The following is one of four profiles of researchers who have engaged in open scholarship at Duke. Please join us on October 5 for Open Scholarship in the Humanities — an in-person panel discussion with these current and former graduate students, who will explore their approaches to engaging in open humanistic scholarship. You can learn more about this ScholarWorks Center event in this blog post, and you can register at https://duke.libcal.com/event/11159787. The event qualifies for 200-level RCR credit. We hope to see you there!
Meet Emilie Menzel
Emilie Menzel is the Collections Management and Strategies Librarian for Duke’s Goodson Law Library and the Research and Instruction Librarian for the literary organization Seventh Wave. Her work and research support critical librarianship, libraries as active sites of information creation, and librarians as conduits for collaboration. Additionally, Emilie is a poet and writer, author of the book-length lyric The Girl Who Became a Rabbit (Hub City Press, 2024). She lives at the wood-skirts of Durham and online at emiliemenzel.com.
About Emilie’s Work with Project Vox
Published by Duke University Libraries, Project Vox (https://projectvox.org) is an open educational resource that amplifies the voices of marginalized philosophers. Emilie reflects on her role with the project:
“Last year while finishing my Masters in Library Science from UNC, I worked as the Teaching Resources Analyst for the Duke digital scholarship group Project Vox. Project Vox highlights early modernist philosophers from historically marginalized backgrounds; one way in which they do so is through a curation of open access reading lists and syllabi. As the Teaching Resources Analyst, I led an assessment of Project Vox’s existing teaching resources, surveyed Philosophy instructors about their teaching resource needs, and then used this information to intentionally reorganize, redesign, and solicit further open access teaching resources. What began as a single, text-heavy, static list of links was reconsidered and expanded into three philosophy teaching resource tools organized particularly around Philosophy instructors’ information seeking habits. The resulting teaching resource tools allow Philosophy instructors to easily identify topic-relevant reading recommendations, find suggestions of philosophers to pair or juxtapose in a course session, and search syllabi by course structure.
“This project overlays closely with the principles of open scholarship. It supports open access information and encourages collaboration and connection between Philosophy instructors. Further, the teaching resource tools themselves–i.e. the discovery and access points for the resources–were designed through close collaboration with the end-users; decisions about resource topics, organization, and presentation of information were shaped by open conversation with the user community.”
On the Invisible Work of Digital Scholarship
“Philosophy instructors frequently face pushback around centering historically marginalized philosophers. As I identified in this project’s survey, many instructors are best able to integrate non-canonical philosophers into institutionally accepted syllabi by pairing non-canonical philosophers with discussions of canonical philosophers. Knowing this, it makes sense that it could be useful for Philosophy instructors to be able to search teaching resources for, in essence, ‘What non-canonical philosopher can I teach beside Descartes?’ I thus created a Philosopher Pairings tool: a way for instructors to search for non-canonical philosophers that pair well with the canonical philosophers they are already teaching. In making this tool, however, I began to consider how creating an organizational system around canonical philosophers could be antithetical to the mission of Project Vox: to center non-canonical philosophers. The organization of information, of course, shapes our perception of what is valuable in that information set. I had to reorganize the tool. Back to the drawing board, restructuring the tool, reconsidering the philosophers data type in the backend of the database.
“Another significant element of this project, likely imperceptible to most in the end product, was the challenge to design a teaching tool interface that could be easily maintained, understood, and updated by the Project Vox team. As a university-based, student-supported research project, the Project Vox team regularly changes composition. Each year, new undergraduates and graduate students bring an exciting range of interests and skills to Project Vox. My redesign of the teaching resource tools had to consider this array of technology backgrounds to ensure that the teaching resource tools I developed could actually be maintained by new team members for years to come. This task required simplifying the back-end organization of the database, as well as clear, highly thorough documentation.”
Come meet Emilie and learn about her work at the ScholarWorks Center’s Open Scholarship in the Humanities panel discussion on October 5 (12:00-1:00 PM, Bostock Library 127; lunch is provided). Please take a moment to register and learn more about the event. We’ll see you there!
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Murder your Employer: the McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes. Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college–its location unknown to even those who study there–is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate…and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live. To learn more, you may enjoy this Barnes & Noble sponsored conversation between the author and Neil Patrick Harris.
Jezebel by Megan Barnard. Jezebel. You’ve heard the name. But you’ve never heard her story. “Historical fiction at its finest,” (Louisa Morgan) this propulsive novel is a stunning reimagining of the story of a fierce princess from Tyre and her infamous legacy. Jezebel was born into the world howling. She intends to leave it the same way. When Jezebel learns she can’t be a king like her father simply because she’s a girl, she vows never to become someone’s decorative wife, nameless and lost to history. At fifteen she’s married off, despite her protests, to Prince Ahab of Israel. There, she does what she must to gain power and remake the dry and distant kingdom in the image of her beloved, prosperous seaside homeland of Tyre, beginning by building temples to the gods she grew up worshipping. As her initiatives usher in an era of prosperity for Israel, her new subjects love her, and her name rings through the land. Then Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh and her former lover, begins to speak out against her. Bitter at having been abandoned by Jezebel, he lashes out, calling her a slut. Harlot. Witch. And the people, revering their prophet’s message, turn on her. A stunning revision of a notorious queen’s story, Jezebel is a thrilling lyrical debut about a fierce woman who refuses to be forgotten. Check out this essay “Why the Rise of Morally Gray Women In Fiction Is Good For All of Us” by the author.
The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms that Sustain Life by Johan Eklöf. How much light is too much light? Satellite pictures show our planet as a brightly glowing orb, and in our era of constant illumination, light pollution has become a major issue. The world’s flora and fauna have evolved to operate in the natural cycle of day and night. But in the last 150 years, we have extended our day–and in doing so have forced out the inhabitants of the night and disrupted the circadian rhythms necessary to sustain all living things, including ourselves. Swedish conservationist Johan Eklöf urges us to appreciate natural darkness, its creatures, and its unique benefits. He ponders the beauties of the night sky, traces the errant paths of light-drunk moths and the swift dives of keen-eyed owls, and shows us the bioluminescent creatures of the deepest oceans. As a devoted friend of the night, Eklöf reveals the startling domino effect of diminishing darkness: insects, dumbfounded by streetlamps, failing to reproduce; birds blinded and bewildered by artificial lights; and bats starving as they wait in vain for insects that only come out in the dark. Here’s a NYT review and a review from the Geographical Magazine.
American Mermaid by Julia Langbein. Broke English teacher Penelope Schleeman is as surprised as anyone when her feminist, eco-warrior novel American Mermaid becomes a best-seller. But when Hollywood insists she convert her fierce, androgynous protagonist into to a teen sex object in a clamshell bra, strange things start to happen. Is Penelope losing her mind, or has her fictional mermaid come to life, enacting revenge against society’s limited view of what a woman can and should be? American Mermaid follows a young woman braving the casual slights and cruel calculations of a winner-take-all society and discovering a beating heart in her own fiction: a new kind of hero who fights to keep her voice and choose her place. A hilarious story about deep things, American Mermaid asks how far we’ll go to protect the parts of ourselves that are not for sale. You can read a review in the Chicago Review of Books or this blog post by The Bossy Bookworm.
Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People by Erica Abrams Locklear. When her mother passed along a cookbook made and assembled by her grandmother, Erica Abrams Locklear thought she knew what to expect. But rather than finding a homemade cookbook full of apple stack cake, leather britches, pickled watermelon, or other “traditional” mountain recipes, Locklear discovered recipes for devil’s food cake with coconut icing, grape catsup, and fig pickles. Some recipes even relied on food products like Bisquick, Swans Down flour, and Calumet baking powder. Where, Locklear wondered, did her Appalachian food script come from? And what implicit judgments had she made about her grandmother based on the foods she imagined she would have been interested in cooking? Appalachia on the Table argues, in part, that since the conception of Appalachia as a distinctly different region from the rest of the South and the United States, the foods associated with the region and its people have often been used to socially categorize and stigmatize mountain people. The question at the core of Locklear’s analysis asks, How did the dominant culinary narrative of the region come into existence and what consequences has that narrative had for people in the mountains? To learn more, check out this review from the Southern Review of Books.
This blog post by Miree Ku, Korean Studies Librarian, is the first in a series devoted to stories about American missionaries in Korea from Duke’s Korean collection and archives.
My interest in American Methodist missionaries in Korea was sparked by simple curiosity. In 2007, when I first started working as a Korean Studies librarian at Duke University Libraries, I discovered that there was a library endowment called the Judy Fund, which was designated for the acquisition of and/or access to Korean materials in both paper and electronic formats. I was surprised to learn of the existence of this fund because it was established back in 1994, at a time when there was no Korean Studies program or faculty at Duke. I wondered why some donor would set up a fund specifically for Korea, but at that point in time, I didn’t know Judy’s full name and was unable to find any archival records about him (or her?) in the library.
This curiosity returned to me a few years later when I received some boxes containing Korean materials gifted to Duke University Libraries. The boxes contained old Bibles, notes, diaries, calendars, and books published from the colonial period through the 1970s, in both Korean and English. According to the gift records, they were donated in 1999 but remained unprocessed for a long time because there was no one to manage Korean language materials. While sorting through the books one by one, I came across a very small red book titled Fifty Helps for the Beginner in the Use of the Korean Language (1911). The first page of this book contained an inscription that reads: “Carl W. Judy.” I was thrilled to see a familiar name and felt certain that these gift materials had been donated by the person who established the Judy Fund.
Baird A. L. A. (1911). Fifty helps for the beginner in the use of the korean language. Fukuin Print.
I was also surprised to see the names of missionaries associated with Duke’s Korean collection and archives appearing one after another. In the process of trying to identify these individuals I started researching the history and activities of foreign missionaries in Korea. The result of this research is my online library guide to the Carl Wesley Judy Collection, which is still on ongoing work as I continue to add his donated books. This guide describes the collection of materials that Carl W. Judy donated at the same time that he established the Judy Endowment at the Duke University Libraries. In addition to Judy’s own books, this guide also describes some of the books donated by other American missionaries to Korea, all of whom were either related to and/or worked alongside Carl W. Judy, including his father-in-law, Lyman Coy Brannon (Korean name 부라만, or 브라만), his wife, Margaret Brannon Judy (Korean name 주진주), Jack Aebersold (Korean name 이요한), and Roberta Rice (Korean name 나옥자).
In 2021, when I moved into the office previously occupied by Kristina Troost, the longtime head of the International and Area Studies Department, I discovered additional documents related to Judy. These included memoranda, letters from Judy to Duke University libraries, and acknowledgements from the Libraries. When I came across these documents, I was deeply moved by the story of Judy, his family, and other missionaries who ventured to a distant and unfamiliar country and dedicated their lives to serving the people of Korea. Even upon returning home to America, they held Korea close to their hearts.
Top: Memoranda (November 8, 1993 & January 28, 1994) Bottom (left): Carl W. Judy Korean Library Fund (Dec, 1993) Bottom (right): Carl W. Judy’s letter (and check) to Duke Libraries (Nov, 2001)
Carl Wesley Judy
Carl Wesley Judy (Korean name 주덕, also known as 주디 or 쥬디), the American Methodist pastor and Duke alumnus who established the Judy Endowment for the Korean collection at Duke University Libraries, spent nearly 35 years as a medical missionary in Korea (1948-1983). During the course of his career, he worked with Korean villagers from the Kyungchonwon Leper Colony (경천원) in Wonju, provided scholarships to Korean high school and graduate students, and helped Korean pastors build or establish over 200 churches.
Left: a photo from the groundbreaking ceremony of Christian Hospital (the person holding a shovel in front is Rev. Judy), November 1957. Middle: Carl Wesley Judy. Right: Carl Wesley Judy & Margaret Brannan Judy. Source: http://www.wonjutoday.co.kr/
Judy, C. W. (1943). Morris Harvey college as a factor in the history of the Western Virginia conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, South.
While Judy was working for the Western North Carolina Annual Conference in 1944, he met Margaret Taylor Brannon (Korean name 주진주). She was born in Wonsan, Korea, the daughter of Methodist missionaries Myrtle and Lyman Brannan. In 1944, Carl and Judy were married at the Central Methodist Church in Asheboro, North Carolina. In 1946, the Judys were approved as missionaries by the Methodist Board of Mission and assigned to serve the areas of Cheonan, Daejeon, and Jeolla Provinces. Two years later, Carl, Margaret, and their two children departed for Korea.
