are now accepting applications for membership on the 2021-2022 student library advisory boards.

Members of these 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.

The boards will typically meet three times a semester to discuss all aspects of Duke Libraries and provide feedback to library staff. This is an amazing opportunity for students to serve on the advisory board of a large, nationally recognized non-profit organization.

All three advisory boards are now taking applications or nominations.  Application deadlines are:

Members  of the Graduate and Professional Student Advisory Board and the Undergraduate Advisory Board will be selected and notified by mid-September, and groups will begin to meet in late September. More information is available on the advisory board website, where you will also find links to the online applications forms.

For more information or questions about these opportunities, please contact:

Graduate and Professional Student Advisory Board
and Undergraduate Advisory Board

Angela Zoss
Assessment & Data Visualization Analyst
angela.zoss@duke.edu
919-684-8186

 

 

First-Year Advisory Board

Ira King
Evening Reference Librarian and Supervisor, Lilly Library
ira.king@duke.edu
919-660-9465

 

7 Back-to-School Library Pro Tips (You Won’t Believe Number 6!)

 


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. 

“Library Takeout” Wins Library Film Festival

Screen Still of Library Takeout Video

Hey, does anybody remember “Library Takeout”?

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!

Last week, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announced that “Library Takeout” had won their annual ARL Film Festival (the Arlies), carrying home the trophy in three different categories: How-To/Instructional Films, Best Humor, and (drumroll please) Best of Show.

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.

Meet Lilly’s Class of 2021

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?

Lilly’s Graduate Student Assistants

young woman
Grace in one of her favorite spots in Lilly Library

Do you remember the Library before the covid era? If you had ever been in Lilly Library late in the evenings, you may have seen our graduate student assistant, Odunola (who goes by Grace) at our desk. We are fortunate that Grace continued to work with us this past year. And, what a year it has been!

Adjusting to a very different library schedule, re-shelving thousands of returned books that were warehoused during the summer of 2020, scrupulously searching for books requested for Library Take-Out, and even helping staff prepare over 1500 “Welcome” library goodie bags for the Class of 2024 – Grace has been a vital member of our Lilly team this past year.

Now is your chance to get to know Grace in this profile, and you will appreciate her as much we do!

Graduate Student Grace

Close up of young woman in front of Duke Chapel
Grace celebrating graduation
  • Hometown: Oyan, Osun State, Nigeria
  • Family: Father, Mother, a brother, two sisters, three nieces, and a nephew.
  • Academic field of study:
    Medical Physics M.Sc.
  • Activities on campus:
    Member of GPSG, walking, my research work involved 3D printing and working with the staff at the Duke Innovation Co-Lab
  • Favorite on-campus activity:
    Visiting the Duke clinics to shadow physicists, performing QA on medical equipment like the Linac and the brachytherapy afterloader.
  • Favorite off-campus activity:
    Participating in my local church’s monthly food drive to support the community.
  • Favorite off-campus eatery:
    Shanghai (on Hillsborough)

Describe your work in Lilly and the changes you saw this pandemic year:

Woman at railing
Grace surveying the Lilly lobby

Q: What’s the strangest or most interesting book or movie you’ve come across in Lilly?
A: There was a book (I can’t really remember the title) that showed portraits of African/Black women drawn during the slave trade era. According to the author, having one’s portrait done at that time was a thing of honor, however, the women were posed in such a dishonorable way because they were slaves even though they were beautiful to behold. It was an odd book.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at Lilly?
A: Manning the front desk and being able to help people out, working with kind and flexible staff members, occasional free food

Q: Least favorite?
A: Book search – I feel I have left the task incomplete when I do not find the book.

Q: What is one memory from Lilly that you will never forget?
A: How excited I was to come back after the initial lockdown restriction was eased. I truly missed working at Lilly.

Q: What is working in a now almost empty Lilly like compared to your past work at the Lilly desk?
A: It was quite strange at first. The pandemic was unexpected and its effects were far-reaching. The usually busy front desk and reading rooms became deserted and really quiet. It was quite strange. I miss the hustle and bustle of pre-covid.

Q: What will you miss most about Lilly?
A: The building itself! I love the architecture from the outside and the different rooms, especially the Thomas room upstairs. Apparently, I love old buildings.

Q: What are your plans after finishing your degree and leaving Duke?
A: I will be proceeding to obtain a Ph.D. degree in Medical Physics from the University of Alberta in Canada.

We wish Grace the best and much success as she continues her studies far from Duke. Congratulations!

DivE-In Encourages You to Take 5

Guest post by Ciara Healy, Librarian for Psychology & Neuroscience, Mathematics, and Physics

Every month, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council (DivE-In) of the Duke University Libraries recommends five free activities, programs, and educational opportunities that address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. For more about diversity initiatives at the Duke University Libraries, visit our website.


1. 2021 Cinematic Arts Student Film Showcase
May 1-15, 2021

Free and open to the public via YouTube. You can vote for best picture! After viewing the entire program, please vote for the 2021 Audience Choice Award winner in the survey linked below: https://tinyurl.com/2021AudienceChoic… Survey password: audience2021vote. Roll out your own red carpet, dress fancy, sit in your limo, wait for a long time and complain about how your fancy outfit is itchy.

2. Ruangrupa at 20-22 The Ongoing Biennial
May 5, 1:00 p.m. EST

A weekly conversation cycle with international curators, facilitated by FHI Social Practice Lab Director Pedro Lasch. “The first year of the public program will focus on short online dialogues with individual guests. Our one hour long remote events will begin with a casual interview, focusing on the particular trajectory and ideas of each guest in the series, followed by comments from a respondent and questions from the audience.” Registration required.

3. “The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa” Book Launch Conference
May 14, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST

“This handbook generates new insights that enrich our understanding of the history of Islam in Africa and the diverse experiences and expressions of the faith on the continent. The chapters in the volume cover key themes that reflect the preoccupations and realities of many African Muslims.” Registration required.

4. Film Trip: How Documentaries Build Bridges to a Larger World
Begins May 12 and runs through May 19

Use this link to access the registration page via the Center for Documentary Studies. Register for particular events or the whole series. Please note that this is an ongoing series and there are earlier Teach the Teacher sessions available to view now. No need to recreate your Film Showcase routine. Stay humble.

5. Virtues & Vocations Presents Nicki Washington
May 25, 1:00 p.m. EST

Why should Computer Science care about identity? Come find out. Registration required.

Student Research and Writing Prizes: Win $1,000 or More!

Each year, the Duke University Libraries offer four different prizes to reward excellence in student writing. If you’re a Duke student, consider submitting your work for one of these prizes. The awards carry a cash prize of $1,000 (Aptman, Holsti and Middlesworth) or $1,500 (Rosati).

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.
  • See the Application Guidelines for more information about how to submit your research for consideration.

Middlesworth Awards

  • 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.
  • Learn more about submitting your work.

Holsti Prize

  • 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.
  • Learn more about submitting your work.

The Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award

A Few Words in Memory of Our Friend, Sam

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. 

— Winston Atkins (Retired), Preservation Librarian


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.

— Glenda Lacoste (Retired), Interlibrary Loan, Perkins Library


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.

—Valerie Gillispie, University Archivist

$1,500 Prize for Book Collecting

The Duke University Libraries are proud to present the 2021 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.

Submissions due by March 31, 2021

More information: bit.ly/bookcollectors

First Prize

Undergraduate division: $1,500
Graduate division: $1,500

Second Prize

Undergraduate division: $750
Graduate division: $750

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 website for more information and read winning entries from past years. Contact Kurt Cumiskey at kurt.cumiskey@duke.edu with any questions.

For Valentine’s Day, We Offer Some of Our Favorite Literary Crushes

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:

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:

  • Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country: “Travel without having to fly….”
  • Catherine Baily, Secret Rooms: “A haunted castle, a plotting duchess, and a family secret.”

Selected by Hannah Rozear, Librarian for Instructional Services and Global Health:

  • Mike Carey, The Girl with All the Gifts: “Zombie kiddo loves her teacher, and also spores!”
  • Stefan Fatsis, Word Freak: “Wonderful word weirdos. Glimpse inside the world of competitive Scrabble.”

Selected by Sarah Park, Librarian for Engineering and Computer Science:

Selected by Katie Henningsen, Head of Research Services, Rubenstein Library:

  • Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo: “Love, Revenge, and Money.”
  • Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows: “Ocean’s Eleven but make it 17th-century Amsterdam. Read it before the adaptation shows up on Netflix in April!”

Selected by Lee Sorensen, Librarian for Visual Studies and Dance, Lilly Library

  • Collin Thurbron, Night of Fire: “John Banville and I think this is the best book we’ve read in years. Zen meets Spoon River Anthology.”

Selected by Sara Seten Berghausen, Associate Curator of Collections, Rubenstein Library

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.”

DivE-In Encourages You to Take 5

Guest post by Ciara Healy, Librarian for Psychology & Neuroscience, Mathematics, and Physics

Every month, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council (DivE-In) of the Duke University Libraries recommends five free activities, programs, and educational opportunities that address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. For more about diversity initiatives at the Duke University Libraries, visit our website.


1. Covert Racism in Economics
Wednesday, 2/10, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

“John Komlos will explain that mainstream economic theory is replete with implications that feed into structural racism inasmuch as it has the unintended consequence of severely disadvantaging people at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, which in the U.S. includes a disproportionate number of Hispanics, Indigenous people, and those whose ancestors were slaves.” Registration required.

2. Runway of Dreams Adaptive Fashion Show
Thursday, 2/11, 7:00 p.m.

The fashion show is live streamed on YouTube, beginning at 7:00 p.m., hosted by the Runway of Dreams clubs at Duke and NC State. Also a Facebook event. No registration required.

3. Duke Women in National Security
Monday, 2/15, 5:30 – 6:45 p.m.

“Kim Kotlar will join five female career national security experts for a discussion on their experiences in the Department of Defense, State Department, and the Intelligence Community.” Registration required.

4. Alternatives to Police Response to Behavioral Crises
Tuesday, 2/16, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.

“A panel of experts—Dr. Tracie Keesee, Co-founder and Senior Vice President of Justice Initiatives at the Center for Policing Equity; Timothy Black, Director of Consulting for White Bird Clinic; and Christy E. Lopez, Professor from Practice at Georgetown Law—will discuss alternatives to police responses when it comes to behavioral health crises.” Registration required.

5. Interpreting American Sign Language
Tuesday, 2/16, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

“Join us for a conversation with ASL interpreters Brian Tipton and Kevin Pérez, who will offer a primer on what sign-language interpretation is, what it means for community members who are deaf or hard of hearing, and the challenges and rewards they experience as interpreters. Mr. Tipton and Mr. Pérez are committed to advocating for access and to educating the larger public on the vital role that interpreters play in so many environments, such as legal, educational, medical, and mental health contexts.” Registration required.

 

Reduced Services in December and Closed for the Holidays

  • Library Takeout, ePrint, and equipment reservations will be available in Bostock Library from 11 am to 4 pm through December 11.
  • Reservable study spaces will be available in Lilly Library from 1 to 6 pm from Monday, November 30 through Friday, December 11.
  • Equipment and Takeout will be available for limited hours in Lilly and Music Libraries.

See more info on the Library Hours page. Duke ID and SymMon clearance are required for building access.

Request Library Takeout Materials by December 8

If you need materials during the intersession, we strongly urge you to request them by December 8. December 11 will be the final day to pick up anything from Duke University Libraries until January.

Closed for the Holidays

All libraries will close by 6 pm on December 11 – at different times that day at different locations – and remain closed through January 3. While online resources will remain available, we will be shutting down almost all remote services. Our Ask a Librarian service will have limited capacity for email responses, but librarians will not be responding to chats.

Library Access Limited, January 4 to 19

Students who are cleared to remain on campus through the intersession must continue to participate in testing to access library buildings; they will need to swipe in, show their SymMon clearance, and demonstrate a need to be in the library (e.g., Takeout). Students who are not compliant with testing will have their swipe access cut off until they comply with testing.

