Category Archives: Feature Articles

ROAD 2.0

Outdoor Advertising on the Web

Thanks to a $60,000 Digitizing Historic Records grant from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission, the Libraries’ Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History and the Digital Production Center are collaborating to scan approximately 24,000 outdoor advertising images that document American history and consumer culture from the 1920s to the 1990s.

ROAD 2.0, as the project has been titled, complements ROAD, the Resource of Outdoor Advertising Descriptions, a Hartman Center database that provides access to over 70,000 descriptions of images of outdoor advertising. The materials described in ROAD are drawn from four collections in the holdings of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

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Nobel Laureate’s Papers Coming to Duke

Courtesy of Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The papers of preeminent American economist Paul A. Samuelson (1914-2009), the first American recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, are being added to the Economists’ Papers Project in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. Prior to Samuelson’s death on 13 December 2009, he had made the decision to donate his papers to Duke where they will join the collections of his MIT Nobel Prize-winning colleagues Robert Solow and Franco Modigliani, as well as those of Nobelists Kenneth Arrow, Lawrence Klein (Samuelson’s first Ph.D. student), Douglass North, Vernon Smith, and Leonid Hurwicz. The Economists’ Papers Project, developed jointly by Duke’s History of Economics group and the Special Collections Library, is the most significant archival collection of economists’ papers in the world.

Samuelson was the singular force leading to the post-World War II reconceptualization of economics as a scientific discipline. His textbook, Principles of Economics, grounded the vocabulary and teaching practices of the economics profession in the second half of the twentieth century, and his career at MIT made that economics department the world leader in scientific economics.

Human Rights Archive Acquires Papers of Carter Administration Official

The Archive for Human Rights at the Special Collections Library has signed an agreement with Patricia (Patt) Murphy Derian to be the repository for her papers, which document her long career in human rights. Derian was a civil rights activist in Mississippi prior to being chosen by President Jimmy Carter to head the newly created Bureau for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. In 1977 she became the nation’s first Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Affairs; she held the position until 1981.

The collection, which covers roughly the period from 1976 to 2007, includes correspondence, news clippings, reports, memos, and personal notes organized in three categories that cover Derian’s tenure in the Carter administration, human rights (primarily related to organizations), and countries. The countries category, comprising eight of the fifteen boxes of Derian’s papers, includes subseries pertaining to Argentina, Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam Paraguay, and El Salvador. According to Human Rights Archivist Patrick Stawski, “The Derian papers are a perfect addition to the Archive for Human Rights’ Latin American holdings, complementing such collections as the Marshall T. Meyer Papers and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) records.”

Events – Spring 2010

April 6

The Great Art of Knowing

Award-winning avant-garde filmmaker and Guggenheim Fellow David Gatten will present his 2004 film, The Great Art of Knowing, an exploration of the library of William Byrd II, a prominent 18th-century Virginia landowner and author. Gatten is the 2010 Duke Distinguished Visiting Filmmaker in the Program of the Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University. His films have been included twice in the Whitney Biennial, and his work is part of the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Tuesday, 6 April, 12:30-2pm, Perkins Library, Biddle Rare Book Room

April 12

Courtesy of the Jazz Loft Project

Sam Stephenson and the Jazz Loft Project

The Jazz Archive at the Special Collections Library presents Sam Stephenson, director of the Center for Documentary Studies’ Jazz Loft Project, for a lunchtime discussion of the history of this fascinating audio and photographic archive. Stephenson will highlight some of the recent project activities, including a new book, radio series, and traveling photography exhibition. Guests are invited to bring their own lunches; dessert and beverages will be provided.

From 1957 to 1965 legendary photographer W. Eugene Smith made approximately 4,000 hours of recordings on 1,741 reel-to-reel tapes and nearly 40,000 photographs in this loft building in Manhattan’s wholesale flower district where major jazz musicians of the day gathered and played their music.

Monday, 12 April, 12 noon, Perkins Library, Biddle Rare Book Room

April 14

Writing about China

A reception to honor sixteen Duke faculty in Chinese Studies who have written, edited, or contributed to books on diverse subjects, including stone sculptures, aging, postcolonialism, film, and contemporary Chinese colloquialisms.

Wednesday, 14 April, 4-6pm, Perkins Library, Biddle Rare Book Room

April 17

Rescuing JFK

Courtesy of Merriam Press

Theodore M. (Ted) Robinson T’40 and Duke military historian Alex Roland will discuss Robinson’s 2008 book, Water in My Veins: The Pauper Who Helped Save a President. The book recounts Robinson’s role in saving the life of John F. Kennedy on the night of August 1-2, 1953, when a Japanese destroyer rammed PT 109.