The outbreak of the Korean War, on June 25, 1950, forced the family to return to their home in New Haven, Connecticut. But the Judys were not done with their mission. Despite the ongoing military hostilities, the Missionary Board asked Carl to return to Korea and to help the Korean Methodist Church and its followers cope with the chaos of those traumatic days. This time, however, Carl was accompanied by his father-in-law, Rev. Lyman Coy Brannon, rather than his wife. After the war, Margaret and Carl’s children returned to Korea and the Judys reopened a mission station in Wonju in April 1954.
Carl W. Judy and Margaret B. Judy assigned to Wonju Jeil Methodist Church in November, 1954.
In 1959, Rev. Judy, along with Dr. Florence Jessie Murray, a United Church missionary doctor from Canada, established the Wonju United Christian Hospital, currently known as Yonsei University Wonju Severance Hospital. Following in the footsteps of Margaret’s parents, the Judys spent the rest of their time in Korea as missionaries. Carl and Margaret retired to Asheboro, North Carolina, in 1984.
Lyman Coy Brannan
Carl Wesley Judy’s father-in-law, Lyman Coy Brannan (1880-1971), was a well-known Methodist Church pastor. Reverend Brannan (better known by his Korean name 부라만 or 브라만) began his mission to Korea in 1910. In 1914, Brannon married Mattie Myrtle Barker in Korea. Their daughter, Margaret Brannan, was born in 1916. From 1937 to 1940, he served as the school chaplain of Songdo High School, which was originally established in Songdo by Yun Chi-ho in 1906.
Brannon worked in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province of Korea (which is now South Korea), and primarily in Wonsan and Songdo (which is now Kaesong in North Korea). One of the sites where he focused his missionary efforts was a very small church known as Munam Church (문암감리교회 in Korean), which he established in a secluded mountain valley in Gangwon Province. According to local folklore, it was situated at this remote location because soon after he arrived to sow the seeds of the gospel, the young American pastor became trapped in deep snow in Munam Village. Whatever the case may be, Brannon’s establishment served as a Methodist home church, a group of Christians who regularly gather for worship in private homes. During the colonial period, it is said that some Korean patriots, who were fighting for independence from Japanese colonial rule, sought refuge in this church to evade the Japanese police and potential imprisonment. Despite the intense pursuit by the Japanese authorities, this remote village remained untouched.
Another one of the sites where Brannon focused his missionary efforts was the Donam-ri Methodist Church in Deokwon, South Hamkyong Province (which is now Wonsan, North Korea). Donam-ri was the hometown of Yongsin Choi (1909-1935), a Korean Methodist preacher who became a pioneer in promoting the enlightenment movement for rural communities and whose life-story served as the inspiration for the famous Korean novel called Evergreen Tree (상록수) written by Sim Hun in 1936. Yongsin Choi was born and raised in this area and received education there. She attended Doonam Church, a Methodist church near her home, which provided medical and educational services, and it is possible that Rev. Brannon was one of the American Methodist missionaries who taught her. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that in the early missionary era, there were no Korean language teaching methods or textbooks available for foreigners. However, Brannon achieved fluency in the Korean language through his tireless efforts and dedication to learning. In fact, among the early Methodist missionaries, only two were capable of leading revival meetings in Korean: Lyman Brannon and Harrison Stokes (another missionary connected to Duke University, who will be introduced in the next blog post in this series).
Reverend Brannan dedicated his life to serving his congregants and did not officially retire until after the outbreak of the Korean War. In fact, according to a New York Timesarticle from June 25, 1950, Brannon and his wife were among the eight American Methodist missionaries who found themselves in Kaesong on the very day that this city fell to the troops of Communist North Korea.
“War is Declared by North Koreans…” The New York Times (June 25, 1950)
The Judy Collection and the Study of Korean Christianity
When I first discovered a very small Bible with Rev. Brannan’s name among the materials donated by Carl W. Judy, I wondered who he was. While conducting research on Judy, I was deeply moved to learn that Rev. Brannan was Judy’s father-in-law and that his old Bibles and books had been kept by his daughter and son-in-law. Besides such sentimental reasons, this item is also an example of the way the materials from the from the Carl Wesley Judy Collection can be used to understand the history of Christian, and particularly Methodist, missionary work in Korea.
Rev. Brannon’s hymn (From Judy’s collection)
Catholic missionaries were the first to bring Christianity to Korea in the late 18th century. In 1784, a Korean scholar named Yi Seung-hun made contact with Catholic priests in Beijing, China, and was baptized into the Christian faith. He then introduced Catholicism to a small group of friends and family, and the religion began to spread slowly. However, the spread of Catholicism faced resistance from the Confucian establishment in Korea, which viewed it as a threat to the traditional social order. In 1801, for the first time in the country’s history, more than 300 Korean Catholic converts were executed, and persecution of Catholics continued throughout the 19th century.
In the late 19th century, Protestant missionaries began to arrive in Korea, and their message of individual salvation and social reform resonated with many disillusioned Koreans who were dissatisfied with the traditional social order. Protestantism began to spread rapidly, and by the early 20th century—the time period when Brannon started his missionary work—it had become a significant force in Korean society. As the materials from the Judy Collection demonstrate, American Methodists were crucial for the spread of Christianity in 20th-century Korea, and are one of the reasons why Protestantism is one of the largest religions in the country. The Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations together have a membership of over 10 million people, which accounts for about 20% of the population.
For more on the history of Christian missionaries in Korea, and the way the Korean collection at Duke University can be used to study this topic, check out the following list of recommended readings:
The following is one of four profiles of researchers who have engaged in open scholarship at Duke. Please join us on October 5 for Open Scholarship in the Humanities — an in-person panel discussion with these current and former graduate students, who will explore their approaches to engaging in open humanistic scholarship. You can learn more about this ScholarWorks Center event in this blog post, and you can register at https://duke.libcal.com/event/11159787. The event qualifies for 200-level RCR credit. We hope to see you there!
Meet Ann Chapman Price
Ann Chapman Price is a historian of Christian spirituality, with a focus on medieval and early modern European theology and society. She is interested in the development of Christian mysticism throughout the tradition, the theology of medieval women’s religious texts, and the intersections of Christian spirituality with issues of race, sex, and gender. Ann’s research in the digital humanities primarily focuses on the study of texts and their representation and scholarly editing in the digital realm.
About Ann’s Digital Editing Work
Ann writes, “I was first inspired to learn the art of scholarly digital editing when I encountered the Exploring Medieval Mary Magdalene Project. In this project, eleven manuscript witnesses to the medieval Mary Magdalene conversion legend (including Latin and Vernacular manuscripts) were collected into a single digital corpus, transcribed, and made digitally available for comparison and research. I was impressed by the visualization tools that allow users to interact productively with the manuscripts and their transcriptions. While I was motivated by the Exploring Mary Magdalene Project to learn how to create similar scholarly digital editions, I was also encouraged in my efforts by Fragmentarium, a Laboratory for Medieval Manuscript Fragments. This database, which enables the digital collection and study of thousands of dispersed manuscript fragments, suggested to me the value of creating scholarly digital editions even of discrete fragments since these can be collected or connected digitally for analysis and exploration.
“I created a scholarly digital edition of a Latin manuscript fragment in the holdings at David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University. This fragment is a single leaf from a twelfth-century liturgical document (a breviary, which gives directions for the celebration of the various services on specific hours of specific days). The edition was enabled by the support of Duke University’s Program in Information Science and Studies, and images of Latin MS 005 have been made available for this project by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Twelfth-century breviary fragment, housed in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University, that Ann Chapman Price has incorporated into a digital edition.
“My aims were two-fold. First, I wanted this digital edition to be a resource for the study of Latin paleography. Thus, my edition is a contribution to the publicly available materials for examining medieval Latin abbreviations, letter forms, and conventions for marking out sections of the text. This could be helpful for students beginning to learn Latin paleography. In creating a digital edition that could be examined in connection to others, I also imagined that my work could contribute to larger studies of paleography, such as variations across geographical regions or shifts between scripts over time. Secondly, I provided copious references for the liturgical elements of this breviary fragment, such as chants in the Cantus index, scriptural allusions, and comparable breviary fragments, with the hope that this digital edition could aid scholars of medieval liturgy in developing more robust understandings of liturgical culture and ritual.”
On the Invisible Work of Digital Scholarship
“One of the most important concepts that I needed to understand early on was the distinction in digital editing between, on one hand, the final product that is considered the ‘visualization’ of the edition and, on the other hand, the data that makes up the edition itself. In other words, we could think of the ‘edition’ as simply the XML document that holds the transcription and annotations (i.e., ‘tags’ or ‘markup’). This is distinct from the media that make the edition available to users, whether in the form of a website or PDF document. A separate language, XSLT, is needed to take an XML document and process it into a format that is ideal for presentation and use. Not knowing XSLT, I chose to create a visualization of my edition by using an open-source software called EVT (Edition Visualization Technology), which has been developed by numerous scholars under the coordination of Roberto Rosselli Del Turco. I also relied on other tools developed by digital humanists, such as the Image Markup Tool from the University of Victoria.
“For this reason, what might be unexpected for users of my scholarly digital edition is simply the collaborative nature of the work that goes into such an edition. In addition to learning the ‘nuts and bolts’ of using an XML editor, aligning with TEI’s standards, and using Unicode characters to represent medieval Latin, a significant amount of the work that I invested in this edition was focused on researching other scholarly editions and related projects. Secondary research into the work of scholars engaged in similar pursuits yielded numerous helpful suggestions from tools to processes to practical solutions. I would say that this kind of research is a ‘must’ for those embarking on scholarly digital editing.”
Learn More
To explore Ann’s work, we invite you to visit the resources below.
Come meet Ann and learn about her work at the ScholarWorks Center’s Open Scholarship in the Humanities panel discussion on October 5 (12:00-1:00 PM, Bostock Library 127; lunch is provided). Please take a moment to register and learn more about the event. We’ll see you there!
Recent Duke doctoral graduate Joshua Shelly (Ph.D., 2023) won second prize in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. (Image courtesy Joshua Shelly/Carolina-Duke German Studies Program)
Congratulations to Joshua Shelly, a newly minted Ph.D. from the Carolina-Duke German Studies Program, who just won second place in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest!
In recognition of his bibliophilic brilliance, he will receive a $1,000 cash prize (presumably to spend on more books!) and a trip to Washington, D.C., to represent Duke at a special awards ceremony on September 22 at 5:00 p.m. at the Library of Congress’s Whittall Pavilion. As his home institution, the Duke University Libraries also receives $500.
Joshua’s collection was inspired by an essay he came across while in an archive working on his dissertation. “Alte Bücher in Haifa” (Old Books in Haifa), published in Paris in the 1930s, captures the experience of a German-reading Jew seeking to rebuild his library through Haifa’s used book market. Joshua’s collection focuses on works important to German Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He notes, “Whether clicking through internet pages on the path to that one title, browsing Bücherschränke (little libraries) in Berlin, or else leafing through physical pages in a book shop in Jerusalem, my decision to add a book to my collection is shaped by factors such as the book’s physical condition, price—where relevant—and my own idiosyncratic literary taste.”
Earlier this year, Joshua took first place in the graduate category of the Andrew T. Nadell Book Collectors Contest, sponsored by the Friends of the Duke University Libraries, for his collection “Alte Bücher in Haifa: (Re)building a German Jewish Library in the 21st Century.” That earned him a $1,500 cash prize and the eligibility to compete on the national level.
Duke has been well-represented in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Competition. Past winners include:
2021 Winner, Essay Prize: Joseph E. Hiller,Como un detective salvaje: Gathering Small Press, Experimental, and Untranslated Latin American Literature
2015 Winner, Essay Prize: Anne Steptoe,Look Homeward: Journeying Home through 20th Century Southern Literature
2013 Winner, 2nd Prize: Ashley Young,New Orleans’ Nourishing Networks: Foodways and Municipal Markets in the Nineteenth Century Global South
2011 Winner, 1st Prize: Mitch Fraas,Anglo-American Legal Printing 1702 to the Present
Look for the announcement of the applications for the 2025 Nadell Book Prize in Spring 2025!
Join us for our first Low Maintenance Book Club of the fall! We’ll be reading and discussing Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese (now a Disney+ original series) at our next meeting on Tuesday September 26th at noon. As always, you’re welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read. Copies of the book are available through Duke University Libraries, on our Overdrive, and at your local public library.
The meeting will be held over Zoom, so make sure to RSVP to receive an invitation link the morning of the 26th. We hope to see you there!