Undergraduate and graduate students who have NOT been cleared to remain on campus through the intersession will need to test and quarantine as soon as they return to campus, and they cannot test and begin quarantine any earlier than January 11. Beginning January 13, students who have tested, quarantined, and received a negative result will have swipe access to library buildings during open hours. Students will need to show their SymMon clearance and demonstrate a need to be in the library (e.g., Takeout).

Library services and hours will be limited between January 4 and 19. You can learn more on the Library hours page.

Your End-of-Semester Toolkit

This blog post was co-written by Brittany Wofford, Librarian for the Nicholas School of the Environment, and Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Librarian for Literature and Theater Studies.

Exam time? Bring it on! Here are some resources to help you power through the end of semester and beyond.

To Help You Study

Take a Break

Take Care of Yourself

The Library @Home

The library is always here for you!  Maybe you already know that you can access many of our online resources from home or that you can check out books to take home with you.  We also have movies and music that you can stream and some e-books that you can download to your devices. Check out this recent blog post for some specific title recommendations! Here are some of the resources we have to do this!

Streaming Video includes:

Kanopy: Watch thousands of award-winning documentaries and feature films including titles from the Criterion Collection.

SWANK Digital Campus: Feature films from major Hollywood studios.

See the full list: bit.ly/dukevideos.

Overdrive Books:

Go to duke.overdrive.com to access downloadable eBooks and audiobooks that can be enjoyed on all major computers and devices, including iPhones®, iPads®, Nooks®, Android™ phones and tablets, and Kindles®.

Streaming Music includes:

Contemporary World Music: Listen to music from around the world, including reggae, Bollywood, fado, American folk music, and more.

Jazz Music Library:  Access a wide range of recordings from jazz classics to contemporary jazz.

Medici.tv: Browse an online collection of classical music, operas and ballets.

Metropolitan Opera on Demand:  For opera fans, a large selection of opera videos from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

Naxos Music Library:  Huge selection of classical music recordings—over 1,925,000 tracks!

Smithsonian Global Sound: Find and listen to streaming folk and related music

See the full list: library.duke.edu/music/resources/listening-online

 

Congratulations on finishing Fall 2020!

 

Take the Library Home Over Winter Break

Image showing interfaces to different databases

Trying to figure out what you’re going to do over your extra long Winter Break this year? You might already know you can access many of our library resources from home and that you can use Library Takeout to check out print books, but you may not know about some of the libraries’ more fun-focused online resources. Keep reading for popular streaming video, streaming music, and eBook resources! Duke’s personal librarians also share books, films, and other resources that they’ve been enjoying. 

Streaming Video

Duke has access to dozens of streaming video databases. Here are three I recommend checking out if you’re looking for something entertaining to watch. 

Kanopy – This database has a vibrant collection of independent films, international films, and documentaries on a broad range of subjects. Think of it as an artsy version of Netflix. 

Swank Digital Campus – If you’re looking for Hollywood movies, this is your spot. Swank has both recent films and older classics in a wide range of genres. 

Academic Video Online (AVON) – This database has a huge collection of videos. Although the platform is most notable for its excellent documentaries (PBS, CNN, and BBC are all featured), it also has a number of independent feature films in its Sony Pictures Classics collection. 

Popular eBooks

Overdrive – This platform has thousands of popular eBooks and audiobooks. Overdrive titles can be enjoyed on a computer, tablet, e-reader, or phone. 

Streaming Music 

Naxos Music Library – This database has a massive collection of classical music with over 2 million tracks streaming. Great for throwing on while you relax at home!

Music Online: Jazz Music Library – This is your go-to spot if you want to stream jazz.  The library includes thousands of artists and albums across a wide range of sub-genres from hard-bop to Latin jazz to swing. 

Metropolitan Opera On Demand – Enjoy more than 700 full-length opera performances in this database.

Personal Librarian Recommendations

Curious what books and films Duke librarians have been enjoying recently? Check out the following recommendations. Unmarriageable Book Cover

Arianne Hartsell-Gundy – I’ve recently read two books. Unmarriageable: A Novel by Soniah Kamal, is a charming and fun retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Pakistan. It’s available on Overdrive and in print at Lilly and Perkins. I also enjoyed The Voting Booth by Brandy Colbert, available on Overdrive. Two first-time teen voters meet at their polling place and fall in love over the course of one crazy day in this YA novel. Bonus: there’s an adorable cat named Selma.

Book Cover for Our History is the Future

Carson Holloway – I’ve read two non-fiction books that were great. The first, Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline by Nick Estes, is about Standing Rock, but also about the long arc of resistance to the erosion of the rights of native people.  The book is well written as a work of history, and it puts the development of indigenous rights in perspective, but it is also a pointed argument about the necessity of persistence. The second is Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano, and translated by Mark Fried. Mirrors is a sort of world history illustrated with factoids that remind us that not only the great men are interesting when big events happen. Galeano was from Uruguay and his perspective on the rise of colonial South America, women’s suffrage, and the role of illiterate people in history is fascinating. 

Lee Sorensen – I’ve been playing around with the David Rumsey online map collection. I started out looking for historical maps of some of the places I was reading about, but soon discovered that the definition of “map” can be fun and entertaining.  For example, I searched for the word “mythical” or “fantastic” and got quite a lot of representational results of imaginary places. I loved the 1938 Shell Oil company visualization of how the airport world would be!  Hoop Dreams

Ira King – I recently re-watched one of my favorite films, Hoop Dreams, which we have streaming on Kanopy. On the surface this 1994 documentary is about basketball, but it encompasses race, class, the American education system, and more as the filmmakers follow two Chicago-area high school basketball players over a five year span. Hoop Dreams is frequently cited as one of the greatest documentaries of all-time, and I’m inclined to agree. I’ve also been enjoying Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past science fiction trilogy that begins with The Three Body Problem. This trilogy is available in audiobook format on Duke’s Overdrive page.

Doll House of Petronella Oortman
Rijksmuseum, Copyrighted free use, via Wikimedia Commons

Greta BoersI’d like to highlight three books I’ve really enjoyed— all long ago stories about women: 

The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish –  a novel that focuses on a Sephardic community in 17th century London and modern day;

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton – a novel about pre-Raphaelite artists in the late 19th century through the 20th;

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton – a novel centered around a traditional burgher household in 17th century Amsterdam.

I liked these books because they are all about women in various historical periods, who are reimagined with more control and more power to shape their own destinies. All three of these novels have interesting connections to historical events. The main character of The Miniaturist is Petronella Oortman whose dollhouse (pictured above) is in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The Jewish Museum London has a blog post about the 17th century Sephardic Jewish community written about in The Weight of Ink. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a fascinating essay with photos of the 17th and 18th century European clocks featured in The Clockmaker’s Daughter

 

Closing Out 2020 at the Libraries

Fall 2020 has been an unprecedented time for all of us, and a semester that required us at the Libraries to adapt almost every aspect of our services. As we come to the final weeks of the term, we will be changing up our hours and the availability of spaces to support reading days and finals, and then reducing and finally shutting down services for the end of 2020.

You can see the full scope of changes over the coming weeks on the Library Hours page, but I’ll share some of the highlights here.

Expanded Hours for Reading Days and Finals

The Libraries will have weekend and expanded hours during the reading period and final exams. Starting November 17, Lilly will open earlier, at 10 am, for the duration of the reading period. The study areas in the West Campus libraries – Perkins, Bostock, and Rubenstein – as well as Lilly on East Campus will also be available starting at 8:30 am over the weekend of November 21-22. On Monday the 23rd Lilly returns to a 10 am open, and maintains that schedule through the final day of exams, November 24, when it will close at 7 pm.

Students studying in the Gothic Reading Room.
Wearing masks and physically distanced, first-year student Kennedy Cleage and classmates study in the Gothic Reading Room of Perkins Library, which is open through reservation only.

Reduced Services During November and Early December

All libraries close by 3 pm on Wednesday, November 25 and remain closed through the weekend. Starting Monday, November 30, services on West Campus will be greatly reduced, as Library Takeout, ePrint, and equipment reservations will be available exclusively at the Bostock entrance from 11 am to 4 pm through December 11. The only available study spaces will be at Lilly, from 1-6 pm Monday through Friday.

If you need materials during the intersession, we strongly urge you to request them by December 8. December 11 will be the final day until January to pick up anything from Duke University Libraries.

Closed for the Holidays

All libraries will close by 6 pm on December 11 – at different times that day at different locations – and remain closed through January 3. While online resources will remain available, we will be shutting down almost all remote services. Our Ask a Librarian service will have limited capacity for email responses, but librarians will not be responding to chats. Libraries will reopen on Monday, January 4.

On behalf of the staff at Duke University Libraries, we thank the Duke community for your patronage during this challenging semester, and wish everyone all the best for final exams, and a safe, restorative time for the end-of-year holidays. We look forward to seeing you again in January!

 

DivE-In Encourages You to Take 5

Guest post by Alex Marsh, Digitization Specialist

Every month, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council (DivE-In) of the Duke University Libraries recommends five free activities, programs, and educational opportunities that address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. For more about diversity initiatives at the Duke University Libraries, visit our website.


1) Saturday, 11/14, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Beginning a Remedy for Racism (Zoom Webinar). Racism is infectious, insidious and injurious to individuals, communities and society. If racism is like a virus, are there remedies available? Christian theology is a resource for a remedy to racism. The Rev. Dr. David Goatley will lead a virtual retreat on the topic of “Beginning a Remedy for Racism.” Dr. Goatley is the Research Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies, and the Director of the Office of Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/yylm5v7y

2) Wednesday, 11/18, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.: Facing Hard Numbers and Harder Conversations: Disparities in Healthcare Access for the LGBTQ+ Community (Zoom Webinar), with special guests Simone Nabors, Hunter and Dr. Dane Whicker. This series features the voices of Duke University students and staff, and covers everything from personal experience stories to data-driven explorations of inequities in care. A virtual event series presented by the Duke University Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies (GWHT). Register here: https://tinyurl.com/y45ru9hs

3) Friday, 11/20, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.: Cultural Heritage Restitution: Ethical and Legal Issues (Zoom Webinar). This workshop discusses the legal and ethical implications of collecting, displaying and holding culturally-significant objects, with particular attention to manuscripts. The event features presentations by Patty Gerstenblith (DePaul College of Law), András Riedlmayer (Harvard University) and Heghnar Watenpaugh. A Q&A will follow each presentation. Hosted by the Manuscript Migration Lab at the Franklin Humanities Institute. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/y4xxuw9d

4) Tuesday, 12/01, 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.: Putting It into Practice: Bystander Intervention (Zoom Webinar). In this interactive workshop, participants will practice bystander interventions to address harmful words and behaviors in the workplace, and think through proactive strategies to improve the context in which those harms occur and create a more equitable culture. The session will utilize a mix of small group discussions, case studies, role plays and group reflection to explore issues such as bias, harassment and power differentials. This workshop will be led by Ada Gregory, Associate Director for Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. Register here: https://bit.ly/3pklTLv

5) Tuesday, 12/08, 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.: Does the American Dream Depend on Your Zip Code? (Zoom Webinar) This talk will explore how children’s chances of climbing the income ladder vary across neighborhoods, analyze the sources of racial disparities in intergenerational mobility, and discuss the role of higher education in creating greater income mobility. The talk will conclude by discussing how local policymakers can harness big data to increase opportunity in their own communities and institutions. The speaker is Raj Chetty, the William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and Director of Opportunity Insights, which uses big data to understand how we can give children from disadvantaged backgrounds better chances of succeeding. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/y5jx9afu

Access to the New York Times Part 1


Access to digital resources is a moving, changing situation and we take this opportunity to update you on what we have access to in the NYT.

The Duke Libraries provide various modes of access to this and other newspapers, magazines, and journals best found through the Online Journal Search.

This includes:
New York times from 1857 to the present in a variety of databases

We also have access to the
New York Times Magazine
1985 to Present; click on Full Text-PDF for printed page facsimile


The New York Times Book Review
1988 to Present; click on Full Text-PDF for printed page facsimile


New York times (Online only)
1996 to Present

You can find this and other journals and newspapers through the Online Journal titles search from the library home page.