Saturday, 17 April, 2pm, Perkins Library, Biddle Rare Book Room. Sponsored by the Libraries and the Duke Alumni Association.

April 20

Fritz Eichenberg
The Lamentations of Jeremiah

Opening Reception for Illustrating the Hebrew Bible

Professors Eric Meyers and Kalman Bland will discuss artists’ visual interpretations of the Hebrew Bible as exemplified in the exhibit by a facsimile of a 15th-century illuminated manuscript, a traditional Torah scroll, and a selection of modern artist books and lithographs. Sponsored by the Libraries and the Center for Jewish Studies.

Tuesday, 20 April, 4:30pm, Perkins Library, Biddle Rare Book Room

April 23

Rare Music in the Rare Book Room

This Rare Music event honors the winners of the first Rare Music Composition Competition. Undergraduate and graduate students were invited to compose a piece of music for an instrument represented in the Duke University Musical Instrument Collections. Winners will receive a cash award and the honor of having their pieces performed during the 23 April program. Sponsored by Duke University Libraries and the Duke University Musical Instrument Collections.

Friday, 23 April, 4pm, Perkins Library, Biddle Rare Book Room

May 5

Friends of the Duke University Libraries Annual Dinner

This year’s event will include a celebration of the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Friends of the Duke University Libraries as well as an after-dinner program, complete with musical performance, which will showcase the Jazz Archive at Duke.

Duke University has a long tradition of campus-based jazz performance, and several of the Jazz Archive’s collections document aspects of that history. These include the Les Brown Scores, the Sonny Burke Papers, the Linda Dahl Collection on Mary Lou Williams, and the Paul Jeffrey Papers.

Invitations to the Friends dinner will be mailed to members. If you have not received an invitation and would like to attend the dinner, contact Lizzy Mottern at lizzy.mottern@duke.edu. Special thanks to SunTrust Bank for their continued involvement as presenting sponsor and to on-campus partner, the Gothic Bookshop, for supporting the Annual Dinner.

Wednesday, 5 May, Doris Duke Center at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens

November 10: Save the Date!

Dave Eggers will deliver the 2010 Weaver Lecture at Duke’s Page Auditorium.

Credit: Michelle Quint

Dave Eggers is the author of six books, including Zeitoun and What Is the What, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award. Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco that produces a quarterly journal, a monthly magazine (The Believer), and Wholphin, a quarterly DVD of short films and documentaries. In 2002, with Nínive Calegari he co-founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth in the Mission District of San Francisco. In 2004, Eggers and Lola Vollen co-founded Voice of Witness, a series of books using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world.

—From http://www.mcsweeneys.net/authorpages/eggers/eggers.html

Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 6pm, Page Auditorium

Exhibits – Spring 2010

Perkins Gallery

Abel Pann, …And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…. Lithograph

April–August

Illustrating the Hebrew Bible

This exhibit presents an array of artistic interpretations of the Old Testament that range from a 15th-century printed Hebrew Bible leaf to 20th-century lithographs by Abel Pann and artist books by Mordechai Beck and Ben Shahn and others. Opening reception 20 April. Details in “Events.”

August–October

Trinity Treasures: Highlights from the Trinity College Historical Society

Faculty and students founded the Trinity College Historical Society in 1892 for the purpose of collecting, arranging, and preserving written materials and artifacts illustrative of the history of South and North Carolina and to promote the study of southern history through lectures and publications. The Society’s museum, established in 1894, was the precursor of Duke’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

Special Collections Gallery

April–August

The Power of Refined Beauty: Photographing Society Women for Pond’s, 1920s–1950s

For over thirty years, fashionable British and American society women, including Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt, Lady Milford-Haven, Mrs. George Whitney and Anne Morgan, graced advertisements the J. Walter Thompson Company created for Pond’s beauty products. This exhibit presents a selection of these images by prominent photographers Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, and others.

August–December

Deena Stryker
“Primer Maggio”

Deena Stryker: Photographs of Cuba, 1963-1964

Taken during the early years of the Cuban revolution, the 1,850 images in the Deena Stryker Photograph Collection depict urban and rural life on the island as well as many officials of the new government, including Fidel and Raúl Castro, Ernesto “Ché” Guevara, and Celia Sánchez Manduley. The thirty gelatin silver prints in this exhibit reflect the youth and vitality of Cuba’s leadership in the early 1960s and the optimism of the Cuban people.