If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu).
The following is one of four profiles of researchers who have engaged in open scholarship at Duke. Please join us on October 5 for Open Scholarship in the Humanities — an in-person panel discussion with these current and former graduate students, who will explore their approaches to engaging in open humanistic scholarship. You can learn more about this ScholarWorks Center event in this blog post and you can register at https://duke.libcal.com/event/11159787. The event qualifies for 200-level RCR credit. We hope to see you there!
Meet Jobie Hill
Jobie Hill is a Ph.D. student in the Duke History department and the creator of the Saving Slave Houses project (online at https://www.savingslavehouses.org/). We asked her to describe her scholarly background, the development of her project, and some of the invisible work that goes into creating open scholarship. Jobie writes:
“I am a licensed Preservation Architect and Slave House Expert with over twenty years of professional experience. I have degrees in historic preservation, art history, archaeology, anthropology, and I’m currently working on a PhD in history. I am a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP). I have conducted interdisciplinary research examining slave houses, the influence these dwellings had on the lives of their inhabitants, and the preservation of the history of enslaved people.
“My personal mission is to advance an evidence-based understanding and acknowledgement of the institution of slavery in America. A cornerstone of this effort is the belief that the histories of many non-white Americans have been told to them and not by them. To that end, I am dedicated to the interpretation and preservation of the living and working environments of enslaved people, integrated with their own oral histories and historical records related to the business of slavery.”
About Saving Slave Houses
“In 2012 I started the project Saving Slave Houses (SSH) with the primary goal of ensuring that slave houses, irreplaceable pieces of history, are not lost forever. The project was meant to change the way we think, talk, research, document, interpret, preserve, restore, teach about, and learn from slave houses.
“An important component of SSH is the Slave House Database (SHD). The SHD is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, national study of slave houses in the U.S. Its inclusion of narratives from formerly enslaved people who lived in the houses fuses a voice about the human condition with the physical structure. The SHD is designed to be a resource for researchers, descendants, museums, organizations and the public to study and interpret the surviving evidence of slavery.
“Recently, I have been exploring collective storytelling at historic sites of slavery. How–and by whom–these stories are told matters. I have been fortunate to work with descendants of enslaved communities to explore the what and how of collective storytelling.”
In this video, Jobie Hill shares more about the Saving Slave Houses project.
On the Invisible Work of Open Scholarship
“I have always known the work I do is important, but I’m not a good marketing person. I mean that I am not one to spend a lot of time describing what I plan to do – I just do it. Knowing this about myself, very early on in my work I started making an effort to document what I was doing so people could see my process for themselves. I also participate in as many public outreach activities as possible. Because of these choices, I don’t think there is anything missing from the final product.”
Learn More
We invite you to explore the Saving Slave Houses website and learn about the important research and preservation work Jobie continues to do. To read media coverage, hear interviews, and see videos about her work, please visit Saving Slave Houses in the Media.
Come meet Jobie and learn about her work at the ScholarWorks Center‘s Open Scholarship in the Humanities panel discussion on October 5 (12:00-1:00 PM, Bostock Library 127; lunch is provided). Please take a moment to register and learn more about the event. We’ll see you there!
Are you curious about the history of Duke’s Engineering School? Would you like to hold an amputation saw from the 16th century as you contemplate the evolution of surgical tools? Do you want to know how a lipstick tester would work and how it came to Duke?
Join us for a special open house especially for students, faculty, and staff from the Pratt School of Engineering!
Date: Wednesday, September 27
Time: 12:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room (Rubenstein Library 153)
Artifacts on display will highlight:
University Archives materials
medical instruments
other artifacts that reflect technological changes
Attendees will have a chance to browse materials and talk with library staff about our collections. Plus enter a raffle to win fabulous library swag! Hope to see you there!
Open scholarship encompasses a range of activities and outputs that encourage inclusion, transparency, collaboration, and innovation. Though often interchanged with the term “open science,” open scholarship transcends disciplines. Research, teaching, and publishing in the digital humanities, for instance, has been designed and implemented in ways that promote not just access but also accessibility, reuse, and more equitable engagement in scholarly work; and much of that work in turn relies on the ability to openly access and reuse content for future research.
This in-person panel discussion with four current and former graduate students will explore their approaches to engaging in open humanistic scholarship. Digital Humanities Consultant Will Shaw will moderate this discussion of the practical and ethical aspects of conducting digital projects in the open, from using information created or collected by others to sharing one’s own research outcomes in ways that are accessible and reusable. This event will conclude with an open Q&A to allow for interactive discussion among the panel and attendees.
Whether you’re planning to start your own digital project or just interested in learning more about public scholarship and digital humanities, join us for lunch and conversation about what motivates these projects, the people and work involved in realizing them, and insights into what makes this work challenging, rewarding, and essential.
Panel Jobie Hill (Department of History, Duke University) Nitin Luthra (Department of English, Duke University) Emilie Menzel (Goodson Law Library, Duke University) Ann Chapman Price (Department of Religious Studies, Duke University) Moderator: William Shaw (Digital Scholarship & Publishing Services, Duke University Libraries
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Swipe Up for More! Inside the Unfiltered Lives of Influencers by Stephanie McNeal. If you’re anything like journalist Stephanie McNeal—aka, a millennial woman—you spend hours every day indulging in Instagram’s infinite scroll. The influencers on the platform aren’t just providing eye candy; these tastemakers impact how we cook, consume, parent, decorate, think, and live. But what exactly is going on behind the curtain of the perfectly curated Instagram grids we obsess over the most? Through intimate, funny, and vulnerable reporting, McNeal takes us through the looking glass and into the secretive real world of three major influencers: fashion and lifestyle juggernaut Caitlin Covington of Southern Curls & Pearls, runner and advocate Mirna Valerio, and OG “mommy blogger” Shannon Bird. This audiobook is narrated by the author, and you can read an excerpt on Glamour.
American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795 by Edward J. Larson. New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? Leaders of the founding who called for American liberty are scrutinized for enslaving Black people themselves: George Washington consistently refused to recognize the freedom of those who escaped his Mount Vernon plantation. And we have long needed a history of the founding that fully includes Black Americans in the Revolutionary protests, the war, and the debates over slavery and freedom that followed. We now have that history in Edward J. Larson’s insightful synthesis of the founding. To find out more, read this NYT review or watch this discussion with the author hosted by the National Archives.
This Bird has Flown by Susanna Hoffs. Jane Start is thirty-three, broke, and recently single. Ten years prior, she had a hit song–written by world-famous superstar Jonesy–but Jane hasn’t had a breakout since. Now she’s living out of four garbage bags at her parents’ house, reduced to performing to Karaoke tracks in Las Vegas. Rock bottom. But when her longtime manager Pippa sends Jane to London to regroup, she’s seated next to an intriguing stranger on the flight–the other Tom Hardy, an elegantly handsome Oxford professor of literature. Jane is instantly smitten by Tom, and soon, truly inspired. But it’s not Jane’s past alone that haunts her second chance at stardom, and at love. Is Tom all that he seems? And can Jane emerge from the shadow of Jonesy’s earlier hit, and into the light of her own? In turns deeply sexy, riotously funny, and utterly joyful, This Bird Has Flown explores love, passion, and the ghosts of our past, and offers a glimpse inside the music business that could only come from beloved songwriter and Bangles co-founder Susanna Hoffs. You can read this NPR review or this Los Angeles Times review.
Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration–the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina–John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world. With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant’s urgent work is a book for–and from–our new century of fire, which has only just begun. You can find out more with this Washington Post review or this Guardian review.
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs. In this spellbinding debut novel, two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family’s library of magical books must work together to unravel a deadly secret at the heart of their collection–a tale of familial loyalty and betrayal, and the pursuit of magic and power. For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements–books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect. All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna’s isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they’ll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries. Read an interview with the author or read this review to learn more.
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark! by Florence Hazrat. Few punctuation marks elicit quite as much love or hate as the exclamation mark. It’s bubbly and exuberant, an emotional amplifier whose flamboyantly dramatic gesture lets the reader know: here be feelings! Scott Fitzgerald famously stated exclamation marks are like laughing at your own joke; Terry Pratchett had a character say that multiple !!! are a ‘sure sign of a diseased mind’. So what’s the deal with ! ? Whether you think it’s over-used, or enthusiastically sprinkle your writing with it, ! is inescapable. An Admirable Point recuperates the exclamation mark from its much maligned place at the bottom of the punctuation hierarchy. It explores how ! came about in the first place some six hundred years ago, and uncovers the many ways in which ! has left its mark on art, literature, (pop) culture, and just about any sphere of human activity–from Beowulf to spam emails, ee cummings to neuroscience. You may enjoy this Word Processing podcast interview with the author!
You are Here by Karin Lin-Greenberg. The inhabitants of a small town have long found that their lives intersect at one focal point: the local shopping mall. But business is down, stores are closing, and as the institution breathes its last gasp, the people inside it dream of something different, something more. In its pages, You Are Here brings this diverse group of characters vividly to life–flawed, real, lovable strangers who are wonderful company and prove unforgettable even after the last store has closed. Exploring how the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are inextricably bound to the places we call home, You Are Here is a keenly perceptive and deeply humane portrait of a community in transition, ultimately illuminating the magical connections that can bloom from the ordinary wonder of our everyday lives. You can read reviews in the Asian Review of Books and Publisher’s Weekly.
Death of a Dancing Queen by Kimberly G. Giarratano. A female Jewish P.I finds herself involved in a deadly gang war while looking for a murder suspect in this new own voices crime novel. After her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Billie Levine revamped her grandfather’s private investigation firm and set up shop in the corner booth of her favourite North Jersey deli hoping the free pickles and flexible hours would allow her to take care of her mom and pay the bills. So when Tommy Russo, a rich kid with a nasty drug habit, offers her a stack of cash to find his missing girlfriend, how can she refuse? At first, Billie thinks this will be easy earnings, but then her missing person’s case turns into a murder investigation and Russo is the detective bureau’s number one suspect. Suddenly Billie is embroiled in a deadly gang war that’s connected to the decades-old disappearance of a famous cabaret dancer with ties to both an infamous Jewish mob and a skinhead group. Toss in the reappearance of Billie’s hunky ex-boyfriend with his own rap sheet, and she is regretting every decision that got her to this point. Becoming a P.I. was supposed to solve her problems. But if Billie doesn’t crack this case, the next body the police dredge out of the Hudson River will be hers. Read a review in Foreword or at Crime Fiction Lover.
Number One is Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions by Steve Martin with drawings by Harry Bliss. An illustrated memoir of Steve Martin’s legendary acting career, with stories from his most popular films and artwork by New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss. He has never written about his career in the movies before. In Number One Is Walking , he shares anecdotes from the sets of his beloved films– Father of the Bride, Roxanne, The Jerk, Three Amigos, and many more–bringing readers directly into his world. He shares charming tales of antics, moments of inspiration, and exploits with the likes of Paul McCartney, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams, and Chevy Chase. Martin details his forty years in the movie biz, as well as his stand-up comedy, banjo playing, writing, and cartooning, all with his unparalleled wit.
My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig. Tessa is a successful writer who develops a friendship, first by correspondence and then in person, with Charlie, a ruggedly handsome philosopher and scholar based in Los Angeles. Sparks fly as they exchange ideas about Camus and masculine desire, and their intellectual connection promises more–but there are obstacles to this burgeoning relationship. While Tessa’s husband Milton enjoys Charlie’s company on his visits to the East Coast, Charlie’s wife Wah is a different case, and she proves to be both adversary and conundrum to Tessa. Wah’s traditional femininity and subservience to her husband strike Tessa as weaknesses, and she scoffs at the sacrifices Wah makes as adoptive mother to a Burmese girl, Htet, once homeless on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. But Wah has a kind of power too, especially over Charlie, and the conflict between the two women leads to a martini-fueled declaration by Tessa that Wah is “an insult to womankind.” As Tessa is forced to deal with the consequences of her outburst and considers how much she is limited by her own perceptions, she wonders if Wah is really as weak as she has seemed, or if she might have a different kind of strength altogether. For more details, check out this NYT review and this review in the Boston Globe.
It’s almost summer, and that means it’s time for the Low Maintenance Book Club Big Books Edition! This year, we’ll be reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, winner of the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997.
The last meeting of three is scheduled for Wednesday, July 26th from noon-1pm over Zoom. At this meeting, we’ll discuss chapters 15-21.