Hint: use the Exact Title or Title Begins with search to avoid being overwhelmed by too many hits.

DivE-In Encourages You to Take 5

Guest post by Alex Marsh, Digitization Specialist

Every month, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council (DivE-In) of the Duke University Libraries recommends five free activities, programs, and educational opportunities that address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. For more about diversity initiatives at the Duke University Libraries, visit our website.


1) VOTE, VOTE, VOTE! From October 15-31, anyone eligible to vote in Durham County can use the early voting site that will be set up at the Karsh Alumni and Visitors Center. At the one-stop site, individuals can register and vote the same day. The polls will be open from 8 a.m. through 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Sundays.

2) Action Item: As an actionable way to support anti-racism practices in your personal and professional life, consider what you buy and where it comes from. Supporting BIPOC businesses is an important form of allyship, infusing revenue into businesses that are often denied the same financial assistance white businesses receive. The next time you decide to buy a kitschy mug for your office, or your sister a beautiful hand-made sweater, ask yourself whether or not that item came from a BIPOC business. If not, take a moment to ask yourself, why not? Even a small effort can make a big difference. For a list of Black-owned Durham businesses: https://www.discoverdurham.com/blog/durham-black-owned-businesses/. For a list of BIPOC business in the Triangle and beyond: https://www.redressraleigh.org/poc-owned.

3) North Carolina Latin American Film Festival  Oct. 9 -18: The NC Latin Film Festival celebrates the power and artistry of Latin America’s film and audiovisual production. Its mission is to provide a space in North Carolina for Latin American images, sounds, and stories to reach a wider audience. The 35th season of NCLAFF will be an homage to the best Latin American films produced in the past 35 years. NCLAFF will be a mixed-format, virtual synchronic and a-synchronic film festival. All events are online: https://tinyurl.com/y62wtlfv

4) How Heavily Policed Communities Judge Police, and the Political Effects of Police Violence, Nov. 5, 5:30- 6:30 p.m.: Policing and its sometimes deadly effects on individuals and communities of color have frequently been at the heart of debates and protests about racism in the United States and around the world. In this discussion, Ph.D. students Ajenai Clemmons and Arvind Krishnamurthy will share their research and offer a deeper exploration of the relationship between the police and the policed. https://tinyurl.com/yxemc9c3

5) 2020 Diversity Information Breakfast, Nov. 12, 8:30 a.m.: The Office for Institutional Equity invites the Duke community to the 2020 Diversity Informational Breakfast on Thursday, November 12th at 8:30 a.m. The event will include presentations from three diversity leaders or teams from both Duke Health and Duke University that will highlight racial equity, diversity, or inclusion efforts that inspire and support the advancement of Duke’s collective goals. A brief Q & A will accompany each presentation. Following the presentations, a panelist of several Duke experts will discuss How the Pandemic Has Magnified the Challenges of Achieving Racial Equity in a Post-Election America. The Duke community will have the opportunity to engage the panelists with a moderated Q & A. Visit the Diversity informational Breakfast webpage for more information.






Find Your Seat at the Libraries

Post written by Brittany Wofford and Angela Zoss

Seat yourself! This semester, Duke University Libraries has made over 200 individual study spots available for reservation in Lilly, Perkins, Bostock and Rubenstein Libraries so you can still have the library experience you’ve come to know and love.

Want to (virtually) explore? Check out some of the different spaces below. We know you’ll find something you love!

For more information on the reservations, check out this handy guide.

West Campus

The Perk (Perkins Library, Floor 1)

Get your brightest ideas in the brightest spot in the library! Enjoy single tables and plenty of power in The Perk. With all of the library’s office plants keeping you company, it will be like your very own greenhouse. (PERK 001-014)

The Edge (Bostock Library, Floor 1)

Are you a wild child at heart? Live it up in the evening and nights with a seat in first floor of Bostock with bright lights and colors and plenty of seating options.

The Edge Booths and Meet-ups

The booths and meet-ups give you a little privacy–not to mention comfy padded seats–as you power through your work.  (Booths 101-107, Meet-ups 22 & 123)

The Edge Open Seating

To see and be seen, pick some of the some of the open seating options throughout the floor (Seats 108-121, 131-32, 145-54)

The Edge Rooms

Want the classroom or study room experience with (bonus!) windows as you work? Find your study spot in the Murthy Digital Studio (Murthy/Bostock 121 Seats 125-130), Project Room 7 or 8 (Seats 133-137) or Bostock 127 (Seats 155-172)

The Edge Counter Stools

For the coffee shop experience, check out the counter stools. We provide everything but the latte! (Counter Stool 140-144)

Rubenstein Floor 2

Looking for classic and quiet? The second floor of Rubenstein blends plentiful seating with gorgeous spaces and lots of natural light.

Gothic Reading Room

The Gothic Reading Room offers old-school elegance and modern conveniences – most seats have access to power! (Gothic Reading Room Seats 214-243)

Rubenstein 249

Rubenstein 249 is the Carpenter Meeting Room, giving each seat plenty of table space and a quiet room to concentrate ( Rubenstein 249 Seats 244-248)

Open Seating

The second floor of Rubenstein also has 13 seats in open spaces, if you like good lighting and a little activity while you work (Seats 201-213)

Rubenstein Floor 3

The third floor of Rubenstein Library is great for anyone looking for a sort of garret/co-working vibe – glass-walled rooms tucked along hallways with soft colors and minimal traffic.

Project Rooms

Three project rooms line a windowed wall, giving the perfect balance of privacy and openness. (Rooms 353-357, Seats 301-306)

Conference Rooms

For a distraction-free zone, check out a seat in one of the conference rooms along the hallway. (Rooms 350-351, Seats 307-317)

Rubenstein 349

With tall windows and individual tables, the Breedlove Meeting Room (Rubenstein 349) has an open feel with plenty of privacy. (Seats 318-326)

East Campus

Lilly Library

Live it up at Lilly! Get the East Campus experience at these lovely literary locales.

Few Reading Room (1st floor)

Natural light and plenty of power; what else do you need? How about private study carrels (F01-F07) and long tables for safely studying with your peers. (F08-F19)

Carpenter Reference Room (1st floor)

Want that old-school library experience? Surround yourself with books in the reference study area with socially-distanced seating at long tables. (C20-C41)

North Mezzanine (2nd floor)

Talk about a room with a view! Grab a soft seat or table and enjoy one of the most beautiful overlooks on campus. (M42-45)

Music Library

With plenty of natural light, these seats are music to our ears! Enjoy your choice of carrels (Carrels 1, 3, 5) or personal tables (Study Table Seat 6-7). Whatever you choose sounds great!






DivE-In Encourages You to Take 5

Guest post by Alex Marsh, Digitization Specialist

Every month, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council (DivE-In) of the Duke University Libraries recommends five free activities, programs, and educational opportunities that address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. For more about diversity initiatives at the Duke University Libraries, visit our website.


1) Now through 11/03, prepare to VOTE! @ North Carolina State Board of Elections. Voting is one of the most powerful ways to make your voice heard as a citizen, and this fall’s election is right around the corner. Are you registered to vote at your current address? If you plan to vote from home, have you requested your mail-in absentee ballot? (No special circumstance or reason is required to vote by mail in North Carolina). If you plan to vote early, in person, do you know the scheduled dates and locations for early voting in your county? Can you help out as an election worker? (There’s a critical shortage this year. You get money, PPE, and social distancing guidelines will be enforced). Deadlines, FAQs, online forms and more here: https://www.ncsbe.gov

2) Wednesday, 09/02, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm: Reclaiming the Ancestors: Indigenous and Black Perspectives on Repatriation, Human Rights and Justice @ Zoom Webinar. Today, more than 100,000 Native American ancestral remains are still held in U.S. public museums alone, while an unknown number of remains of people of African descent are stored in museum collections. What does it mean to turn human beings into artifacts? What happens to the living communities who lose control and ownership over their own ancestors and heritage? This panel will discuss how repatriation–the process of reclaiming and returning ancestral and human remains–can address inequality. Presented by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/y6svx8dq

3) Thursday, 09/03, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm: Screening Race: Short Films of the 1960s & 1970s @ Twitch TV. Inspired by the recently-published collection of essays, “Screening Race in American Nontheatrical Film,” NC State Film Studies Professor Marsha Gordon; University of Chicago Cinema and Media Studies Professor Allyson Nadia Field; Ina Archer, Artist and Media Conservator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture; and Skip Elsheimer of A/V Geeks will present a digitized selection of short 16mm films from the 1960s and 1970s engaged with the topic of race. Presented by Duke Cinematic Arts. https://tinyurl.com/y6guersn

4) Tuesday, 09/08, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm: Race, Power, and Curation: Launching the Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection @ Zoom Webinar. This event will feature a keynote by Dorothy Berry, the Digital Collections Program Manager at Houghton Library, Harvard University, on the importance of curating Black Collections and centering Black Stories intentionally during this transitory period of American history. In addition, Elaine L. Westbrooks, DPLA board member and Vice Provost of University Libraries and University Librarian at UNC-Chapel Hill, will provide opening remarks on the impact of curatorial choices, and Yusef Omowale of the Southern California Digital Library will join us to talk about digitizing the Charlotta Bass papers. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/y5ynjxze

5) Words of Light on the Streets of Disobedience in Bombay, 1930-1931 @ YouTube. On the occasion of World Photography Day, the Alkazi Foundation is pleased to announce its collaborative project with the Department of History, Duke University, on a rare album “Collections of Photographs of Old Congress Party- K.L. Nursey.” As part of the ongoing research, this short clip features Prof. Sumathi Ramaswamy (James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of History, Duke University) and Avrati Bhatnagar (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Duke University) providing an overview of this unpublished album. The album taken by an as-yet unidentified photographer takes us into the heart of the action, allowing us to get a feel for the energy and enthusiasm of disobedience, in 1930s India. https://tinyurl.com/y3zxdgn7






A Fun To-Do List: The Summer Bucket List Quaran-zine

For many of us, the summer of 2020 will look and feel a little different.  Vacations have been postponed or canceled, beaches and museums are closed.  What would normally feel like a time to relax and take a break might feel more like an additional burden, trying to find ways to fill the days and weeks ahead.  Luckily, we’re here to help!

We’ve put together a Summer Bucket List Quaran-zine, a pocket-sized zine to help you get organized and excited in preparation for a summer spent primarily at home.  We’ve provided the categories of things you can do throughout the summer to help you get started, but the rest is up to you.

Been meaning to watch the Avengers movies in chronological order? Write it down! Having trouble keeping up with the books your friends keep recommending? Write them down! Always wanted to try your grandmother’s peach pie recipe but never found the time? You know what to do!

The best part of your tiny to-do list: checking off each thing as you go, and maybe making the summer of 2020 one of your best ever.

Instructions: How to Print, Fold, and Make This Zine

  1. 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!
  2. Download and print the zine.
  3. Follow the folding and cutting/tearing instructions in this video by writer and artist Austin Kleon.

Want more zines?

Create your own mini zine anthology of quotations with Print, Fold, Ponder: A Wee Zine of Wise Words We Need Now. Or, learn more about the history of zines and the Libraries’ own zine collection.






Putting the ‘Global’ Back Into Global Pandemic, Part I

This is the first in a series of blog posts on global pandemics, edited by Ernest Zitser, Ph.D., Librarian for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies, library liaison to the International Comparative Studies Program, and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at Duke University.

Pandemics, by their very definition (< Greek pandēmos = pan ‘all’ + dēmos ‘people’), affect everyone in the entire world.  They expose the permeability of border walls and remind us of the invented nature of all geopolitical boundaries.  They also provide us with an opportunity to learn something about the lived experience of people from around the globe, those external ‘others’ whom it is all-too-easy to stereotype as strange, exotic, or dangerous.  That is, pandemics invite us not merely to recognize the humanity of, and suffer alongside perfect ‘strangers,’ who speak ‘foreign’ languages and write in ‘squiggly’ scripts, but actually to draw lessons from the way human communities in other parts of the world are dealing and/or have dealt with the same issues as us.