Special Collections Biddle Rare Book Room Cases

April–June

You’ve Got Personality: Celebrity Endorsements in Advertising

Documents and other items related to the Pond’s “society women” advertising campaigns. The exhibit also features advertisements and additional examples of celebrity endorsements found in the collections of the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

June–September

Ten Treatments

The Duke Libraries’ Preservation Department marks its tenth anniversary this year. As part of the ongoing celebration, the Verne and Tanya Roberts Conservation Lab is displaying ten treatments its staff has completed for the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library over the decade. This exhibit will run concurrently with an exhibit mounted by the Digital Production Center to highlight ten collections its staff has digitized. The DPC exhibit is on view in the Preservation Department exhibit case on the lower level of Perkins Library, just outside room 023.


The Verne and Tanya Roberts Conservation Lab

Generally, the Special Collections and Perkins galleries are open Monday–Saturday, 9am–9pm, and 10am–9pm on Sunday. Visit http://library.duke.edu/exhibits/ for more information or call 919.684.3009 to confirm hours.

Dear Reader

Dear Reader,

Ilene NelsonThis year marks the 20th anniversary of the Library Advisory Board, a group of donors who support the Duke University Libraries financially as well as by sharing the expertise they have gained in an array of professions. In preparing for the Board’s anniversary meeting this spring, one of my colleagues reviewed all of the issues of Duke University Libraries that have been published during the past twenty years.

I enjoyed reminiscing with him, seeing the Libraries’ milestones and accomplishments recorded in the pages of the magazine: the introduction of technology and its transformative impact; the construction of new buildings and the renovation of existing library spaces; announcements of acquisitions, projects, and grants; and descriptions of the diverse programs and exhibits we have offered to the Duke and Durham communities.

Reporting to you about the many ways in which the Libraries connect people and ideas has given me great pleasure for the seventeen years I have served as the magazine’s editor. So, it is with regret that I relinquish my editorship—even for the pleasures of retirement! However, the magazine will continue, and I will join you as one of its readers and as a friend of the Duke University Libraries.

Best wishes,

B. Ilene Nelson
 

Notes – Fall 2009

Exhibits

Events

Rights! Camera! Action! Human Rights Film Series

Remember that Ad?

Cornerstone Phase

North Carolina Mutual Transfers Collections to North Carolina Central University and Duke University

Doris Duke Comes Home

Heraldo Muñoz’s The Dictator’s Shadow Wins Second WOLA-Duke Book Award

Honoring with Books

Women’s Refugee Commission Donates Historical Archives to Duke University Libraries

Photo of Doris Duke
Doris Duke
Courtesy Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Historical Archives
Special Collections Library, Duke University

Digital Collections at Duke

Five articles on the Digital Collections program at Duke University Libraries.

Learn More about Digital Collections at Duke University Libraries

Collections Highlight: Ethiopic Manuscripts at Duke

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers,
who let me finish the writing of the Zemmâre and the Mawâs’et
in peace and well-being,
for ever and ever. May it be!”

(Colophon of ms. Duke Eth. 83)

image of people and horse

Courtesy Lucas Van Rompay

Magic scrolls, Psalters, prayers, and hymns are among the treasures in a collection of more than one hundred Ethiopic manuscripts at Duke’s Special Collections Library. Christianity was introduced in Ethiopia in the 4th century AD and established by Egyptian missionaries. The Ethiopian Christian church retained its connection to the Patriarch of Alexandria until the 20th century.

The manuscripts at Duke are representative of a worldwide diaspora of the Ethiopian Christian heritage that began in the second half of the twentieth century and continues today. While the removal of the manuscripts from Ethiopia is regrettable, Professor Lucas Van Rompay takes a pragmatic view:

As scholars, we cannot undo the process by which these objects left Ethiopia and arrived here, but we can in our own way halt their movement from their original environment. By giving these objects our respect and scholarly attention and by using all possible modern technologies—such as digitizing—we can help to ensure that they will be available for study and research by the international scholarly community as well as by Ethiopian Christians in Ethiopia and elsewhere.