The second of three meetings was scheduled for Wednesday, June 28th. At this meeting, we discussed chapters 8-14.
The first meeting was scheduled on Wednesday, May 25th. At this meeting, we discussed chapters 1-7.
Although the readings are longer, the low maintenance attitude is the same. Join as you like, discuss as much as you want–or just hang out and enjoy the company. Everyone is welcome. Just RSVP so we know how many to expect, and we’ll send out a Zoom link the morning of the meeting.
If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu).
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.
Summertime is here! The pace on both East and West Campus is a little slower, so it’s a perfect time for a break from the academic rigor of the rest of the year. At Lilly, we go beyond the usual “beach reads” to cast our collection spotlight net wide as we dive into the Duke Libraries collections in search of fishy films and books.
And we mean fishy in the broadest sense – maybe there is a fish, or someone who fishes, someone with a aquatic name, or just a lot of water… it’s all about your sense of scale 😉
Books: Catch these some of these fish stories!
The Fishermen: a novel
The Fishermen
A Cain and Abel-esque story of a childhood in Nigeria. When their father has to travel to a distant city for work, brothers take advantage of his absence to skip school and go fishing. At the forbidden nearby river, they meet a madman who persuades the oldest of the boys that he is destined to be killed by one of his siblings. What happens next will transcend the lives and imaginations of the book’s characters and readers.
Compleat Angler
First published in 1653, this literary and nature classic was created by a Londoner with a passion for rustic life. Cast in the form of a dialogue between the veteran angler Piscator and his pupil Viator, it both informs and delights with an ingenious exploration of fishing’s subtle intricacies and the pleasures of the natural world.
Sockeye Mother To the Gitxsan people of Northwestern British Columbia, the sockeye salmon is more than just a source of food. The Sockeye Mother explores how the animals, water, soil, and seasons are all intertwined
The Outlaw Ocean
The Outlaw Ocean
There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world’s oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation.
Beyond That, the Sea
As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents send their eleven-year-old daughter to America to live for the duration of the war. Scared and angry, feeling lonely and displaced, Bea crosses the Atlantic to Boston. As Bea comes into herself and relaxes into her new life–summers on the coast in Maine, new friends clamoring to hear about life across the sea – the girl she had been begins to fade away, until, abruptly, she is called home to London when the war ends.
When I was a Fish
This fast-paced biography recounts the life of Mike Bruton, one of the leading fish biologists in Africa, and also explores the various issues in which he was involved as a scientist, conservationist and science educator. Whether or not you are a fisherman, aquarist or sushi eater, you will be fascinated by these astonishing tales of a man who almost became a fish!
Miss Iceland
Iceland in the 1960s. Hekla always knew she wanted to be a writer; there is only one problem: she is a woman. Hekla heads for Reykjavik with a manuscript buried in her bags. She moves in with her friend Jon, a gay man who longs to work in the theatre, but can only find dangerous, backbreaking work on fishing trawlers. The two friends feel completely out of place in a small and conservative world.
Films? “Reel” in more fish tales!
Catch or stream :
Jaws
Jaws DVD 138 orStream (with Duke NetID)
You’re gonna need a bigger boat…
It is the ultimate fish tale! Do we really need to provide a summary?
Mother of the River(Stream with Duke NetID)
Drawing on Caribbean folklore, this exuberant experimental drama uses animation and live action to discover a film language unique to African American women. The multilayered soundtrack combines the music of Africa and the diaspora-including Miriam Makeba, acappella singers from Haiti and trumpetiste Clora Bryant.
Contracorriente (Undertow)
Contracorriente = Undertow
Miguel, a respected Peruvian fisherman, is expecting his first child with his beautiful wife, Mariela. Their peaceful existence is threatened by Miguel’s love for Santiago, a visiting artist whose presence is viewed as a threat by the villagers.
Planet Ocean(Stream with Duke NetID)
A look at the natural beauty of the oceans and mankind’s impact on their ecosystem.
Cast Away
Chuck Noland, a FedEx systems engineer, finds his ruled-by-the-clock existence ended when a harrowing plane crash leaves him isolated on a remote island. As Chuck struggles to survive, he finds that his own personal journey has only just begun.
Moana – on DVD or Streaming
MoanaLilly DVD or Streamwith Duke NetID
A mythic adventure set around 2,000 years ago across a series of islands in the South Pacific. The film follows the journey of a spirited teenager named Moana as she meets the once-mighty demi-god Maui, and together they traverse the open ocean, encountering enormous fiery creatures and impossible odds.
Aquarela Lilly DVD or Stream with Duke NetID A deeply cinematic journey through the transformative beauty and raw power of water. From the precarious frozen waters of Russia’s Lake Baikal to Miami in the throes of Hurricane Irma to Venezuela’s mighty Angels Falls, water is the main character, with director Victor Kossakovsky capturing her many personalities.
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.
The 5 Titles series highlights books, music, and films in the library’s collection, featuring topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and/or highlighting authors’ work from diverse backgrounds. Each post is intended to briefly sample titles rather than provide a comprehensive topic overview. Heather Martin, Librarian for African and African American Studies, selected this month’s 5 Titles. With its establishment as a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth/Freedom Day (June 19) gained wider national and international attention. Juneteenth celebrations originated in Texas to commemorate the arrival of Union Troops in Galveston on June 19, 1865 (two years after the Emancipation Proclamation) and the army’s announcement that all the enslaved people in Texas were free. However, emancipation celebrations by people of African descent have a long and varied history, marking multiple emancipation milestones (e.g., the British abolition of slavery, August 1, 1834; enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863; and the signing of the Thirteenth Amendment, February 1, 1865). This month’s five titles explore the history and representation of emancipation celebrations and their importance to the African American community, identity formation, and struggle for equality.
Rites of August First: Emancipation Day in the Black Atlantic World by J.R. Kerr-Ritchie. Kerr-Ritchie examines how August 1, 1834, the day that the British Abolition of Slavery Bill took effect, was celebrated throughout the West Indies, Canada, Britain, and the northern and western United States. He documents how the emancipation commemorations (called West India Day, August First Day, or Emancipation Day) encouraged anti-slavery activism in the United States and promoted connections among people of African descent across nationalist boundaries. Kerr-Ritchie also describes the day’s importance to communities of Black loyalists in Britain, Canada and Black militias around the Atlantic. Listings of commemorations held by specific churches and public celebrations in specific northern cities allow readers to explore local connections to August First.
Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 by Mitch Kachun. In his interpretation of emancipation celebrations from “the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1808 through the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. emancipation in 1915,” Kachun traces the themes of how African Americans used these commemorations to create “a collective history of African American people” and how the commemorations were centers of conflict and controversy. Providing a chronological narrative of emancipation celebrations, the book’s chapters cover Freedom Day commemorations by free Blacks in the Northeast after the United States abolished the Atlantic slave trade on January 1, 1808; regional socializing and organizing opportunities for people of African descent during celebrations of the British abolition of slavery in the West Indies on August 1, 1834; the expansion of emancipation celebrations into the southern United States after the Civil War; and differences between the political focus of freedom festivals in different areas of the United States.
O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations by William H. Wiggins, Jr. Wiggins takes us on a tour of emancipation celebrations that he visited in 1972 and 1973. Each town observes a different emancipation commemoration date: Rockdale, Texas – June 19; Allensville, Kentucky – August 1, Columbus, Georgia – January 1; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – February 1. Through his research and excerpts from interviews taped with participants in these celebrations, Wiggins uncovers the significance of these differing Emancipation Day dates. The book includes detailed descriptions of Emancipation Day traditions, including the performance of historical pageants/dramas, church services, picnics, barbecues, parades, athletic contests, and political organizing (e.g., voter registration drives). Images of memorabilia and photographs from emancipation celebrations complement Wiggins’s narration and the interviews.
Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery by Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer. From the introduction: “Envisioning Emancipation explores how black people’s enslavement, emancipation, and freedom were represented, documented, debated and asserted in a wide range of photographs from the 1850s through the 1930s.” Curating photographs drawn from archives, museums, and libraries, Willis and Krauthamer create a visual narrative of the use of photography by enslavers, Black abolitionists (including Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglass), and the formerly enslaved. Photographs provide a record of Black people during the Civil War and African American self-fashioning after emancipation. Includes multiple photographs of Emancipation Day celebrations.
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed. Gordon-Reed’s brief and engrossing memoir melds Texas Hollywood myths (cowboys, ranchers, oilmen) and multiracial history with her recollections of Conroe, Texas, her small hometown. Juneteenth celebrations originated in Texas, and Gordon-Reed shares the story of enslaved and free Blacks in the area when it was part of Mexico, a separate republic, and later, a part of the United States. She examines the legacy of the Juneteenth celebration as well as African Americans’ continuing struggle for equality in the state and country. From MIT Press, “Reworking the traditional “Alamo” framework, she powerfully demonstrates, among other things, that the slave- and race-based economy not only defined the fractious era of Texas independence but precipitated the Mexican-American War and, indeed, the Civil War itself. In its concision, eloquence, and clear presentation of history, On Juneteenth revises conventional renderings of Texas and national history.”
Although most library users won’t notice any difference, changes are coming to an important back-end system the Duke University Libraries uses to handle everything from checking out books to managing thousands of databases and online resources. Between now and summer 2024, we will sunset our legacy library enterprise system and transition to the Ex Libris Alma Library Services Platform.
Most large research libraries like Duke’s rely on various commercial and open-source software products to handle the everyday work of library staff, integrating systems for broad interoperability and accessibility while at the same time providing a high-quality user experience to library patrons.
While Duke has long contributed to the development of open-source library technologies (we were the founding institution of the Open Library Environment and a charter member of FOLIO), the decision to implement Alma was made after an extensive internal review of the specific library needs of the Duke community, including the separately administered libraries serving the schools of Business, Law, Divinity, and Medicine, as well as Duke Kunshan University Library. After evaluating financial considerations, impact on staffing, and the sustainability of wide-ranging library technology projects in which Duke has invested heavily, library leadership decided to move forward with Alma.
“We are in a better place today because of the contributions and work of our staff, who have laid the foundation for stronger, more sustainable library system at Duke,” said Joseph Salem, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs. “These investments, collaborations, and projects have been worthwhile in preparing us for an impactful future serving the Duke community.”
“We have a notable history of innovation through leveraging and integrating multiple technology platforms for library users,” said Tim McGeary, Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies & Technology. “We remain proud of FOLIO, our contributions and collaboration, and of our colleagues that have fully implemented FOLIO. We will work with the FOLIO community during this transition to minimize impact on leadership and staff collaboration, and we will fulfill the financial commitments we have made in shared development projects. We also remain proud of our partnership with Index Data, which will continue through hosting and supporting the Library Data Platform. Index Data’s dedication to FOLIO, Project ReShare, and open-source technology development in libraries is strong, and we look forward to future partnerships.”
Project plans for implementing Alma are being developed and will be communicated soon.
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Pageboy by Elliot Page. With Juno’s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare. As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels, and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do, until enough was enough. Full of behind the scenes details and intimate interrogations on sex, love, trauma, and Hollywood, Pageboy is the story of a life pushed to the brink. But at its core, this beautifully written, winding journey of what it means to untangle ourselves from the expectations of others is an ode to stepping into who we truly are with defiance, strength, and joy. Read The New York Times Book Review to learn more.
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. When Ames’s boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she’s pregnant with his baby–and that she’s not sure whether she wants to keep it–Ames wonders if this is the chance he’s been waiting for. Could the three of them form an unconventional family–and raise the baby together? This provocative debut concerns what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can’t reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us with a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel. Read this The New Yorker book review to learn more.
Couplets: A Love Story by Maggie Millner. A dazzling love story in poems about one woman’s coming-out, coming-of-age, and coming undone. A woman lives an ordinary life in Brooklyn. She has a boyfriend. They share a cat. She writes poems in the prevailing style. She also has dreams: of being seduced by a throng of older women, of kissing a friend in a dorm-room closet. But the dreams are private, not real. One night, she meets another woman at a bar, and an escape hatch swings open in the floor of her life. She falls into a consuming affair–into queerness, polyamory, kink, power and loss, humiliation and freedom, and an enormous surge of desire that lets her leave herself behind. Maggie Millner’s captivating, seductive debut is a love story in poems that explores obsession, gender, identity, and the art and act of literary transformation. In rhyming couplets and prose vignettes, Couplets chronicles the strictures, structures, and pitfalls of relationships–the mirroring, the pleasing, the small jealousies and disappointments–and how the people we love can show us who we truly are. Learn more in this book review by The Washington Post.