In order to help foster a more informed and compassionate approach to the current global health crisis, the subject specialists of Duke Libraries’ International and Area Studies Department have decided to devote a series of blog posts to the topic of plagues, epidemics, and pandemics in each of the world regions for which they collect materials and about which they offer reference and library instruction.  Our goal is not to provide exhaustive coverage of the topic, but merely to suggest one or two resources—preferably those available online and in English—that each subject specialist has found particularly meaningful or useful in helping him or her to understand the role that infectious diseases have played in the countries, continents, and world areas for which s/he is responsible.

If you would like to get more information about a particular world region or recommendations for additional resources on the topic, please feel free to contact the appropriate IAS librarian.  And do let us know if you have your own recommendations!  Simply leave a reply in the “Comment Section” at the end of this blog post.

___________________________

Holly Ackerman
Head, International & Area Studies Dept. and Librarian for Latin American, Iberian and Latino/a Studies

When the editors of the IAS blog proposed the idea of publishing a series of posts recommending readable, digitally-available, English-language resources on plagues/infectious diseases/moral panics in world literature and/or film, I approached the selection in my role as the Department Head, responsible for covering many world areas. I tried to recall a popular history with global reach that dealt both with politics and medicine. I wanted something that was deeply researched but also genuinely engaging.  And, perhaps not surprisingly, one that would also highlight the other role that I play in IAS, namely, the Librarian for Latin American, Iberian and Latino/a Studies.

John Barry’s panoramic history of the so-called “Spanish” Flu of 1918—the ruthless influenza pandemic that is estimated to have claimed 50-100 million lives (adjusted for population, that would equal 220 million to 430 million people today)—came immediately to mind. I had read it back in 2004 when it first came out and was that year’s winner of the National Academies of Sciences prize for the best book on science or medicine. A re-read this week confirmed its currency.

Barry, a professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, seems to be speaking directly to the present when he says that medicine and politics cannot be separated in a pandemic and one is as significant as the other. He describes political leaders in 1918 lying to the public about the severity of the situation in order to maintain the World War I economy and their control over the electorate.  And also of blaming a particular foreign country for being the source of the outbreak, in an effort to shift the blame for their handling of the public health crisis onto a foreign country.  Sound familiar?

The good news in Barry’s sweeping account is the role of medicine in developing vaccines, public health officials broadcasting simple preventive measures (posters read, “Wear a mask; Save your life), the rise of “modern” medical schools such as Johns Hopkins, and the organization of the Red Cross. He offers case examples of communities that suppressed the disease (e.g., San Francisco) and those that failed to do so (e.g., Philadelphia). The “winners” combined truthful leaders, inspiration in public messaging, and stern demand for compliance with best practices. The “losers” combined denial with blaming (calling it “just a common cold” as corpses outnumbered coffins, attacking immigrants as “natural carriers,” and demanding legislation for mass euthanasia of domestic pets).

Anyone wanting to see how pandemics change history will find much to admire here.

___________________________

Sean Swanick
Librarian for Middle East and Islamic Studies

The issue of plague in the Middle East context has not received the scholarly attention that it deserves.  However, there are some excellent books and works-in-progress out there for anyone interested in the topic.

For example, Christopher S. Rose, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Historical Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, has written an article about how the Egyptian government handled a pandemic in the past, at least partly in order to contextualize the criticism of the way the current Egyptian government has handled the COVID-19 crisis. Rose’s article has been accepted by the Journal of World History, but is unlikely to appear in print until 2021; and Rose’s book will not be out until sometime in the next decade.  That is why it is so great that this young scholar is willing to share some of the results of his research in a WordPress blog post on The “Spanish Flu” in Egypt. Rose argues that “for most of the war, civilian medical needs were a far distant second behind military medical needs” of the colonial occupiers of this strategically-important British protectorate. Consequently, when the pandemic hit, the Anglo-Egyptian government was “caught with its pants down”: hospitals and clinics were overwhelmed; physicians (who were mostly Egyptians, Greek, or Syrian) were overworked; agricultural production (on which the entire economy depended) ceased; religious services were suspended; and at least 130,000 people died. The fact that the flu pandemic—the worst health crisis during World War I in Egypt—came after the end of the war made everything worse. Rose argues that this was one of the “non-political events” in early 20th-century Egyptian history that prepared the ground for the political changes in the years that followed the pandemic.

An even earlier period of environmental, epidemiological, and political history of what is today’s Middle East is the subject of Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: the Ottoman Experience, 1347-1600, by Nükhet Varlik of Rutgers University and the University of South Carolina.  This thorough, ground-breaking book explores the impact of plagues on Ottoman lands beginning with the Black Death, which ravaged the world from 1347 to 1351. One aspect of the work I found particularly interesting is the development of public health vis-à-vis the state. The Ottoman state was very conscious of the need for clean drinking water, hence the development of fountains throughout the empire—including the imperial capital, Istanbul—and the imperative to bury those who had died of the disease outside the city walls, so as to ensure that as much clean air as possible circulated within the city. Varlik’s book is not only well-researched, but also provides fascinating historical insight into a topic that has contemporary resonance, not least because of its insistence on the Western origins of the Plague, as well as its discussion of the pandemic’s effect both on physical bodies and the body politic.  After reading this book, you might also want to visit the Ottoman History Podcast for a discussion on Plague in the Ottoman World, featuring Nükhet Varlık, Yaron Ayalon, Orhan Pamuk, Lori Jones, Valentina Pugliano, and Edna Bonhomme.

___________________________

Luo Zhou
Chinese Studies Librarian

William C. Summer’s book on the Great Manchurian Plague of 1910-1911, will be an enlightening (and inspiring) read for today’s audience. The Manchuria (Northeast China) plague, which broke out in fall 1910 and killed more than 60,000 people by spring 1911, was caused by transmission from marmots to humans. It spread quickly both among the native Chinese inhabitants and the Russian, Japanese, American, and British diplomats and administrators stationed in Manchuria, a new center of global transportation and fur trade that was of strategic importance to the world powers.  Summer demonstrates that geopolitics—China’s political weakness and Russian and Japanese colonial aspirations in the region—shaped how the plague was contained and managed.  He also highlights the work of individual medical practitioners, such as Dr. Wu Lien-teh—the first medical student of Chinese descent to study at the University of Cambridge—who led the Chinese effort to end the plague.  Dr. Wu promoted the use of cloth facial masks, which were to be worn by doctors, nurses, patients, and anyone else whenever possible: the very first time that such an epidemic containment measure had been attempted and proven effective in the field.  In the end, the “Great Manchurian Plague” highlighted the importance of multinational medical responses and helped to promote the (eventual) establishment of the World Health Organization – an unintended, but welcome by-product of the epidemic.

In order to get a sense of the lived experience of COVID-19 in China today, it is best to turn to non-traditional outlets (e.g. WeChat, Weibo, Twitter, Facebook) and freely available electronic resources.  For example, in The Virus Diaries (疫境日記), a 10-minute YouTube video (in Cantonese, with English subtitles), from late January 2020, ordinary citizens of Hong Kong share their experiences of life during quarantine.

For mainland China, the most obvious (and most controversial) choice is Wuhan Diary (武汉日记) by Fang Fang (方方), the pen name of Wang Fang (汪芳; born 11 May 1955), an award-winning, contemporary Chinese writer. Although this fascinating, first-person account of life at the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis is now available as an e-book, in an English-language translation by Michael Berry, Director of UCLA Center of China Studies, it began life as a series of posts on Fang’s social media page.  The author’s regular, daily entries on WeChat—a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media, and mobile payment app—offered her personal (and mildly critical) comments on the effects of the deadly epidemic during the government-imposed lockdown. Almost as soon as they were posted, however, each of Fang’s entries about the effect of the coronavirus on Chinese society was consistently deleted by China’s internet censors.  But usually not before the latest entry had itself gone viral, having been shared by millions of WeChatters, both within China and abroad.  That has not slowed Chinese government efforts to stop the spread of the virtual virus unleashed by Fang Fang’s media posts.In an effort to dissuade overseas readers from purchasing the diary, the Global Times—an English-language newspaper published under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily—claimed (falsely) that Fang “fell from grace in late March when many netizens and scholars began to question the authenticity of her diary.”  As if anticipating such politically motivated criticism, the last entry in Fang’s diary was entitled: “There is no tension between me and my country” (我和国家之间没有张力).






Congratulations to Invited Talk Nominees!

The event “Research as Process: An Undergraduate Research Showcase,” originally planned for April 20, was created by staff of the Duke University Libraries to highlight the exceptional work of undergraduate researchers who utilized library services and/or resources in a project, paper, or other academic work. The showcase put emphasis not necessarily on the impressive products of the nominees’ efforts, but the process of developing their research questions, exploring the existing sources and modifying their inquiry based on them, and learning best practices for academic research methods.

Although the in-person event was unable to take place, we recognize the noteworthy achievement of the nominees and their dedication to academic rigor and furthering knowledge. Conducting a large-scale research project requires developing the ability to effectively to search for and evaluate sources, work that takes time and no small measure of effort.

We extend our congratulations to:

  • Caroline del Real, nominated by Dr. Phillip Stillman for her essay “The Great God Pan and the Horror of the Hybrid” (English)
  • Katherine Owensby, nominated by Prof. Andrew Janiak for her project “Research for Project Vox: Studying Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz” (Philosophy)
  • Bryan Rusch, nominated by Sean Swanic, Librarian for Middle East and Islamic Studies, for his paper “In the Footsteps of Omar Ibn Sayyid: Materials Culture and Folklore” (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies)
  • Alex Damian, nominated by Prof. Lenhard Ng for his senior thesis “Theoretical Guarantees for Signal Recovery” (Mathematics)






Print, Fold, Ponder: A Mini-Zine for This Moment

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

  1. 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!
  2. Download and print the PDF.
  3. Follow the folding and cutting/tearing instructions in this video by writer and artist Austin Kleon.

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!






Student Research and Writing Prizes: Win $1,000+

Each year, the Duke University Libraries offer four different prizes to reward excellence in student writing. If you’re a Duke student, consider submitting your work for one of these prizes. The awards carry a cash prize of $1,000 (Aptman, Holsti and Middlesworth) or $1,500 (Rosati).

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.
  • See the Application Guidelines for more information about how to submit your research for consideration.

Middlesworth Awards

  • 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.
  • Learn more about submitting your work.

Holsti Prize

  • 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.
  • Learn more about submitting your work.

The Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award






Meet Lilly’s Class of 2020: Esha

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?

Lilly’s Senior Student Assistants

Young woman with miniature horse
Lilly Senior Esha with Kiwi at Lilly’s Stampede Of Love Study Break

Lilly Library is at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community (during what used to be a “normal” semester), Lilly Library remains open for 129 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2020” – seniors who have worked in Lilly Library throughout their Duke careers. Get to know our seniors in these profiles, and you’ll appreciate them as much we do.

If you’ve been in Lilly Library over the past four years, chances are you’ve seen our seniors: Esha, Jessica, Sarah, Toni, and Noelle. Esha is one of our seniors who worked at Lilly Library since she arrived as wide-eyed First-Year student on East Campus way back in August of 2016.
Commencement 2020 may be virtual, but our regard for our student assistants is very real and enduring. Take this opportunity to acquaint yourselves with Esha, one of our treasured Lilly Library Class of 2020.

Senior Esha

  • Hometown: Charlotte, NC
  • Family/siblings/pets: 1 older brother, no pets
  • Academic major: Economics and Political Science
  • Activities on campus: RA (N1 and Craven), Resident
  • Assistant Leadership Council, ULAB, Senior Giving Challenge
  • Favorite on-campus activity, besides working at Lilly: Being an RA!
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Getting ice cream at the Parlour
  • Favorite campus eatery: Sazon
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Bali Hai

Two women students holding plaque
Lilly’s Class of 2020 Esha and Sarah

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Green couches in Perkins first floor because they are so comfy!

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie you’ve come across in Lilly?
A: There were so many but a single one doesn’t come to mind right now!