Van Rompay, a member of Duke’s Department of Religion faculty, and Aaron Butts from the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations intend to do just that—increase visibility of the manuscripts in the Duke collection and make them more readily available. The manuscripts are certainly of value to biblical scholars and to students of early Christianity. However, scholars and students of African history, popular religion, and manuscript production (all the manuscripts are written on parchment and the bindings often have interesting and rare features) will also use them.

image of manuscript

Colophon of ms. Duke Eth. 83 from Duke’s Special Collections Library
Courtesy Lucas Van Rompay

For the past two summers Van Rompay and Butts have been working with the manuscripts, preparing a catalogue of the Duke holdings that will be published in 2010. Their catalogue will supersede an unpublished description of manuscripts 1-29 compiled in 1979 by William F. Macomber, a well-known scholar of Syriac, Coptic, and Ethiopic Christianity; Macomber died in 2008.

Photo of amulet

Amulet from Duke’s Special Collections Library

The twenty-nine items Professor Macomber studied include seventeen magic scrolls as well as eight Psalters, one Gospel of John, two collections of prayers, and one collection of the Miracles of the Virgin Mary. Van Rompay and Butts are cataloguing all of the manuscripts Duke has acquired since 1979 as well as the twenty-nine that Macomber described. Among the more recent acquisitions are additional magic scrolls (five with amulets), biblical texts, hymns, liturgical collections and devotional prayer books, hagiography, theological writings, and miscellaneous materials.

Most of the manuscripts date from the 19th or 20th centuries, with only a few originating as early as the 18th century. Yet, while the manuscripts are relatively recent, they are of interest to scholars because of their distinctive characteristics, the textual evidence they contain and the record of Ethiopian Christianity in the modern period that they provide.

The twenty-eight Psalter manuscripts offer much to explore, from textual patterns that almost certainly reflect local religious traditions to a variation in the content of some of the prayers to an occasional unique binding to a single illustrated Psalter. This Psalter, one of only two manuscripts in the collection with illustrations as old as the manuscripts themselves, has a carefully executed drawing of King David holding his harp. The other illustration, in one of the prayer book manuscripts, is a modest, but very fine drawing of the Archangel Michael, with crown and wings and carrying a staff. In both cases, there is a clear connection between the content of the manuscript and the illustration. The rarity and simple character of the illuminations are in keeping with the general nature of the Duke collection, evidence that these manuscripts must have belonged to, and been produced on behalf of, individuals or monastic or church congregations of limited means.

The eight hymn manuscripts in the Duke collection are among its highlights. Several were intended for liturgical use: their script is smaller than that of the other manuscripts, and there is interlinear musical annotation. One collection of hymns is attributed to Yared, the father of Ethiopic hymnography.

Ethiopic hymns are typically structured around the feasts of the liturgical year. Many of the hymns are based on the Bible, both Old and New Testament, and may be seen as liturgical commentaries on the Bible, not unlike the hymns of other Christian churches. The liturgical structure of two of the groups of hymns in the Duke collection is similar to hymn manuscripts in the British Library but with sufficient variation to merit more scholarly attention.

In the field of hagiography, the biography of saints and venerated persons, one noteworthy group of three manuscripts, Dersana Mika’el, is a collection of texts related to the monthly feasts of the Archangel Michael. Each month typically includes a homily, a miracle, a salutation, and often an “explanation of the feast.” This collection is of interest, not only for its obvious links with Coptic and Christian-Arabic homilies about Michael, but also for the homilies’ attributions to church fathers of the early Christian age (Timothy of Alexandria, Epiphanius of Cyprus, and Severus of Antioch) as well as to later Ethiopian authors (John of Ethiopia and John of Aksum).

photo of prayer scroll

One of the prayer scrolls unrolled
Photo by Eleanor Mills

Duke’s forty-seven magic scrolls, also called prayer scrolls, many acquired bundled together, are of a recent date, although they are written in Ge’ez, a language no longer spoken in Ethiopia but which persists as the Ethiopian Church’s liturgical language. One of the most fascinating aspects of the scrolls is that, in contrast to the manuscripts, the prayers they contain address particular concerns of Ethiopian women, including illness, sterility, and unhappiness in love. Indeed, the prominence of women in these prayer scrolls raises questions that beg for further research.

With the publication of the Van Rompay and Butts catalogue, information about the Duke Ethiopic manuscript holdings will be available to anyone with access to the Internet. Digitization of the manuscripts, which is being discussed, will make the content of the manuscripts themselves available as well.

Photo of Lucas Van Rompay and Aaron Butts

Lucas Van Rompay and Aaron Butts

This note is adapted with the permission of Lucas Van Rompay from a lecture he gave at the 2008 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.