The Great Believersby Rebecca Makkai. In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying, and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris, tracking down her estranged daughter, who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finally grapples with how AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness amid disaster. “A page turner . . . An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.” –The New York Times Book Review. Read more about this historical novel in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Real Life by Brandon Taylor. A novel of startling intimacy, violence, and mercy among friends in a Midwestern university town, from an electric new voice. Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he works uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his circle of friends–some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But throughout a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community. Real Life is a novel of profound and lacerating power, a story that asks if it’s ever really possible to overcome our private wounds and at what cost. Read The Guardian Book Review to learn more.
The 5 Titles series highlights books, music, and films in the library’s collection, featuring topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and/or highlighting authors’ work from diverse backgrounds. Each post is intended to briefly sample titles rather than provide a comprehensive topic overview. Ira King, First-Year Experience and Disability Studies Librarian selected this month’s titles, and he writes, “According to the 2020 Census, around 80% of the United States population lives in urban areas, a large increase from 64% in 1950. The United Nations estimates this number will rise to 89% by 2050. As America becomes an increasingly urbanized nation, how do we visualize our rural areas and those living there? Media depictions of rural America tend to homogenize and stereotype the people who live there regardless of whether the intended depiction is positive or negative. Although rural areas are often considered a contemporary political signifier for an idealized “way things used to be” that never truly existed, rural America is becoming more diverse. As a rural Missourian who has since moved to an urban area, I’ve heard people ask many variations of “Why would anyone want to live there” or “Why don’t people just move to cities.” This line of thinking disregards the material circumstances of many rural Americans and ignores the strong ties and history people have with their communities, families, land, and natural spaces. Although you could likely spend the rest of your life exclusively researching the rural United States, these books and films provide a starting range of voices and viewpoints that highlight the complexity of the rural United States.”
Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience by Robin M. Boylorn. In Sweetwater, Boylorn, a professor of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama and member of the Crunk Feminist Collective, writes of her childhood growing up in a small rural community in North Carolina. Described by the author as black girl autoethnography, Boylorn shares her own lived experiences and narratives from black women in her community, including multiple generations of women in her family. Boylorn writes, “In the face of adversity, tragedy, violence, discrimination, and oppression, I examine our lives, over generations, to determine how black women use narratives to cope and communicate about their experiences and as acts of social resistance.” The author emphasizes the resilience at the core of the stories of rural black womanhood contained in her book. Narrative chapters are interspersed with poems by Mary E. Weems. Sweetwater highlights the importance of centering lived experiences and black feminism, especially from underrepresented communities.
Just Queer Folks: Gender and Sexuality in Rural America by Colin R. Johnson. Although many works of gay and lesbian history focus on urban areas, Colin R. Johnson’s book argues that rural and small-town America was much more queer in the early twentieth century than previously assumed. A gay man who grew up in a small town in Illinois who is now a professor of gender studies at Indiana University-Bloomington, Johnson explores this argument from several angles. One chapter looks at the same-sex intimacy that occurred in various non-metropolitan parts of the United States, including male farm laborers in the Heartland and timber workers in the Pacific Northwest. Another delves into the archetype of the eccentric small-town lifelong bachelor or bachelorette. The final chapter examines rural women and female masculinity by analyzing photographs taken during the 1930s. If you’re looking for a read on contemporary LGBTQ Americans in this vein, you may also want to check out Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from the Red States by Samantha Allen. In this book, Allen, an award-winning journalist and transgender woman, goes on a road trip exploring queer life across America.
The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham. In this memoir, Lanham, a poet, ornithologist, and Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University, writes of his experience as a Black man growing up in rural South Carolina on a small family farm. In the book’s opening paragraph, Lanham writes, “I am a man in love with nature. I am an eco-addict, consuming everything the outdoors offers in its all-you-can-sense seasonal buffet. I am a wilding, born of forests and field and more comfortable on unpaved back roads and winding woodland paths than in any place where concrete, asphalt, and crowds prevail.” Lanham lyrically explores his passion for nature and conservation while examining the legacy of slavery and segregation in the American South and its effect on African-Americans’ relationship to land and nature. In the chapter “Birding While Black,” the author describes what it’s like to be Black in spaces where non-white people are “a rare sighting.” Lanham argues for the inclusion of more Black people in natural spaces, both as hobbyists and as professional biologists and conservationists.
Minari dir. Isaac Lee Chung. A semi-autobiographical film from writer-director Issac Lee Chung, Minari follows a family of South Korean immigrants who move to rural Arkansas in the 1980s. The film begins with the father, Jacob (played by Steven Yeun), showing his family the newly purchased plot of Ozark farmland where they’ll be living and starting a Korean produce farm. The mother, Monica (played by Han Ye-ri in her Hollywood debut), is skeptical about their move to Arkansas and worried about her young son, David (played by an excellent Alan Kim), who has a heart condition. The film explores the tension between the father’s hopes and dreams and the material challenges and familial and social worries that occur in their new home. Primarily shot near Tulsa, Oklahoma, on a ranch (technically not in the Ozarks, but close enough for this former resident), the film features beautiful scenery and captures the joy and frustrations of living off the land.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening dir. RaMell Ross. This experimental documentary features people and images from Hale County, a rural area in Alabama’s Black Belt. The film loosely follows two young men, Quincy and Daniel, who the director met while teaching photography and coaching basketball in the area. Director RaMell Ross challenges the common stereotyping and framing of young Black men that occurs across popular media. Regarding his decision to start filming in this area, Ross speaks in an interview of his “sadness about the generalized inability to see communities like this one from the inside.” He asks, “Where do these communities see themselves represented and celebrated in the world?” Filmed over a period of 5 years and edited from 1300 hours of footage to a 76-minute documentary, Ross captures both mundane and dynamic moments in the lives of residents of Hale County.
May 18th marks the 12th annual celebration of GAAD. This day serves to raise awareness of the need for digital inclusion and accessible web content for people with disabilities.
Why does web accessibility matter? People with disabilities have a right to access and enjoy web content and digital objects. Based on data from the World Health Organization, an estimated 1.3 billion people have disabilities, or 1 in 6 people worldwide. According to a WebAIM report from February 2023, 96.3% of the top million homepages on the Internet had accessibility errors based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The most common accessibility error is low contrast text. Other common errors include missing alternative text for images, empty links, and improperly structured headings (very important for people using screen-readers). Ensuring web pages are accessible makes the Internet a more equitable and inclusive space.
Another expanding area of accessibility and digital inclusion is in video games. You may have watched the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us, but did you know that The Last of Us Part II’s release in 2020 was a landmark moment for accessibility in gaming? Organizations like AbleGamers and websites like Can I Play That? are advocating for a more inclusive gaming landscape. Game developers have also created a list of Game Accessibility Guidelines to make games more accessible for those with disabilities. If you are interested in this topic and want to learn more about accessibility and disability representation in gaming, you may want to check out the 2023 book Gaming Disability: Disability Perspectives on Contemporary Video Games.
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 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
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
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!
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!
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty. Blandine isn’t like the other residents of her building. An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents — neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana. Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch. Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her apartment with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives. Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom. Learn more about this National Book Award Winner in The New York Times Book Review.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts impulsively: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her work? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller is? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. With its immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, cultural appropriation, and the terrifying alienation of social media.
The Measure by Nikki Erlick. Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, a small wooden box is waiting for you. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge? The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another. Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious, and invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest. Read more in The New York Times Book Review. This intriguing novel was selected as this year’s reading for first-year students Duke Common Experience.
The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts. Growing up gifted and working-class poor in the foothills of the Ozarks, Monica and Darci became fast friends. The girls bonded over a shared love of reading and learning, even as they navigated the challenges of their tumultuous family lives and declining town. Monica left Clinton for college and fulfilled her dreams, but Darci and many in their circle of friends did not. Years later, working as a journalist covering poverty, Potts discovered what she already intuitively knew about the women in Arkansas: Their life expectancy had dropped steeply—the sharpest such fall in a century. This decline has been attributed to “deaths of despair”—suicide, alcoholism, and drug overdoses—but Potts knew their causes were too complex to identify in a sociological study. In this narrative, Potts deftly pinpoints the choices that sent her and Darci on such different paths and then widens the lens to explain why those choices are so limited.Learn more in this All Things Considered NPR interview.
Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. A stunning debut follows Clytemnestra, the ancient world’s most notorious villainess, and the events that forged her into the legendary queen. As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best…You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts. Because this was not the first offense against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly, you plot. But when your husband returns triumphantly, you become a woman with a choice. Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So, you bide your time and force the gods’ hands into the game of retribution. A blazing novel set in Ancient Greece, this is a thrilling tale of power, prophecies, hatred, love, and an unforgettable Queen who fiercely dealt death to those who wronged her.
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!
Post by Heidi Madden, Head, International and Area Studies & Librarian for Western European and Medieval Renaissance Studies.
Research impact is loosely defined as how broadly scholarly research is being read, discussed, and used both inside and outside of the academy. Metrics tools are firmly established in the sciences, but they are not designed to capture the impact of humanities research. That is why a recent blog post on “Duke’s Most-Cited — The Scholars Other Scientists Look To” did not even offer humanities data, a situation that left many researchers scratching their heads and wondering about alternative resources.
To address this hot-button issue, the International and Area Studies Department at Duke University Libraries co-sponsored a Franklin Humanities Institute roundtable on “Defining and Measuring Research Impact in the Humanities,” a recording of which is now available on YouTube (1:03:55). The recorded talk reviews the evidence base for alternative research impact metrics for the humanities (HuMetricsHSS and Metrics Toolkit) and offers an opportunity to investigate and challenge the biases of Anglophone and science-based ranking systems.
The featured speaker at this event was Heather Coates, the Digital Scholarship and Data Management Librarian at the IUPUI University Library, Indiana University Data Steward for Research Data, and co-founder of the Metrics Toolkit. During her presentation, Coates explained what is meant by metrics data, how such data are generated, and why the current application of metrics tools raises complex issues of equity, diversity, and accessibility.
The FHI roundtable on the responsible use of humanities metrics was moderated by Paolo Mangiafico, Scholarly Communications Strategist at Duke University, and Heidi Madden, Head, International and Area Studies & Librarian for Western European and Medieval Renaissance Studies.
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 Brandon L., one of our graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate the importance of our student staff as much we do.
Graduate Student Brandon
Graduate Student assistant – Brandon
Hometown: Allentown
Family/siblings/pets: 1 younger sister, no pets 🙁
Academic major: Masters of Public Policy
Activities on campus:
President of the Sanford Energy and Environment Club; Chair of the Partnerships Team of Oceans @ Duke; Tutor for economics and statistics; Mentor in Duke F1RSTS; and Member of the Energy Week Leadership Committee.
Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library): Duke basketball
Favorite off-campus activity: Biking or hiking
Favorite campus eatery: Tandoor
Favorite off-campus eatery: East Cut
Behind the Curtain: Lilly Library
Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why? A: Thomas Reading Room in Lilly because it’s spacious and comfortable.
Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library? A: Feline Philosophy, a book about cats.
Q: What is your favorite part about working at library? Least favorite? A: Faculty delivery when it’s sunny. Least favorite has to be shelf reading.
Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget? A: A student accidentally printed out 100 color copies of Caleb Love (a UNC basketball player). She meant to print 10 for her friends to hold up at the UNC game.
Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library? A: Worked two 6-hour shifts on back-to-back days. Note: We agree – that was crazy!
Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits? A: Knowing all the resources and benefits that come with being a member of a library will be very helpful. There is so much people don’t know libraries offer.
Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate? A: All the little treats we got during holidays or the reading period.
Q: What are your plans for after graduation? A: Moving to Chicago for a job at the Federal Reserve.
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 owl because that was my undergrad’s mascot and I love staying up late.
Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Brandon and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries’ “family”. We appreciate Brandon’s stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish him all the best!
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!
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.
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!
The new Main Library in downtown Durham is one of the Bull City’s newest architectural gems. All Duke students are eligible to use your local public library, even if you’re not a permanent NC resident.
It’s National Library Week, and we’ve got a quick and easy way you can celebrate!
Stop by Perkins Library on Tuesday, April 25, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m., and sign up for a Durham County Library Card.
It’s free and easy. All you need is your Duke ID (if you’re a Duke student) or other photo ID and proof of Durham residency (everybody else).