Q: What is your favorite part about working at Lilly? Least favorite?
A: Favorite part is working with the librarians because they are so nice/helpful, and fun to have random conversations with. Least favorite is when I have to check in/out 20+ books on my own.

Q: Why have you worked at Lilly Library ever since your first year?
A: I love working at Lilly because everyone is so friendly! They make you want to keep coming back.

Q: What is one memory from Lilly that you will never forget?
A: Having to check in two FULL-SIZED suitcases full of books by myself. I think I checked in at least 50 books!

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in Lilly?
A: Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything crazy in Lilly.

Q: What was opening an empty (or at least, it was supposed to be empty) Lilly like? Eerie?
A: I worked the Sunday morning shift, which was really nice because there were very few people (unless it was midterm/finals season), so everything was calm and quiet. I absolutely LOVED working Sunday mornings!!

Q: How will your time at Lilly help you in your future pursuits?
A: Working at Lilly taught me to be organized and be better at time management, which is super useful no matter where I end up after leaving.
Q: What will you miss most about Lilly when you graduate?
A: I will definitely miss the librarians the most!

Q: What are your plans after graduation?
A: Who knows!

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about Lilly, do you?
A: Definitely an elephant

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Esha and our other seniors, treasured members of our Lilly “family”. We appreciate her stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!






Animated April: From a Stellar Sixteen to an Enchanted Eight

From a Stellar Sixteen to an Enchanted Eight

While Round One is over, and some of our stars may have fallen, we still have an Enchanted Eight remaining.  Lilly’s resident (or shall we say currently remote) analyst  Nathaniel offers his take on the results of the first round voting.

It’s Time to Vote in Round Two – HERE

Animated April’s Enchanted Eight

 

What an exciting round of action!

In the Fire Region, The Lion King‘s Simba took Rafiki’s stick and made sure Monsters Inc. did not “feel the love tonight” by trouncing them in the first round! The Incredibles, once again proving their “glory days” are here again, defeated Aladdin!

In the Ice Region, Frozen almost had a “meltdown,” but pulled out the victory over Coco by 2 votes! Meanwhile, Mulan unleashed the “dragon” and easily disposed of Wall-E.

In the Earth Region, Toy Story showed Cinderella she did not have a “friend in them” by taking her glass slippers, ushering in the midnight hour, and dispatching the would-be princess. In a touch and go affair, Belle managed to revive the downtrodden Beast and restore their championship hopes as the Beauty and the Beast rallied to defeat that pesky Ratatouille by just 2 votes!

Lastly, Under the Sea, Finding Nemo defeated Moana and in the surprise of the tournament, Up “rose to the occasion” and desiccated the Little Mermaid in a rout, not even close with a margin of victory greater than two to one!

Make your choices for the Favorite Four SOON!

VOTE

Voting closes Thursday, April 16 8pm (EDT)

Nathaniel Brown Media & Reserves Coordinator, Lilly Library
Bracketologist Nathaniel Brown

Written by Nathaniel Brown

Contributor: Carol Terry

 






Animated April

Animated April @ Lilly Library

Team Pixar or Team Disney?

Animated April @ Lilly begins Monday, April 13!

Animated April – Are you Team Pixar or Team Disney?

Brackets aren’t just for March!

Do you like Looney Tunes, the quirkiness of Wallace and Gromit, anime like Spirited Away, French comedies like The Triplets of Belleville? Are you all about Disney classics or the latest offerings from Pixar?

Lilly Library has 100s of animated films. In fact, we have so many animated films, it’s time for you to “toon” in and enjoy our very own Lilly Library Animated April challenge: Pixar versus Disney.

If it’s animated, Disney and Pixar are the dominant players, so we’re highlighting eight films from each studio to face off in a special edition of our Animated April challenge starting Monday, April 13th. Join in the fun, pick your favorites, and maybe  win a prize!

Here’s how:
Vote when you visit our  Lilly Library Animated April cast of characters HERE.

Make your selections and vote for your choice of hot titles in Bracket Fire versus films that landed in Bracket Earth to eventually face the coolest films in Bracket Ice, which challenge the animated gems making waves in Bracket Under the Sea.

Brackets with film titles
All the Characters in Animated April

Voting dates are listed below and on the contest page.
Updates will be posted on Lilly’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts as well as in our blog, Latest@Lilly :

Nathaniel Brown Media & Reserves Coordinator, Lilly Library
Bracketologist Nathaniel Brown

Enjoy Bracketologist Nathaniel’s insights for each round:

All votes are to be submitted via Lilly Animated April .

Animated April

  • Round 1: Stellar 16:  CLOSED
  • Round 2: Enchanted 8 : CLOSED
  • Round 3: Favorite 4 : CLOSED
  • Round 4: Perfect Pair VOTE HERE
    Voting opens Monday, April 20 9am
    Voting closes Tuesday, April 21 8pm
  • Champion Crowned:  Wednesday April 22nd

*Did someone say PRIZES?
Participants who provide their Duke NetID and vote for the animated movie “champion” will be entered into drawings for virtual prizes, as well as special prizes for Duke students.

Be sure to make your picks of your favorites  – Pixar or Disney!






Meet Lilly’s Class of 2020: Jessica

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?

Lilly’s Senior Student Assistants

One of Lilly’s Class of 2020 – Jessica

Lilly is at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during what used to be a normal semester, Lilly Library remains open for 129 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2020” – seniors who have worked in Lilly Library throughout their Duke careers. Get to know our seniors in these profiles, and you’ll appreciate them as much we do.

If you’ve been in Lilly Library over the past four years, chances are you’ve seen our seniors: Jess, Sarah, Esha, Toni, and Noelle. Jessica is one of our seniors who worked at Lilly Library since she arrived as wide-eyed First-Year student on East Campus way back in August of 2016.
Commencement 2020 may be virtual, but our regard for our student assistants is very real and enduring.

Take this opportunity to acquaint yourselves with Jessica, one of our treasured Lilly Library Class of 2020.

Senior  Jessica

Student with 3D Scanner
A model student: Jessica demos a 3D Scanner for a Lilly Library Facebook post

  • Hometown: Glen Rock, NJ
  • Family/siblings/pets: I have one younger brother
  • Academic major: Statistics and Computer Science
  • Activities on campus: Marching & Pep Band
  • Favorite on-campus activity, besides working at Lilly: Playing with the band at basketball games
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Used to be going for cheese and chocolate fondue at the Little Dipper on Ladies’ Night (it’s now closed though)
  • Favorite campus eatery: Div Cafe
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Sushi Love

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: I would say the armchairs in the Thomas Reading Room. It has a very pleasant, relaxing atmosphere, and I’m pretty sure I’ve already taken accidental naps there while doing homework.

Q: What’s the most interesting book you’ve come across in Lilly?
A: The most interesting book I came across at Lilly was a photography book about Jim Marshall. Someone had just returned it and I flipped through all the photos before putting it in the bin of Perkins books.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at Lilly? Least favorite?
A: I loved having time to put down the rest of my schoolwork and thinking about something else for at least a short while. I always found the tasks at Lilly like shelving books and processing holds to be quite satisfying. I don’t think I had a least favorite part!

Q: Why have you worked at Lilly Library ever since your first year?
A: I thought about switching to Perkins after freshman year, but then I wouldn’t get to see Yunyi every week!

Q: What is one memory from Lilly that you will never forget?
A: It’s not one specific memory, but because I’m in the band, a lot of the staff would chat with me about Duke football and basketball with me, especially Yunyi. I always knew that if the basketball team lost, I would get a chance to vent and complain about the team at my next shift. I will never forget how excited the staff always was for me when I got to travel with the teams for tournament games.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in Lilly?
A: It’s not super crazy, but the few times I had to shelve books or straighten the stacks on the 4th level and no one was around, I would listen to music and dance to myself as I worked.

Q: How will your time at Lilly help you in your future pursuits?
A: Lilly provided the first customer service-related job I’ve ever had, and my time at Lilly certainly helped me develop skills in that area, especially with continuing to be polite even when patrons were not (although that was quite rare to encounter). It also helped me with organization, multitasking, and adaptability, skills translatable into all kinds of fields.

Q: What will you miss most about Lilly when you graduate?
A: I will definitely miss Yunyi and the other librarians/staff members the most.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I will be working as a Data Scientist for a start-up in New York City.

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about Lilly, did you?
A: Always a tough question, but I guess a cat?

Student
Lilly Senior Jessica

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Jessica and our other seniors, treasured members of our Lilly “family”. We appreciate her stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!






Good News for Those with Their Nose in a Book

One of the things people always say they love about libraries is the smell of old books. There’s nothing quite so comforting as the slightly musty aroma of stacks upon stacks of so much accumulated knowledge. Of all the things our students and faculty tell us they miss most during this extended period of home isolation, that ineffable library smell is up there at the top.

Now, thanks to recent advances in digital publishing, we’re excited to pilot a new feature in selected library e-books that lets you recapture that odoriferous experience virtually.


Screenshot of Scratch n Sniff e-Book
Look for the green “Scratch-n-Sniff” button in selected library e-books.

The next time you check out an e-book through our library catalog, look for the green “Scratch-n-Sniff” button in the online interface. Clicking the button will activate a feature that artificially simulates the olfactory experience of reading text on vintage, yellowed paper. Just gently scratch your display as you read to be transported back to your favorite reading nook in the library.

The first time you use the “Scratch-n-Sniff” feature, you may need to lean in close to your monitor and breathe deeply to get the full effect. The application isn’t compatible with all browsers. But if your operating system is up-to-date, you should be able adjust the display settings in the control panel of your PC or mobile device to strengthen the smell.

Library users are also advised to scratch carefully, as sharp fingernails and aggressive scratching may damage your monitor and cause the “Scratch-n-Sniff” function not to work properly.

“Over the years, e-books have represented a larger and larger percentage of library collections, even as some researchers—particularly those in the humanities—continue to turn their nose up at them,” said Jeff Kosokoff, Assistant University Librarian for Collection Strategy. “We understand. Nothing quite compares to the age-old experience of immersing yourself in a physical book. But now that digital is the only option for a while, we’re doing everything we can to replicate the experience Duke’s world-class students and faculty are accustomed to.”

“We had to pay through the nose for this add-on feature,” Kosokoff added, “but it’s worth it to keep our Duke community feeling connected to their library.”

Fans of the classics will be particularly pleased to know that the earlier a book’s original publication date, the mustier it smells. For instance, clicking the “Scratch-n-Sniff” button while reading an electronic copy of David Copperfield (which happens to be our next selection for the Low Maintenance Book Club, by the way) is like holding a real first-edition Dickens up to your nose.

The “Scratch-n-Sniff” e-book feature is available for a limited time for selected e-books in our library catalog and works with most PCs, laptops, Apple and Android devices, and e-readers, including Amazon Kindle, Kobo Libra, and Barnes and Noble Nook. It does not work with Internet Explorer, however.

Library user sniffing ebook screen
Is this fragrant feature for real? Unfortunately it snot. Happy April Fools’ Day, Dukies. Smell ya later!






Meet Lilly’s Class of 2020 – Sarah

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?

Lilly’s Senior  Student Assistants

woman looking at stacks of books
Many “happy” book returns greet Lilly Senior Sarah

Lilly is at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during what used to be a “normal” semester, Lilly Library remains open for 129 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2020” – seniors who have worked in Lilly Library throughout their Duke careers. Get to know our seniors in these profiles, and you’ll appreciate them as much we do.

If you’ve been in Lilly Library over the past four years, chances are you’ve seen our seniors: Jessica, Sarah, Esha, Toni, and Noelle. Sarah is one of our seniors who worked at Lilly Library since she arrived as wide-eyed First-Year student on East Campus way back in August of 2016.

Commencement 2020 may be virtual, but our regard for our student assistants is very real and enduring. Take this opportunity to acquaint yourselves with Sarah, one of our treasured Lilly Library Class of 2020.

Senior Sarah

Woman sitting in front of pumpkins
Sarah at the North Carolina State Fair

  • Hometown: Flower Mound, Texas (north of Dallas)
  • Family/siblings/pets: Mom, Dad, younger sister (in her first year of college)
  • Academic major: Biomedical Engineering
  • Activities on campus: Club Swimming, Sport Clubs Executive Board, RA (in Neighborhood 1 on East, then in Crowell/Wannamaker), former FYLAB / UAB member
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working at Lilly): Swimming with Club Swim!
  • Favorite off-campus activity: I love going to sporting events, and my favorite annual event to attend since I have moved here for college is the North Carolina State Fair.
  • Favorite campus eatery: Pitchforks (nothing beats 24-hour service)
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: The Pit (BBQ)

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Probably the Thomas Room, because it has really comfy chairs and the doors on both ends lock so I would feel safer…

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie you’ve come across in Lilly?
A: I can’t think of a specific strange example right now, but a special DVD to me is DVD 30,000 (The Princess Bride) which the class of 2020 got to pick!

Q: What is your favorite part about working at Lilly? Least favorite?
A: My favorite part is all the librarians that have been so kind and supportive to me during my time working at Lilly. I always feel so welcome in the library and it became a sort of safe haven for me during my time at Duke. My least favorite part is walking through the library at closing time, because it’s dark and I keep thinking someone will jump out at me and scare me. Also, having to drive back to west campus at 4am.

Q: Why have you worked at Lilly Library ever since your first year?
A: Because of the librarians! I started working at Lilly my first year because I really loved libraries and reading throughout my childhood and had volunteered at my public library in high school. I chose to stay throughout the years (even during the time I spent living on West Campus) because of the friendships I made with the people I worked with and because of the increased trust that everyone placed in me.

Q: What is one memory from Lilly that you will never forget?
A: The little things the staff did for the student workers to make us feel appreciated – candy for every Halloween and Valentine’s Day, and student worker lunches at the end of every semester during Finals week. Even though after my first year I knew these things were coming, they were still always a nice surprise.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in Lilly? A: I don’t know how crazy this is, but I’ve definitely fallen asleep at the desk while working the late night shift a few times more than I’d like to admit…

Q: What was closing, or opening an empty (or at least, it was supposed to be empty) Lilly like? Eerily empty, people reluctant to leave, unexpected people?
A: I worked a closing shift every week for the last three years I worked at Lilly, and most of the time people filtered out on their own within five minutes of closing time (even if they didn’t want to). I did sometimes get some interesting people that would filter through the building or have strange requests of me (for example, one time I got a call from a father who wanted me to find his daughter in the building and give her a message – but didn’t even know if she was actually at Lilly). Most of the time, though, the only spooky part was walking through the library alone and hoping no one was staking out to scare me. I only worked opening shifts at Lilly every once in a while, but it was always nice to come into an empty, quiet building and get to watch the early risers trickle in!

Q: How will your time at Lilly help you in your future pursuits?
A: Lilly has taught me a lot of lessons about how to serve others and how to be a go-getter. Working behind the desk in particular has built a lot of confidence for me in talking to people I don’t know and helping to serve them. As an engineer, I might not always be in a customer-facing position, but having that experience will certainly give me a boost over those who are not as comfortable working in service roles.

Q: What will you miss most about Lilly when you graduate?
A: Both the librarians, who have always been so nice to me, and the space as I remember it in my head. I know with renovations coming to Lilly in the future that when I come to visit as an alum, I might no longer be able to walk around the space knowing exactly where everything is. I will miss that feeling of knowing a place so well.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: This summer I will be interning at Garmin International in Cary, NC to complete my internship requirement for the Master of Engineering program at Duke, and then I will graduate from Duke again in May of 2021!

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about Lilly, did you?
A: My favorite animal is a monkey so I will go with that!

Sarah and her Club Swim teammates

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Sarah and our other seniors, treasured members of our Lilly “family”. We hope to see Sarah while she continues her graduate studies at Duke next year, even if she no longer works with us. We appreciate her stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!






Overdrive and Libby are always open!

Maybe you’re finding yourself with more free time now that all of of your social events and entertainment/shows have been canceled. Maybe you just need a break from it all. Either way now might be a great time to pick up a good book, and we still have you covered with Overdrive.

Overdrive at Duke

We have ebooks and audiobooks on a variety of subjects and genres, including graphic novels, humor, and fantasy. You just need your netID. You can borrow titles for 21 days, and you can download to  all major computers and devices, including iPhones®, iPads®, Nooks®, Android™ phones and tablets, and Kindles®.

Overdrive at Your Public Library

It’s quite possible that the public library in your area has Overdrive, so take a look there too. Our friends at the Durham County Public Library has a wonderful collection that is worth checking out!

Libby

Duke Libraries is now available on the Libby app, which allows you to consolidate your checkouts across multiple libraries onto a single digital shelf. The app works with both smartphones and tablets. If you like to switch between reading on your phone and tablet, the app will sync your bookmarks and notes between devices so you won’t be left wondering where you last stopped reading. Libby also works with audiobooks!






Database Tips & Tricks: Nexis Uni

What do business, criminal justice, political science, company dossiers, and patents all have in common?

All of these can all be found onNexis Uni Image!

Nexis Uni is a database containing over 15,000 credible news, legal  and business sources. Need US Treaties? They have it. Need company profiles? They have it. Need news in general? They have it.

NexisUni is a great resource and it’s relatively easy to use so let’s get started!

Of course, you’ll want to sign up/sign in.

This allows you to:

  • Create, share, & have folders shared with you
  • Create alerts
  • Customize display & document settings and search filters
  • View search history, document history, Shepard’s history,  & a Research map
You’re signed in, you’re set up, so let’s get searching!

Enter terms, phrases, companies, questions, whatever you like and it’ll bring you to the results page.

The Results Page

  • Above the results, you’ll find options to save the results to a folder, print, email, download the list or individual docs, send to google drive or dropbox, export citations, and sort.
  •  On the left is the category (news, law reviews, cases, etc) you’re currently viewing.

Document Page

The document page has different sections depending on the document type, but each page has an “About” and “Notes” section.

  • The about section will have the source information, related content, and the Shepard’s Signal if it’s a legal document.
  • The notes section allows you to annotate, copy, highlight, add to a search or folder your selected text.

Other Helpful Tips

  • If you need help reading the style of their documents:
    1. Go to advanced search from the home page
    2. Choose the tab that applies (All, Legal, Business, or News) and the content you’re looking for under the specific tab
    3. On the right you’ll see a section called, “Search Field Examples,” select to enlarge, and it is a helpful guide on how to read the document in that category.
  • If you see glasses , you’ve viewed the item before.
  • More Helpful Features
  • How to Customize Your Settings

And there you have it! You’ve got the basics of how to use Nexis Uni!

Happy Researching, Friends!






$1,500 Prize for Book Collecting

NOTE: Due to changes in the university’s operations in light of COVID-19, the Nadelle Prize for Book Collecting has been postponed.

Attention, student bibliophiles!

The Duke University Libraries are proud to present the 2020 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!

First Prize

Undergraduate division: $1,500
Graduate division: $1,500

Second Prize

Undergraduate division: $750
Graduate division: $750

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.

Winners will also be eligible to enter the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, where they will compete for a $2,500 prize and an invitation to the awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress.

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.

Interested in entering? Visit our website for more information and read winning entries from past years. Contact Kurt Cumiskey at kurt.cumiskey@duke.edu with any questions.

Entries must be received by March 30, 2020.






Part 2: How can Librarians Teach with Materials in German Script?

This post is contributed by Heidi Madden, Librarian for Western European and Medieval/Renaissance Studies.

The Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds  the papers of Oskar Morgenstern, whose diaries span the years 1917-1977. The diaries were digitized, a few years ago, in a collaboration between the Rubenstein Library  and  the University of Graz, Austria, and can be seen at the Oskar Morgenstern Website.  This 50-year-long personal archive of a renowned scientist is an ideal Open Educational Resource for teaching with primary sources. How can librarians help students use this wonderful material in courses at Duke and at other institutions?

An understanding of  the historic development of German Script will show why the Morgenstern Papers are very approachable, even though they look difficult to decipher at first.  The older, pre-1900 versions of German Script allowed for many individual and regional variations for forming letters. The chart below shows the many ways in which an individual writer might have shaped their letters in the18th and 19th century:

The reason why 20th century Script is easier to read is because, between 1910 and 1915, several regional German-language  school systems simplified German Script to make it easier for students to learn. Ludwig Sütterlin, a graphic artist working in Berlin, designed a script for the Prussian educational ministry that became popular very quickly. This script was known as the Sütterlin Script (Sütterlinschrift), and became the handwriting taught in most German schools until 1941, including the ones attended by the young Oskar Morgenstern.

Taking a closer look at Morgenstern’s handwriting, it is interesting to compare the cover page inscription with the first page of the diary.  It is immediately clear that the loose leaf inscription was added later, when Morgenstern’s handwriting had become more modernized.  It would be totally possible for students to learn to decipher Morgenstern’ s hand (with some human help and some charts) during a session with these materials. Furthermore, as the team at the University of Graz continues their transcription, students can use the website to improve their German reading skills by comparing the scans of the original pages with the transcription, and they can copy and paste the plain text into a translating tool like DeepL.

German Script and Blackletter have an ideological association with nationalism in 1871 (see “Antiqua-Fraktur debate”) and a visual association with fascist propaganda under Hitler. It is understandable that American students associate Blackletter with fascism.  In fact, today Germans themselves recoil whenever populists and rightwing groups use Blackletter in their event publicity. However, Nazi Germany did not invent these styles. The historical  irony is that the Nazi government first embraced  German Script and Blackletter typeface as “German” and then outlawed the styles in 1941 as “Jewish.”  That is why it is important to teach reading German Script and Blackletter with circumspection and as an auxiliary tool of historical research.

While the styles have that tainted heritage, students should not forget that these styles were also used by diverse German-language communities across the centuries. Rubenstein Library has an amazing collection of German Studies materials and interdisciplinary materials in the German language  across several of the Rubenstein Centers serve to prove this point. Outstanding collections in German Studies are German Americana, the Harold Jantz Collection, German Judaica and Religion, Alchemy, Science, and Medicine, World War II and National Socialism, and collections for the study of Germany in the 19th and 20th Centuries, including important literary editions, and editions that illustrate the history of printing.  Other examples of German-language materials across the disciplines are the Heschel Collection, the J. Walter Thompson archives in advertising, and the Viennese Economists’ Archives. In fact, a search for German-language materials in the Rubenstein Collections comes up with over 300,000 hits. Our teaching with Rubenstein Library materials ensures that these archival collections never become a  Library of  the Unreadable. The Morgenstern example shows just what efforts and resources are needed for transcription and translation, as well as what treasures may be uncovered in the process.

What follows are some resources for learning to read  and write German Script. The  Geist Institute  in Winston Salem, NC, offers a week long Script course every year. The course draws researchers and genealogists from across the country, as well as staff and volunteer researchers from the Moravian Archives in Winston-Salem, an archive for the local community of Moravians, founded by German protestants (the Herrnhuters) in 1753.  Other German Script workshops in the US are held at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, PA. , and at the Center for Family History & Genealogy and Department of History at Brigham Young University, Utah, which also offers a thorough online tutorial, the German Script Tutorial.

The  Geist Institute in Winston-Salem, NC will hold the workshop again this year, from July 25 to August 1, 2020. The workshop leader, Julie Tomberlin, Ph.D., recommends the following key resources to prepare and deepen the study of  German Script:

  • Dearden, Fay, and Leland K. Meitzler, 2013, Deciphering Gothic records: useful hints for helping you read “Old German” script!, provides tables of Old German Script alphabet variations.
  • Digitale Schriftkunde, Bavarian State Archives, provides examples and transcription by century, and is a good addition to the the German Script Tutorial from the Center for Family History & Genealogy and Department of History at Brigham Young University, Utah.
  • Minert, Roger P. 2013, Deciphering handwriting in German documents: analyzing German, Latin, and French in historical manuscripts, provides a history of German Script, and gives many tips on best practices in reading German Script, including reference works.
  • Schober, Katherine, 2018, Tips and tricks of deciphering German handwriting: a translator’s tricks of the trade for transcribing German genealogy documents, provides a good starting point for understanding strategies for working on German Script documents efficiently. For example, a reader can start by looking at how a particular writer forms the common words like articles and question words, they can look for distinctly formed letters across several documents by the same writer, and build a register of how particular letters are formed.
  • Süß, Harald. 1991. Deutsche Schreibschrift Lesen und Schreiben lernen (2 volumes: Lehrbuch and Übungsbuch)  Augsburg: Augustus-Verl., is a highly visual introduction to German Script together with many examples and detailed notes on stroke order. Learning the stroke order for each letter helps trace older more varied forms of handwriting when working with original documents.
  • Verdenhalven, Fritz, 1994, Die deutsche Schrift: ein Übungsbuch = The German script. Frankfurt/M.: Verl. f. Standesamtswesen, offers many examples of script and transcription side by side, which is very helpful in training the eye of the reader.