That’s right! ALL DUKE STUDENTS ARE ELIGIBLE to get a free Durham County Library Card*. Even if you’re not a permanent North Carolina resident, you can still use your local public library, and you don’t even have to leave your dorm room once you sign up.
Not to mention popular streaming services like Hoopla (Kids TV, popular movies, comics, e-books, and more) and IndieFlix (classic films, award-winning shorts, documentaries).
The Durham County Library consists of six branches spread throughout Durham County including the brand-new Main Library in downtown. It’s one of the Bull City’s newest architectural points of pride. If you need a break from studying in our campus libraries, check out their quiet study spots with inspiring views of downtown Durham. You can thank us later when you ace those exams.
* If you only have a Duke ID when you sign up, you’ll get a Student Card, which lets you check out 10 items at a time, plus access all electronic resources. If you also can show some proof of NC address (can be electronic, photo of a utility bill, piece of mail, etc.), you’ll get a full Library Card, which lets you check out up to 50 items.
Post by Michael Edwards, Resource Sharing Librarian; Alex Konecky, Access and Library Services Assistant; and Sarah Park, Librarian for Engineering and Computer Science
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is Duke University Libraries’ system for obtaining materials that are not available at Duke. This service is available to current Duke University faculty, staff, and students. Eligible users can submit an ILL request on the library homepage.
Go to the library homepage and click “Interlibrary Request” on the quick links menu. Then, click the “Request a Title” button to login, and fill out the form. If you haven’t used the service before, you may need to register for an account.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to fill out the form yourself, you can request an article through Google Scholar and avoid filling out the form. To do so, go to Scholar.Google.Com and search for the article you need.
Before you search, make sure that Google knows that you are affiliated with Duke. If you are on campus, Google already knows that you are affiliated with Duke. But if you are off campus, go to the settings under the three bars, clicking “Library Links,” and searching for Duke in the search box. Select Duke and press the “Save” button. A shortcut to the “Library Links” is https://scholar.google.com/scholar_settings?#2.
Once you have set up the library links, you will notice that search results show a “Get it at Duke” link next to the title whether you are on or off campus.
If you come across an article that doesn’t have the “Get it at Duke” link, like “Closed-loop insulin delivery: current status of diabetes technologies and future prospects,” don’t worry. You can still access it by clicking the double arrow at the bottom of the article. This will reveal the “Get it @ Duke” link. Click on it to proceed.
Next, click on “Request – University users” and make sure all the information is correctly filled out before submitting the request. You will receive a link via email, so you can access a PDF of the article.
If you have any questions about this or any other interlibrary loan services, please contact ILL department at Interlibraryrequests@duke.edu.
For the last several years, the Duke University Libraries has purchased copies of the assigned texts for a wide range of Duke courses and made them available to check out for free. It’s one of our most popular services, and students regularly tell us how much they appreciate it. And no wonder, when the cost of a single textbook can often exceed $300.
Now there’s a way you can help us make the program even better and do something about the ridiculous cost of textbooks at the same time. At the end of this semester, donate your textbooks to the library. We’ll make them available for other students to check out for free.
Don’t you wish someone had done that for you? Be that someone.
Look for the textbook donation bins in Perkins, Bostock, Lilly, and Divinity libraries starting this week. When you’ve finished with your classes, simply drop your books in the bin and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing you’ve made some future Duke student’s day.
So if you passed your classes, pass it on. Donate your textbooks to us and make a Duke education more affordable for all.
(And if you didn’t pass, we’ll understand if you need to hang on to those books a little longer.)
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher. In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family’s ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat, and her skin turns vibrantly, permanently cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis’ centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of their lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening back to when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap makers and their blue soap was a symbol of legendary love. Decades later, Betty returns to Aunt Nuha’s gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she’s ever known, or should she follow her heart and the woman she loves, perpetuating her family’s cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt’s complex life and struggle with her sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family immigrate to the United States. But, as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. Learn more about this novel in The New York Times Book Review.
The Trackers by Charles Frazier. Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he’s landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office. A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a Western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations but was once a WWI sniper—and his right hand is a mysterious elder cowboy, a vestige of the violent old west. Val quickly finds himself entranced by their lives. One day, Eve flees home with a valuable painting in tow, and Long recruits Val to hit the road to track her down. American writer Charles Frazier conjures up the lives of everyday people during an extraordinary period of history that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. Read The Washington Post book review to learn more!
The Only Survivors by Megan Miranda. A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine—a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed. A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest make a pact: to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night. Their annual meeting place, a house on the Outer Banks, has long been a refuge. But by the tenth anniversary, Cassidy Bent has worked to distance herself from the tragedy and the other survivors. This year, she is determined to finally break ties once and for all. But on the reunion day, she receives a text with an obituary attached: another survivor is gone. Now they are seven—and Cassidy finds herself hurling back toward the group, wild with grief—and suspicion. A propulsive and chilling locked-box mystery filled with the dazzling hairpin twists that are the author’s signature.
A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung. Nicole couldn’t hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found community and a path to the life she’d long wanted. But the middle-class world she begins to raise a family in – where there are big homes, college funds, and nice vacations – looks very different from the middle-class world she thought she grew up in. When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief and rage, knowing that years of precarity and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his early death. Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another – and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and grievous inequalities in American society. Listen to Nicole discuss her work in this Fresh Air NPR interview!
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!
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!
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:
Are you an undergraduate who enjoys creative writing? You could win an award for your talents!
The Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award
The Rosati Creative Writing Prize is awarded each spring in recognition of an outstanding work of creative writing. All Duke first year or sophomore students are eligible to submit work for consideration. Projects may be any genre and take any form (audio/video, digital media, etc.), but must include a substantial creative writing component.
The Styron Creative Writing Prize is awarded each spring in recognition of an outstanding work of creative writing. All Duke juniors and seniors (graduating spring 2023) are eligible to submit work for consideration. Projects may be any genre and take any form (audio/video, digital media, etc.), but must include a substantial creative writing component.
You may submit multiple, different projects in a given year but each project should be submitted individually with an accompanying application cover sheet
Submitted projects must have been written during the current academic year
Projects are judged based on quality and originality of writing
At this time submissions must be written in English
Need some escapism this time of the semester? Join Low Maintenance Book Club in sci-fi paradise with All Systems Red, the first novella in Martha Wells’ beloved Murderbot Diaries series (it’s not as morbid as it sounds!). We’ll discuss the work in its entirety at our next meeting on Tuesday April 25th at noon.
As always, you’re welcome to attend regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read. Copies of the book are available through Duke University Libraries and your local public library.
The meeting will be held over Zoom, so make sure to RSVP to receive an invitation link the morning of the 25th. We hope to see you there!
If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu).
In October 2022, during the annual meeting of the Korean Library Association (KLA) General Conference in Seoul, Korea, I attended a session on the digital archiving of Webtoon (웹툰), an online platform that hosts webcomics originating from South Korea. The term “Webtoon” is a compound word formed from “website” and “cartoon.” This new form of comic publication has become a global phenomenon, particularly among members of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and has been embraced outside of Korea. Additionally, Korean graphic novels, comic books, and webtoons are frequently adapted into films and TV programs, thereby impacting various aspects of Korean culture.
One of the presenters at the conference panel on archiving Webtoons showed a PowerPoint slide with examples of academic libraries in America, such as that of Columbia University, the University of Washington, as well as Duke University, and expressed her admiration for the fact that they collect Korean comic books and graphic novels (만화; Eng. Manhwa), which is not common practice among academic libraries in Korea. Afterwards, I told the presenter and attendees that I am a Korean Studies librarian from one of the American university libraries mentioned in the PowerPoint slide and confirmed that the library at Duke University does, indeed, collect Manhwa for teaching and research purposes. This was the moment where I felt the significance and value of developing a Manhwa collection at Duke University.
The Korean Collection at Duke University Libraries has recently expanded its offerings of Manhwas to those that delve into significant events and issues in modern Korean history. These new graphic novels cover a range of subjects and time periods, including “comfort women” (1938-1945), the Korean War (1950-1953), and civil rights movements (the April 19 Revolution in 1960, the Gwangju Uprising in 1980, the June Democratic Struggle in 1987).
Comfort Women
Duke’s Korean collection now includes several graphic novels about “comfort women” – a euphemistic term for women and girls from Korea, China, the Philippines and other occupied territories, who were abducted from their homes and forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. For example, the graphic biographical novel called Grass (풀), available in both the original Korean and in English translation, documents the life story of Lee Ok-sun (1928-2022), one of the few remaining “comfort women” when the book was published. Lee, who was born in Daegu, Korea, was forced to become a sex slave for the Japanese military at the age of 16, and served in a brothel based in Manchuria, China, until the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945.
The author of the graphic novel compares the comfort women victims to “grass,” stating that “it is a grass that rises up again even if it is blown down by the wind and stepped on.” These moving words pay tribute to all the victims of comfort women.
Lee passed away in 2022, leaving only 10 survivors out of 238 registered comfort women. Sadly, many individuals have not registered as comfort women victims due to their reluctance to disclose their past. The Song of A Butterfly or Butterfly’s Song (나비의 노래), a graphic novel by Kim Gwang-sung and Chung Ki-young, deals with one such case. This Manhwa depicts the story of Ha Keum-soon, another sixteen-year-old Korean girl who was sexually enslaved as a comfort woman by the Japanese military. For 70 years, she lived with her pain in silence until she met Min Soon-ae, another survivor of the “hell” she endured, while passing by the Japanese embassy in Seoul. This encounter prompted her to confess her past to her family and participate in rallies to bring resolution to the issue of comfort women. Ha Keum-soon stated, “No one should be hurt like this. I will get rid of the nightmare. I will shake off everything and fly dazzlingly. I will sing a song of hope like a butterfly hatching.” The graphic novel was exhibited at the France’s Angouleme International Comics Festival in 2014, where it raised awareness of the issue across the world. It is one of several books about comfort women that have brought attention to this tragedy.
Duke’s Korean collection now also includes graphic novels that focus on contemporary democratic movements in Korea. Among these is coverage of the Gwangju Uprising, which was a mass protest against the South Korean military government that occurred in the city of Gwangju from May 18 to May 27, 1980. This uprising was one of the most tragic and significant moments in modern Korean history. The event is sometimes referred to as 5·18 (May 18), in reference to the date the movement began, and is also known as the Gwangju Democratization Struggle, the Gwangju Massacre, the May 18 Democratic Uprising, or the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement.
26 Years (26년)” illustrates the military dictatorship’s brutal oppression of the 1980 popular uprising, shedding light on the families of the victims of the Gwangju Democratization Movement. The story follows five individuals—a sports shooter, a gangster, a policeman, a businessman, and a CEO of a big company—who consider themselves as some of the biggest victims of the massacre in Gwangju and who conspire to assassinate the person responsible for it. This work of fiction, published in 2006, reflects the times when discussing the uprising was taboo. However, it is significant that popular cartoonists have shown the possibility of addressing politically sensitive subjects. Originally published as a webtoon in 2006 and later adapted into a three-volume book in 2007 and a film in 2012, the story has helped people remember the Gwangju Democratization Movement.
Figure 4: 26년 (26 Years) by강풀 (2007)Figure 5: Film version of 26년 (26 Years) (2013) produced by 조근현, based on a webtoon story
The graphic novel, Dobari (도바리), tells the story of a man who cannot escape the memories of May 18,1980. “Dobari” refers to college students who fled from the dictatorship and attempted to carry out democratization movements while being on the “wanted list.” The incidents of the ten days were recorded one by one, as if written in a journal. Ironically, the grandson of the late former President Chun Doo-hwan (1931-2021), who is the target of this novel as the dictator, recently alleged on Instagram that his family was living on illicit funds, committed crimes, and referred to his grandfather as a “slaughterer.”
The graphic novel The Day of 1987 (1987 그날) deals with another important milestone in the history Korean civil rights: the June Democratic Struggle (6월 민주항쟁), also known as the June Democracy Movement and June Democratic Uprising. The Day of 1987 depicts one year in the life of a group of young people who had to endure the harsh reality under the Chun Doo-hwan regime, struggling without a clear sense of direction or hope for the future. This despair foreshadows the outbreak of the nationwide civil uprising that demanded democratization, including constitutional and government reform, with the goal of direct presidential election.
Following this event, a wave of democratization and liberalization swept through Korea. The 9th Amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, which was enacted as a result of this incident, has become the foundation of Korean politics and law. Unlike other democratic revolutions, this civil uprising is highly regarded around the world because it ousted a military dictatorship through relatively peaceful demonstrations.