Digital Tools for reading Script are emerging. For example, the archive for German Colonial History has developed a reading tool called  Old German Script-Typewriter (Kurrent-Schreibmaschine). You type in the letters you can decipher, and the tool looks in various historical dictionaries for a term that might fit.  Another tool, Alte Deutsche Schrift allows you to enter words in plain text, and see the Script version underneath; this makes it possible to double check a transcription, by mapping every transcribed letter back to what the word should look like in Script. The site also helps to train the eye; enter your name in the text field and and click through results in several styles:

For more information about Script resources, especially more detail about the Geist Institute Script course in Winston-Salem, NC, contact Heidi Madden.

 

 






Part 1: A Library of the Unreadable?

This post is contributed by Heidi Madden, Librarian for Western European and Medieval/Renaissance Studies. 

Documents in German Script (cursive handwriting) and books and pamphlets  printed in Blackletter typeface (Fraktur) represent the lives of many diverse German-language communities from the 15th to the 20th century. However, as many scholars can attest, these Scripts are notoriously difficult to read. So how can libraries and librarians help students and researchers learn paleography?

Rubenstein Library (RL) has a very active instruction  program and  I frequently collaborate with Rubenstein librarian Elizabeth Dunn on teaching with materials in old handwriting, both in English and German. We work with faculty to  “literally”  help students read the Script and Blackletter.  In fact, Elizabeth began building  a small library of transcriptions that she sets up alongside the original documents. Students are always fascinated by the idea of immersing themselves in these unique materials, especially pieces of correspondence recounting private lives, which make the past come alive.

While brainstorming ideas about possible materials for a recent RL session, Elizabeth and I  decided that making the  Oskar Morgenstern papers more approachable could be a wonderful pedagogical project. Oskar Morgenstern was a German-born economist, university professor, and author in Austria and the United States. Together with John von Neumann, he founded the mathematical field of game theory and its application to the field of economics. The Rubenstein collection includes Morgenstern’s handwritten diaries, spanning the years 1917-1977. The diaries were digitized,  a few years ago, in a collaboration between Rubenstein Library  and  the University of Graz, Austria, and can be seen at the Oskar Morgenstern Website.

German Script and Blackletter are notoriously resistant to machine reading, i.e. scanning with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.  This means that all  of the Morgenstern documents have had to be transcribed manually, word by word and letter by letter. A team of researchers at University of Graz has already transcribed entries from the late 1930s to 1976; they have also built an index of Morgenstern’s  network of collaborators. However, the published results of their labor have appeared only in German.  Nevertheless, this combination of unique , local, manuscript holdings and an active, freely accessible,  digital project presented an ideal opportunity for creating a meaningful and memorable Rubenstein Library session.

Assuming that college students would  relate particularly well to documents from the author’s early years,  I decided to transcribe the inscription on the cover sheet and the very first page of the diary, dated March 14, 1917, and  written when Oskar Morgenstern was just 15 years old. Here is an image of the inside cover page of Oskar’s diary:

Image Label: Oskar Morgenstern Diary entry from March 14, 1917.

After transcribing the diary entry, I translated it as follows:

March 14, 1917 

“So, you shall be my diary, you shall hear all that is important to me and be a trustworthy keeper! On Monday the 12th my father brought home Gloy: Train your Memory. And I am very grateful to him. It is excellent, and I need to work through it. Tomorrow we have a Latin test. Schmitzi thinks it will be “child’s play,” but he says that about everything that he can translate. I have no confidence when it comes to this, and I just need to study so much harder, because I must get a C (3= Genügend).  The German Emperor is right when he calls exams in Latin inane nonsense. Yesterday we were in the chemistry laboratory because the academic High School building saw a case of Scarlet fever, and the classrooms had to be disinfected. Today we were once again in the usual classroom.The idea of auto suggestion from Gloy is excellent. I must adhere to all instructions. I convinced myself that I would succeed in the Latin exam. Will that be of any use?

 Thank God that the cursed exam is over. Of course Feldman is right again. I maintain that it is “patiaris” and he says “passiusis”. Wechs says I am right. But he won’t concede the point, stupid games. Tomorrow we will probably get back the math exam. How will it turn out? Let’s hope for the best. In Petersburg a revolution broke out, hopefully the French will imitate this, and hang all the crooked ones!!
I am going to train my left hand. I have to be able to write as well with the left as with the right hand, that will double the power of my brain. Why should I ignore that possibility, and not use it to my advantage? Enough for today, especially since I have nothing else to report, and I want to go to bed. I will wake up at 6 am. Auto suggestion.”

This is just the first entry in a diary spanning 50 years. Yet even this single entry shows how many questions one might pursue when working with students in a session on the use of primary (archival) sources. Putting aside young Oskar’s laudatory reference to the Russian Revolution of 1917, it may be best to focus on something smaller and closer to home.  For example, the reference to training your memory is to Hans Gloy, Gedächtnis-Ausbildung, 1913. Gloy (born in 1888) was a German merchant, who also wrote advice pieces for trade journals.  The table of contents of the Gloy volume shows that the book is a training manual, organized into daily exercises, spaced over the course of seven weeks.  The training, however, is not physical, but intellectual.  Indeed, Gloy’s manual is part of a long tradition of practical memory training (also known as  mnemonics, memory sports, mental discipline, study skills, or cognitive learning,–) an area of study that is curiously located between Greek philosophy and self-help books.  And now, thanks to our transcription and translation of Oskar’s first diary entry, we know that such mental gymnastics also informed the ideas of the man who invented game theory.

Image Label; Cover of the book by Hans Gloy Gedächtnis-Ausbilding. 1913, and biographical entry in Degeners Wer ist’s? 1935

In Part 2 “How Can Librarians Teach with Materials in German Script?” We will discuss the digitized Oskar Morgenstern diaries as an Open Educational Resource, and will offer some resources for teaching German Script for students and teachers at Duke and beyond. For questions, contact Heidi Madden






Nominations Open for Undergraduate Research Talks

Nominations are now open for a new undergraduate invited speaker event featuring students who have shown excellence in using the Libraries’ materials as part of their coursework, honors thesis, or other capstone project. Nominated students may be invited to present about the process of conducting their research at the event “Research as Process: An Undergraduate Research Showcase.”

Participants will be selected from a variety of disciplines, featuring research conducted on varied topics and with different methods (from data visualization to papers to websites), all of which have unique processes for research.

Nominees must have conducted their research between the Spring 2019 and Spring 2020 semesters for consideration.

To nominate a student, faculty must submit a letter of support on the student’s behalf.

Additional information and the nomination form may be found here:
https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8kssGkDfILK3DN3

Important Dates & Deadlines

  • March 15: Nominations must be submitted by the end of the day
  • April 1: Invited participants will be notified

The event is scheduled for Monday, April 20, at 11:00 a.m. in The Edge Workshop Room (Bostock 127).

For Questions and Additional Info

Please contact Ciara Healy (ciara.healy@duke.edu).






The Big Book in Lilly Library

THE BIG BOOK

by Lee Sorensen
Librarian for Visual Studies and Dance, Lilly Library

Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company / Featured plate: Eugene Atget Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve [PC: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Gilman Collection, Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Henry R. Kravis Gift, 2005]
What is that “big book” on display in the lobby of Lilly Library? Its proper title is  Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company. This book is a gift to Duke University Libraries from the Nasher Museum of Art, and will remain in Lilly through the spring semester.

With the rise of e-books and readers, one of the most uncommon and increasingly rare printed formats is the folio book, defined by one student as, “too damn large to carry.” In the days before book criteria included portability, giant books were produced to contain actual-size documents such as building plans and engravings, detailed scientific renderings and later, photography.

 

man with big book
Librarian Lee Sorensen with the book Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company

The “big book” on display is a modern edition of photographs from the Gilman Paper Company, New York. The firm had one of the best private collections of photographs in the world,  which was acquired by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005 . This magisterial book contains reprinted photographs of photographers such as Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Fox Talbot, Eugene Atget and Edward S. Curtis.  The edition was curated by Pierre Apraxine, with plates created  by renowned photographer and printer Richard Benson (who was also the Dean of Yale School of Art), and notes contributed by photography consultant Lee Marks. This volume, printed by Stamperia Valdonega in Verona, Italy, and half-bound in leather, is the only one in North Carolina outside of the Mint Museum, Charlotte.

Pages are turned periodically to show new images. 47 cm in length, the volume  consists of 480 pages with 199 offset lithographs plus an offset lithographic frontispiece.


Contributor: Carol Smolka Terry
Lilly Library






Find Article PDFs Faster with This Browser Plugin

Guest post by Amanda Rizki, Cary Gentry, and Sujeit Llanes, practicum students in our Assessment and User Experience Department.


Are you one of the many students who prefer to browse the web for scholarly articles? 

Do you use Wikipedia as your starting point for research? 

Do you do most of your research before you come to the library’s website?

Maybe you are frustrated by having to relocate each article you find cited on scholarly websites within the Duke Libraries’ databases? 

Nomad Plug-In for Chrome is the tool for you! Nomad is a browser plugin for Google Chrome that helps you find journal article PDFs quickly and easily. Nomad connects your Duke Libraries access to articles found while browsing in Wikipedia, PubMed, or directly on publishers’ websites. 

Once you install the plugin, it will scan the sites you read online for journal article identifiers. When it sees an article that is available through Duke, it provides easy PDF or link access with a consistent, easy-to-find button. Links bring you to a fully accessible article page – no further login required. PDFs can be downloaded directly to your computer. 

Nomad was created by Third Iron, the same company that makes LibKey and BrowZine. The plug-in does not collect any information about you, so the tool is safe to use with your personal information and Duke log-in. While Nomad reads web pages for articles that Duke Library provides access to, it is still your Duke credentials that allow the link or download to move forward. 

An example of Nomad at work in a Wikipedia article about cardiovascular disease.

 

Nomad provides one-click access to articles in PubMed search results.

 

Get Nomad for Chrome today!


Need more assistance setting up this plug-in?  Keep reading!

Plug-ins are extra bits of software that you can add to your internet browser – in this case, to Google Chrome. Google organizes all of the plug-ins available for their browser on a site called Chrome Web Store. This plug-in, Nomad, is free, but some plug-ins must be purchased. 

1. Open Google Chrome. If you have not already installed it, Chrome is available via Google. 

2. In Chrome, type “Chrome libkey nomad” in the address bar and choose the first result. Or open this link.

3. Click the “Add to Chrome” button in the upper right corner of the page:

4. A small popup window will appear. The browser will ask for you to verify that you want to add the plug-in (called the extension) to your computer. 


5. After the plug-in installs, it will prompt you to select your institution.  Choose “Duke University” from the dropdown menu. 

6. The plugin is now ready to use. You can close the window and proceed to browse normally. 






Students: Take Our Survey. You Could Win a $150 Amazon Gift Card!

Happiness meter
Your feedback matters! We use data from this survey to make service enhancements, expenditures, and other library improvements. See the list of examples below for changes we’ve made in response to previous user surveys.


Here in the Libraries, we’re always trying to up our game. That’s why every two years we invite Duke students to take part in a brief user survey to help us better understand their experiences and thoughts on library spaces, collections, and services.

The survey takes no more than 5 minutes to complete and will remain open between now and February 12, 2020.

As a special thank you for participating, all student respondents will be entered into a raffle for a $150 Amazon gift card.

When libraries and students work together, everybody wins. Take a look at some of the improvements we’ve made over the last four years as a direct result of our user surveys.

Changes We Made in Response to Our 2016 and 2018 User Surveys

  • Oasis Perkins: You asked for a space to relax and de-stress. We worked with DuWell to develop Oasis Perkins on the fourth floor of the library.
  • Prayer & Meditation Room: You asked for a private place to pray and meditate while in the library. We converted a study room into a space for quiet reflection.
  • Hot/cold water dispensers: You asked for access to hot filtered water 24/7. We added two hot/cold water dispensers to Bostock (floor 3) and Perkins (floor 4).
  • Increased textbook lending: You asked for more textbooks to be available from the library. We purchased textbooks for the 100 highest enrollment classes at Duke and made them available for three-hour checkout at the library.
  • Coffee vending machine: You asked for access to coffee 24/7. We added a coffee and hot beverage vending machine to the lounge in The Edge.
  • Office supplies vending machine: You asked for easy access to important supplies like whiteboard markers and charging cables. We stocked a vending machine in The Edge with school supplies.
  • Better signage for reservable study rooms: You asked for clearer policies so you know when to reserve a room and when you can drop in without advance planning. We revamped our room reservation policy and added eye-catching signage to study rooms.
  • Clearer policies for study spaces: You asked for noise norms so you know where to go when you need to get work done. We added colorful signage to indicate which floors are for gabbing and which are for stuff done.
  • E-newsletter: You asked for more info about library events and research tools. We developed a regular e-newsletter, chock full of handy tips and interesting tidbits about library exhibits, programs, collections.
  • Inclusive spaces statement and signage: You asked for visible confirmation that Duke Libraries are open to everyone. We worked with students to develop an Inclusive Spaces Statement and created “Libraries are for everyone” buttons for staff to wear and posted signs in Lower Level 2.
  • Quiet study zones, food-free spaces: You asked for quiet study zones and spaces where food is not permitted. We designated distraction-free spaces and added signage.
  • Lower Level 2 improvements: You asked for a better vibe in Perkins Lower Level 2. We replaced the carpet, changed the paint color, and added brighter lighting.
  • Better WiFi access on the patio: You asked for more study spaces with natural light. We enhanced WiFi access on the patio outside Perkins & Bostock so you can study in the sunshine.

Feedback is what helps the Libraries grow, and the more input we get, the better we’ll be able to renovate, rethink, and improve.

So please, take a couple minutes of your time to complete the 2020 survey—and thank you for your help in making the Duke University Libraries a better place.






The Frankfurt International Book Fair 2019. Part 1

This post is by Heidi Madden, Librarian for Western European and Medieval/Renaissance Studies, and Sarah How, European Studies Librarian at Cornell University. 

International book fairs provide great opportunities for librarians to discover new books and other media; learn of new trends in publishing, translation, design, and book production; and build personal connections that directly benefit both their own work and that of their home institutions. Being abroad, being there in person, immersed in the language and culture of another place, is in itself of significant benefit, although one that is difficult to quantify. That is why we are grateful for the opportunity afforded by this library blog to write about our experiences at the 2019 Frankfurt Book Fair, and thereby to describe some of those benefits.

For international and area studies librarians, book fair visits are an essential component not only of professional development but also of collection development.  That serious research libraries need materials that would not — could not, economically — be provided by our standard commercial supply channels is accepted wisdom in the profession. Book fair visits are an efficient way to address this need, since they make it possible to interact with many publishers at once, in a single exhibition space. In addition, cultural and linguistic immersion at international fairs strengthens the skills and knowledge that support research services and give academic librarians “street cred” with international students and faculty, as well as researchers engaged in foreign-language humanities, social sciences, and area studies. Visits to specialized bookstores, meetings with local librarians, and visits to local libraries and cultural institutions can be squeezed-in around a busy fair schedule for additional benefit.  This is especially true for those librarians who are able to attend an international book fair in a place as rich in resources as Frankfurt, Germany.

The logo of the 2019 Frankfurt Book Fair

The Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter Buchmesse), an annual international event for the publishing trade community, is the world’s largest book fair.  This Fair is fundamentally a commercial event, focused as it is on the business of publishing and related industries. It is the place, for example, where publishers, agents, authors, illustrators, film makers, translators, printers, authors, media specialists, book distributors, and libraries negotiate and license rights for distribution, publishing, translation, and film and media versions of the items on display. However, the Frankfurt Book Fair is also the occasion for substantial programming related to contemporary literature and, as we shall see, can even serve as a forum for robust cultural and political debates. Similarly-designed book fairs, more regional in scope, are held in Paris (Salon du livre), Bologna (Bologna Children’s Book Fair), Madrid (Liber), Guadalajara (International Book Fair), Beijing (International Book Fair), Hong Kong (Book Fair), and Moscow (International Book Fair), to name just a few.

According to established tradition, the Frankfurt Book Fair lasts for 5 days, from Wednesday to Sunday. The first three days are usually focused on exhibiting books. On those days, a European Studies librarian can, for example, peruse the publishing program of dozens and dozens of publishers from every European country, including small, independent presses. On the weekend, the fair is open to the public, and books are sold directly to individuals. On those days the sections of the fair devoted to publishers of graphic novels, cookbooks, travel literature, zines, and German language fiction are jammed with people and cosplay participants. In October 2019, 302,267 individuals from 100 countries visited the Frankfurt Book Fair. There, they were met by 7,500 exhibitors and encountered 400,000 individual books, maps, manuscripts, visual materials, and digital media objects (audio and e-books).

The special exhibit of the guest country Norway combined nature imagery, mirrors, and book tables designed to represent poems in spatial dimensions. Norway also celebrated 500 years of the printed book (Nidaros Missal and the Nidaros Breviary, from 1519) in the exhibit.

Each year, Frankfurt hosts a “Guest of Honor” country: Norway was the 2019 Guest. The guiding theme for the Norwegian events and exhibits was “The Dream We Carry.” The theme title was inspired by the famous Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge, and his poem “It is that Dream.”  Norway sponsored prominent Norwegian writers, who spoke and schmoozed with the attendees, while fair organizers produced a free bibliography of new publications from Norway in German translation to promote writers and publishers to the German reading public. Karl Ove Knausgård, a Norwegian author who has been described as one of the 21st century’s greatest literary sensations, spoke in several different settings, both about his own work and about his recent experience curating an exhibit on Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, whose best known work, The Scream, has become one of the most iconic images of world art. In other interviews, contemporary Norwegian authors Erik Fosnes Hansen and Erika Fatland covered a diversity of topics, from the Oslo cultural scene to food science, which is at the heart of Hansen’s novel Et Hummerliv (“A Lobster’s Life”). Maja Lunde spoke about her forthcoming book The End of the Ocean, while Jo Nesbø was interviewed about Knife, the next installment in his Harry Hole series of crime novels.  More highlights and full listing of authors can be found in the online program.

Karl Ove Knausgård amd Jurgen Boos (CEO of the Frankfurt Book Fair)

Norwegian literature was represented by many authors reading from their work.

In addition to lectures and authors’ talks, the Frankfurt Book Fair also hosts special celebrations for the winners of the Nobel Prize, the German Book Prize, and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Overall, ninety-three prizes were awarded by various organizations during the book fair in 2019. Polish-born 2018 Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk (awarded in 2019) spoke at the opening session of the Fair. Oddly, Austrian-born Peter Handke, the 2019 Nobel Laureate, was not present in person, and was only represented by his publisher’s special display. Handke’s absence did not prevent him from becoming the subject of intense controversy. Saša Stanišić, the winner of the 2019 German Book Prize, who fled to Germany with his Bosnian mother and Serbian father in 1992, was the most prominent voice at the book fair, taking Handke to task for his sympathetic attitude toward former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes.

World newspapers, including The Guardian, chronicled the Handke debate.  One of its articles, entitled “A troubling choice: authors criticise Peter Handke’s controversial Nobel win. reported on the views of famous international writers, such as Salman Rushdie, Hari Kunzru and Slavoj Žižek who opined that the 2019 Nobel laureate “‘combines great insight with shocking ethical blindness’.” Another article, entitled “Peter Handke’s Nobel prize dishonours the victims of genocide,” referenced the Austrian writer’s stance on the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, which has been characterized by some critics as genocide apologism. At some point during October 2019, Peter Handke announced that he would no longer speak to journalists, so for now the debate will continue in literary circles, and will most likely re-emerge around the December 10, 2019 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.

The 2019 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade was awarded to Sebastião Salgado, the first ever photographer to receive this prize.  During the course of several interviews, the Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist introduced his book Gold, which showcases haunting images of Amazonia taken in the 1980s. As with his other work, Gold highlights environmental and human rights issues by investigating habitats and communities with his camera.

Cultural events inspired by Norway as the Guest of Honor were only a fraction of the international author events and talks at the Fair and in the city of Frankfurt. The gala of literary stars included Margaret Atwood, Maja Lunde, Elif Shafak, Colson Whitehead, Ken Follett, and Jo Nesbø (video Highlights can be seen on the Fair’s website). More media outlets broadcast from the book fair than can be mentioned here. The two outlets with the most video content are ARD Mediathek and  ZDF Mediathek, especially the venue “Das Blaue Sofa,” which gives access to 90 interviews with authors from the Frankfurt 2019 fair alone.  Social media followed along under #fmb19, and have already transitioned to the hashtag for the 2020 fair, #fbm20, as planning for the next fair gets underway. Canada will be the Guest of Honor at the 2020 Frankfurt Book Fair.

On Saturday and Sunday, while the public floods into the fairgrounds, specialized, ticketed, professional events are held at the Frankfurt Book Fair.  The two that we attended this year were the 7th International Convention of University Presses 2019, which focused on the European Accessibility Act, and an event for non-fiction editors. The non-fiction publishing event “Non-fiction Publishing: It’s a Women’s World,” consisted of a panel and discussion with female publishers from Morocco, Turkey, India, and Norway, who spoke about their experiences with producing important works documenting and giving voice to issues and experiences which might not find a home with large commercial publishers.

Look for more on Frankfurt hot topics in the next blog post on Welcome to the VUCA World! The Frankfurt International Book Fair 2019. Part 2

Frankfurt Book Fair 2019 publisher displays

On Saturday, cosplay fans come dressed as their favorite characters.

“Stellt das Buch her / Make the book”: three containers stacked on top of each other, with exhibits on each level in the courtyard of the book fair.

 






Database Tips & Tricks: PubMed

Another day another research paper, am I right?

And your professor said you could use any sources within biomedical or life sciences, as long as the sources are peer-reviewed.

Well we have the database for you!

PubMed is a database full of peer-reviewed articles focused around biomedical and life sciences and here’s how you get to it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.

So first let’s and that can be found at the top right.

After selecting Log in, choose Duke as your university and then it’ll prompt you to either create an account with your Duke email or sign into an account you already have, choose whichever is appropriate.

Some benefits of logging in:

  • View Recent Activity
  • Create/Manage Bibliographies
  • Create/Manage Collections
  • Create Custom Filters
Results Page

And after you’ve logged in and started searching, the results page gives you a helpful bar that look like:

 

More options for each sections looks like:
 

But it should be noted that the when choosing “Save” or “Email” you’re saving/emailing  citations and not the search or its results.

Helpful hints:

  • Clipboard expires 8 hours after being added
  • You can save all the search results to your Collection

 

On the left is a column containing your filters and if you’re looking to get more specific in your search use this!

Article Page

On this page you’ll find some of the same features listed from the results page, but you’ll also be able to:

  • Download citations to RIS file
  • Add articles to favorites
  • A link to the full text (but beware, some of the links don’t always work)

The bottom of this page also gives you similar articles, a list of articles that cited the one you’re viewing, and a list of MeSH terms to aid you in your search.

And congratulations, you now have the tools you need to start or finish your paper!

Happy researching, friend!

And if you have more questions, feel free to reach out to a librarian at https://library.duke.edu/research/ask