On April 12, the Duke community will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Grateful Dead concert at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Widely regarded as a top show that year, the band delivered smoking renditions of “Jack Straw,” “Bertha,” “Good Lovin’,” and “Eyes of the World,” as you can hear for yourself in the video above.
To commemorate this historic show, join us for a special panel discussion, selections from the remastered video recording, live music, and refreshments on Wednesday, April 12, at 6:00 p.m. in the Ruby Lounge of the Rubenstein Arts Center.
A panel of Dead experts will share their interpretations of the show, including Professor Eric Mlyn; show volunteer and former Duke University Union coordinator Peter Coyle; and John Brackett, author of the forthcoming book Live Dead: The Grateful Dead, Live Recordings and the Ideology of Liveness, coming out next fall from Duke University Press. The book will be the first in a new Duke University Press series, Studies in the Grateful Dead, in the fall of 2023.
Bridget Booher, Director of Duke WIN, will moderate the panel. Footage featuring selected songs from the concert will be screened. After the program, local Dead cover band The Loose Lucies will perform for an hour. Refreshments will be served.
Professor Mlyn teaches a first-year seminar about the Grateful Dead. His students researched the band’s performances at Duke from 1971 to 1982 and curated an exhibit in Perkins Library. According to Mlyn, “4/12/78 was a raucous and animated performance and has been widely recognized by Deadheads as one of the best shows that year. The band was preparing for a trip to Egypt and it was the last full year of shows for keyboardist Keith Godchaux and his wife Donna whose unforgettable vocals punctuated shows during that era.”
Catch the livestream on April 27 at 6 p.m. No ticket required. See below for details.
In celebration of National Library Week, the Duke University Libraries are pleased to present an evening with National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg in conversation with New York Times opinion writer Frank Bruni at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 27, in Duke University’s Page Auditorium.
One of the country’s most respected journalists and a doyenne of the Supreme Court, Nina Totenberg is NPR’s award-winning legal affairs correspondent. With more than 40 years’ experience at NPR, she has won every major journalism award in broadcasting for her in-depth coverage of our nation’s highest court. Her nuanced reporting and seasoned reflections shine a light on important judicial cases, helping audiences understand their impact on America’s future like no one else can.
Dinners with Ruth chronicles Totenberg’s longstanding friendship with “RBG,” which began 22 years before Ginsberg was appointed to the Supreme Court and 4 years before Totenberg started at NPR. As both women fought for and excelled in careers historically dominated by men, they paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers. At the story’s heart is a special relationship: Ginsberg and Totenberg saw each other not only through personal joys, but also illness, loss, and widowhood. During Ginsberg’s last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were “reserved for Ruth” in Totenberg’s house.
Totenberg will be joined on stage in conversation with Frank Bruni, nationally renowned author and New York Times contributing opinion writer and the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University. Bruni is the author of five bestselling books, most recently The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found, a moving account of his diagnosis with a rare disorder that imperils his eyesight and left him blind in one eye. In 2021, he joined the Duke faculty and teaches media-oriented classes in the Sanford School of Public Policy.
Totenberg will be joined on stage in conversation with Frank Bruni, nationally renowned author and New York Times contributing opinion writer and the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University.
The evening with Totenberg and Bruni will be presented as the Weaver Memorial Lecture, hosted by the Duke University Libraries in memory of William B. Weaver, a 1972 Duke graduate and former member of the Duke Library Advisory Board. Previous Weaver Lecture speakers have included Barbara Kingsolver, Oliver Sacks, Dave Eggers, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Colson Whitehead, among others.
Copies of Dinners with Ruth will be available for sale at the event, and Totenberg will sign books after the talk. The book is also available in print, e-book, and audiobook format through the Duke University Libraries, and at your local public library.
Reserve Your Ticket
Note: Ticket reservations made online or by phone carry a $1.50per ticket service charge. Credit card payments only.
IN PERSON (FREE): Visit the Duke Box Office in the Bryan Center on Duke’s West Campus during their regular business hours, Tuesday-Friday, 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Parking Info
Visitors to campus without a Duke parking permit are strongly advised to pre-purchase a $5.00 visitor parking permit for this special event. The permit is valid for Parking Garage 4 (PG4), adjacent to the Bryan Center and a short walk from Page Auditorium.
Visit the My Parking at Duke website and select the Nina Totenberg and Frank Bruni event. You may be prompted to register with OneLink (it’s free and easy) in order to complete your transaction. Pre-purchased permits greatly reduce wait times on entering and exiting the parking garage.
Visitors without a pre-purchased permit will be charged $10(CASH ONLY) to park. Cashiers will be available at the Parking Garage 4 entrance. If you wish to pay by credit card, you will be directed to other visitor parking locations on campus.
Watch the Livestream
The talk will also be streamed online for those who are unable to attend in person. No ticket needed. Visit the Duke Box Office website for the livestream link and tune in at the event start time.
There’s a poetry reading happening on campus this Thursday, and if you are interested in reading some of the poets ahead of time, the library can help! Here are some details about the two poets and links to their works in our library.
Asiya Wadud is the author of several poetry collections, most recently No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body and Mandible Wishbone Solvent (forthcoming in 2024). Her recent work appears in e-flux journal, BOMB Magazine, Triple Canopy, POETRY, Yale Review and elsewhere. Asiya’s work has been supported by the Foundation Jan Michalski, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Danspace Project, Finnish Cultural Institute of New York, Rosendal Theater Norway, and Kunstenfestivaldesarts among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York where she teaches poetry at Saint Ann’s School and Columbia University.
Roberto Tejada is an award-winning poet and author of art histories that include National Camera: Photography and Mexico’s Image Environment(Minnesota, 2009) and Celia Alvarez Muñoz (Minnesota, 2009); a Latinx poetics of the Americas, Still Nowhere in an Empty Vastness (Noemi, 2019), and catalog essays in Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980 (Hammer Museum, 2011) and Allora & Calzadilla: Specters of Noon (The Menil Collection; Yale, 2021), among others. His poetry appears in the collections Why the Assembly Disbanded(Fordham, 2022),Full Foreground (Arizona, 2012), Exposition Park(Wesleyan, 2010), Mirrors for Gold (Krupskaya, 2006), and Todo en el ahora (Libros Magenta, 2015), selected poems in Spanish translation. Tejada’s writing spans method, discipline, and form to address the political imagination and impurity of time in shared image environments; configurations of art, life, and language inclined to the future. Committed to poetics and open sites of cultural inquiry—regional, transnational, and diasporic—his research and creative interests involve the language arts and image worlds of Latin America, especially Mexico, Brazil, the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, and other sites of U.S. Latinx cultural production. Awarded The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Poetry (2021), Tejada is the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor at the University of Houston where he teaches Creative Writing and Art History.
Solarities 1: Asiya Wadud and Roberto Tejada
Hosted by Tessa Bolsover and Michael Cavuto, Duke English
Thursday 3.30, 7:30PM
Nelson Music Room, East Bldg., 2nd Floor
Duke University, East Campus
Solarities is a new contemporary poetry reading series bringing established and emerging visiting writers to Duke. The series seeks to emphasis experimental literary writing as a unique mode of thought that engages and expands scholarly fields of inquiry.
Disability Pride Flag designed by Ann Magill. A charcoal grey flag bisected diagonally from the top left corner to the lower right right corner by five parallel stripes in red, pale gold, pale grey, light blue, and green
Happy Disability Pride Week at Duke!
Duke Disability Alliance (DDA) is hosting the 2023 edition from March 22nd to March 29th this year. Check further down this post for a graphic with a list of events.
Our collection spotlight in Perkins this month features books on disability activism and disabled people’s experiences. Billy Cao, a student worker at Perkins, consulted with members of DDA to select titles for the spotlight. Librarians Ciara Healy and Ira King also chose titles.
Here is a small selection of the titles you can find in the spotlight:
Librarians at the Rubenstein library have also highlighted two publications from their collections that covered the disability rights movement, The Disability Rag and Dykes, Disability, & Stuff. Issues of those publications are spotlighted in the Hubbard Case near the Perkins/Bostock entrance.
While Duke’s March dance of 2023 has come to an end, Lilly Library brings you its own March Madness with 16 contrapuntal contenders. All of the movies competing in Lilly’s March Musical Movie Madness are available to watch online, with access brought to you by Duke Libraries and the Swank Digital Campus streaming platform. Contestants will be entered in a raffle, and Duke staff are eligible to win an electronic book plate in the online catalog record for the musical movie of their choosing. It’s shaping up to be a thrilling March at Lilly Library!
Lilly’s resident bracketologist, Nathaniel Brown, and film “reserves” aficionado, David Felton, will bring you all the highlights of this exciting competition. Watch their play-by-play videos highlighting each exciting round.
Four rounds of voting will open at 9am the first day of each round and close at 8pm the last day: Sounds of 16: 3/20-3/22 Eighth Notes: 3/23-3/27 4/4 Time: 3/28-3/29 Dynamic Duet: 3/30-4/2 Finale (winner announced): 4/3.
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.
Do you have a cool project idea that uses extensive library resources, such as archival materials or foreign language books?
Are you a first generation and/or low income undergraduate student?
Would having up to $4500 assist with your project idea?
If you answered yes to all three, then consider applying for the Duke University Libraries Summer Research Grants (DULSRG)! We welcome applications from students with all levels of prior experience using library materials. Our application deadline has been extended to March 24th, 2023!
DULSRG are awarded to first-generation and/or low-income undergraduate students to support original library research either at Duke or at another library or cultural institution with a library. Awards are granted up to a maximum of $4500 to cover expenses such as campus housing, transportation, meals while conducting research, online trainings, and digitization expenses. Because research expenses can vary depending on the field of research and the duration of the project, students are able to pool grant funding with other awards.
Your research does not need to be conducted in person! The grant will cover any expenses related to virtual research and access using Duke or another library’s resources! This could include utilizing digitized collections such as Duke’s own University Archives or Government Documents, or accessing the digitized collections of another university or cultural institution!
A new exhibit in the IAS Office Exhibit Space, located on the second floor of Bostock library, showcases recent acquisitions on East Asia. New Chinese-language arrivals provide a glimpse of perspectives surrounding female agency and subjectivity during major political shifts in contemporary Chinese history. New Korean-language publications (including graphic novels) focus on important historical issues and events, such as the experience and testimony of Korean women during periods of Japan’s colonial occupation, and contemporary social and political movements in 20th-century Korea. Finally, our existing holdings in Japanese have been enhanced by a major gift of volumes focused on Japanese religion, which provides new research avenues for scholars of East Asian Buddhism.
Chinese Women’s Liberation Luo Zhou, Librarian for Chinese Studies
Duke University Libraries has expanded its collection with over 200 titles, primarily published during the 1950s and 1960s in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These titles consist of original booklets and pamphlets that focus on women’s liberation and the promotion of the new Marriage Law, which was issued by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1950, only one year after the establishment of the PRC. The Marriage Law, which was the first fundamental law of the PRC, sought to provide a legal foundation for Chinese women to combat oppressive practices such as polygamy, widow chastity, child brides, and bride-wealth. The 1950 law was a significant legislative accomplishment for the CCP in terms of women’s liberation. The promotion of the new law was a nationwide effort, with numerous illustrated publications intended for women, 90% of whom were illiterate in the early 1950s. Concurrently, publications were issued to promote a new image of women as citizens capable of doing the same job, and seeking the same rights, as men. “Holding Up Half the Sky,” a slogan first introduced in the People’s Daily in the mid-1950s, best encapsulates the CCP’s goal of achieving two main social objectives: nurturing women’s individuality and their social productivity.
20th-Century Korean History Miree Ku, Librarian for Korean Studies
Duke’s Korean collection recently added new graphic novels (Korean manhwa), monographs, and biographies about important historical issues and events in 20th-century Korean history such as “comfort women, “the Korean War, and civil rights and pro-democracy movements.
Between 1932 and 1945, women from Japanese-occupied areas in Korea, China, and the Philippines were coerced or tricked into joining private military brothels. In some cases, women were kidnapped from their homes. Many of the new additions to Duke’s Korean collection focus on direct attestations of women, including oral interviews and letters, which provide a grim picture of violence against women during this period of Japanese colonial expansion. By preserving the physical record of East Asian female subjectivity, such accounts help researchers to understand not only the range of women’s experiences in colonial contexts, but also how direct testimony remains a valuable source of our historical knowledge. Additionally, the Libraries acquired several works covering contemporary democratic movements in Korea, especially the Gwangju Uprising (1980), which was a period of armed conflict between local citizens and South Korean military. Likewise, there are also new works on the June Democratic Struggle, which was a nationwide pro-democracy movement in South Korea that generated mass protests in the summer of 1987.
나비의 노래 (2014) https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE006150494풀: 살아 있는 역사, 일본군 위안군 할머니의 증언 (2017) https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE008113730
Japanese Buddhism Matthew Hayes, Librarian for Japanese studies & Asian American studies
Finally, as part of a large-scale gift generously donated by Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies Paul Groner (UVA), Duke University Libraries received key works on Buddhism in East Asia. The work of Dr. Groner, who is a renowned scholar of Japanese Tendai Buddhism, has engaged disciplinary precepts and ordination, the status of nuns in medieval Japan, and later Buddhist educational systems in Japan. The first part of this two-part donation is comprehensive in scope, and includes biographical works focused on key Buddhist figures; expository and commentarial works focused on significant scriptures; philosophical works focused on concepts such as emptiness, non-self, the nature of the mind, and disciplinary ethics; as well as critical reference works. Duke’s current holdings tend toward contemporary Japanese Buddhist histories with a focus on the Zen sect. Dr. Groner’s donation thus fills a crucial chronological and sectarian gap in our current holdings and provides new and important resources for scholars working on East Asian Buddhist philosophy, philology, textual studies, commentarial traditions, law, or ritual. The second part of this donation will arrive in a few years, once Dr. Groner has completed the last of his projects, and will be of similar scale, but contain far more volumes in Japanese. Taken together, this gift will robustly support Buddhist Studies, and the study of East Asia more generally, among Duke faculty and students for decades to come.
最澄と天台の国宝 : 天台宗開宗: 二〇〇記念 https://www.worldcat.org/title/70254660APSI Spring Speaker Series talk by Dr. Groner; Image: Renate Kwon for APSI.
APSI launched its Spring Speaker Series by inviting Dr. Groner to give a talk, which was held at Duke Libraries on February 16th. He spoke about the nature of precept-taking in medieval Japanese Buddhism, after which attendees gathered to formally announce Dr. Groner’s donation to Duke Libraries. The exhibit showcasing these new arrivals to the East Asian Collection is on now through May 2023. Visitors to this exhibit space are encouraged to take a bibliographic guide to each title, located on the windowsill to the right of the exhibit case.
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult by Michelle Dowd. A moving, heartbreaking, and inspiring true story of the author’s escape from an apocalyptic cult. Michelle grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest, born into an ultra-religious cult—the Field, as members called it—run by her grandfather, who believed that his chosen followers must prepare themselves to survive doomsday. Bound by the group’s patriarchal rules and literal interpretation of the Bible, Michelle, and her siblings lived a life of deprivation, isolated from Outsiders and starved for love and food. She was forced to learn the skills necessary to battle hunger, thirst, and cold; she learned to trust animals more than humans; and, most importantly, she learned how to survive by foraging for what she needed. With haunting and stark language, Forager is a fierce and empowering coming-of-age story and a timely meditation on the ways in which harnessing nature’s gifts can lead to our freedom. Read more in this Salon interview with Dowd.
We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, And Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian. On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family’s loving facade was a pattern of abuse and neglect. As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian became the first reporter to put the children’s birth families at the story’s center. Her reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as children of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause. The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America’s most vulnerable children. Read more in a book review by The Washington Post.
Stash: My Life in Hiding by Laura Cathcart Robbins. A propulsive and vivid memoir about the journey to sobriety and self-love amidst addiction, privilege, racism, and self-sabotage from the host of the popular podcast The Only One in the Room. After years of hiding her addiction from everyone—from stockpiling pills in her Louboutins to elaborately scheduling withdrawals between PTA meetings, baby showers, and tennis matches—Robbins settles into a complicated purgatory. She learns the hard way that privilege doesn’t protect you from pain. Facing divorce, the possibility of a grueling custody battle, and internalized racism, Robbins wonders just how much more she can take. Robbins harrowingly illustrates taking down the wall she built around herself and what it means to be Black in a startingly white world. With its raw, finely crafted, and engaging prose, Stash is the story of how badly the facade she created had to shatter before Robbins could reconnect to her true self. Robbins discusses her story in an interview with Thoughts from a Page Podcast.
The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff. Five years ago, Geeta lost her no-good husband. As in, she lost him–he walked out on her, and she has no idea where he is. But in her remote village in India, rumor has it that Geeta killed him. And it’s a rumor that just won’t die. It turns out that is known as a “self-made” widow comes with some perks. No one messes with her, harasses her, or tries to control ( ahem, marry) her. It’s even been good for business; no one dares to not buy her jewelry. Freedom must look good on Geeta because now other women are asking for her “expertise,” making her an unwitting consultant for husband disposal. With Geeta’s dangerous reputation becoming a double-edged sword, she has to find a way to protect the life she’s built–but even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry. Filled with clever criminals, second chances, and wry and witty women, Shroff’s The Bandit Queens is a razor-sharp debut of humor and heart that readers won’t soon forget. Read The New York Times Book Review to learn more!
Victory City by Salman Rushdie. In the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing her mother’s death, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who begins to speak out of the girl’s mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampana’s comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga–“victory city”–the world’s wonder. Over the next 250 years, Pampa Kampana’s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga’s, from its literal sowing from a bag of magic seeds to its tragic ruination in the most human ways: the hubris of those in power. As years pass, rulers come and go, battles are won and lost, and allegiances shift, the very fabric of Bisnaga becomes an ever more complex tapestry–with Pampa Kampana at its center. Brilliantly styled as a translation of an ancient epic, Victory City is a saga of love, adventure, and myth that is a testament to storytelling’s power. Read The New York Times Book Review to learn more!
Jameca Dupree, Associate University Librarian and Director of Financial and Facility Services
The Duke University Libraries are pleased to announce two appointments to our senior leadership team, after dual national searches. Both will serve as members of the Libraries’ Executive Group, reporting to the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs.
Jameca Dupree has been named Associate University Librarian and Director of Financial and Facility Services, effective February 1.
In this role, she will have overall responsibility for the financial affairs and administrative operations of the Libraries, overseeing a $36 million operating budget and providing leadership over a division that includes Business Services, Facilities and Distribution Services, and the Library Service Center.
Dupree has led the division in an interim capacity since last July, following the retirement of Ann Wolfe, who had served in the role since 2002.
Dupree has worked at Duke for twenty-one years, including seventeen in the Libraries, in progressively responsible administrative, budget, and financial oversight roles. Starting out as a staff assistant in our Human Resources and Business Services Department (2005-2010), she was eventually promoted to Senior Financial Analyst (2010-2016) and Director of Business Services (2016-2022), before assuming her current responsibilities.
Dupree holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from North Carolina Wesleyan College, and a MBA from Fayetteville State University—both of which she earned while working full-time in the Libraries. She is also a graduate of the Managing at Duke program, the Triangle Research Libraries Network Management Academy, and the Duke Leadership Academy. In 2020, Dupree co-founded the Duke University Libraries Black Staff Alliance (DULBSA), a group that provides community, support, and ideas for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion among library staff.
“Jameca has excelled throughout her career in the Duke Libraries and most recently as Interim AUL,” said Joseph A. Salem, Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs. “She was the ideal selection as we look for Financial and Facility Services not only to provide good stewardship well into the future, but also effective communication so that our staff have a shared sense of the resources needed to support our work and those available to innovate and push it in new directions.”
“I am delighted and extremely enthusiastic about this opportunity, especially continuing my career with the Duke University Libraries,” said Dupree. “It was a natural next step for me, and I am thankful that Joe, the members of the Executive Group, and library staff supported this direction. The Duke Libraries are moving forward in exciting and innovative ways, and I am honored to be a part of the leadership team that will see it through.”
Emily Daly, Associate University Librarian for Research and Public Services
Dupree’s appointment coincides with another addition to the Libraries’ Executive Group. Emily Daly has been named Associate University Librarian for Research and Public Services, effective March 1.
In this position, Daly will provide leadership, vision, and strategic direction to advance the core teaching, learning, and research services of the Libraries. The division she oversees is broadly responsible for providing individualized library help and outreach to students, faculty, university staff, and the general public. Research and Public Services includes Access and Delivery Services, the East Campus Libraries, International and Area Studies, Humanities and Social Sciences, Natural Sciences and Engineering, and the Marine Lab Library.
Daly has served as Interim AUL for the division since last June, following the departure of Dave Hansen. During that time, she has overseen a structural reorganization of the division, working with staff to bring increased focus on public services and user spaces. The new structure is better positioned to meet the evolving demands of a modern research library.
Daly has worked at the Duke University Libraries since 2006, when she was hired as an intern in the Instruction and Outreach Department. Later she was appointed Coordinator of Upper-Level Instruction and Librarian for Education (2008-2012), before being promoted to Interim Head of Library Instruction and Outreach (2012), Head of Assessment and User Experience (2013-2022), and Interim Head of Research and Instructional Services (2021-2022), prior to assuming her current duties.
In addition to her work in the Libraries, Daly is active in the library profession. She serves on the advisory council of the Triangle Research Libraries Network, and she has chaired or served on numerous committees with the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries, where she recently concluded a term on the board of the directors. Daly also has an extensive record of service to Duke. She currently serves on the Master’s Advisory Council and has been an Academic Advisor to pre-major Duke undergraduates since 2010.
Daly holds a bachelor’s degree in English from North Carolina State University, and a master’s in Library Science from UNC-Chapel Hill.
“I have been impressed with Emily’s willingness to lead the division through organizational change during this interim period and look forward to working with her in this role on an ongoing basis,” said Joe Salem. “She has demonstrated the commitment to collaboration, to our students, and to our colleagues that I was seeking. She has also demonstrated a strong emphasis on innovation and continuous improvement, which make her an ideal leader for a division that will contribute to the mission of the university in new ways over the coming years.”
“I’ve been fortunate in sixteen-plus years at Duke Libraries to work in a number of departments and roles,” said Daly. “Whenever I’ve felt that I might make a greater impact doing something new, an opportunity has presented itself, or I’ve successfully advocated for a change. I’m extremely excited about this latest opportunity, and I’m eager to work and learn alongside talented, dedicated colleagues as we set direction for services and spaces in response to library users’ evolving needs.”
The other members of the Libraries’ Executive Group include Blue Dean, Associate University Librarian for Development; Dracine Hodges, Associate University Librarian for Technical Services; Timothy M. McGeary, Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies and Technology; and Naomi Nelson, Associate University Librarian and Director of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Post by Hannah Rozear, Librarian for Biological Sciences and Global Health, and Sarah Park, Librarian for Engineering and Computer Science
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the buzz about ChatGPT. It can write papers! Debug code! Do your laundry! Create websites from thin air! While it is an exciting tech development with enormous possibilities for applications, understanding what’s under the hood and what it does well/not-so-well is critically important.
ChatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence Chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched for public use in November 2022. While other AI chatbots are also in development by tech giants such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft, OpenAI’s early rollout has eclipsed the others for now – with the site reaching more than 100 million users in 2 months. For some perspective, this is faster widespread adoption than TikTok, Instagram, and many other popular apps.
What you may not know about ChatGPT is that it has significant limitations as a reliable research assistant. One such limitation is that it has been known to fabricate or “hallucinate” (in machine learning terms) citations. These citations may sound legitimate and scholarly, but they are not real. It is important to note that AI can confidently generate responses without backing data much like a person under the influence of hallucinations can speak confidently without proper reasoning. If you try to find these sources through Google or the library—you will turn up NOTHING.
Why does it do this? ChatGPT is built on a Large Language Model and has been trained on a huge dataset of internet sources. It can quickly and simply generate easy-to-understand responses to any question you throw at it. But the responses are only as good as the quality of input data it has been trained on. Its core strength lies in recognizing language patterns—not in reading and analyzing lengthy scholarly texts. Given that, it may not be the most reliable source for in-depth research. The following is a shortlist of what we’ve observed ChatGPT is good for and not good for.
What It’s Good For
Generating ideas for related concepts, terms, and words about a particular topic. I asked ChatGPT, what are some keywords for the topic of AI literacy? It replied with: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning, Neural Networks, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Robotics, Data Science, Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Ethics of AI, Bias in AI, Explainable AI, Human-AI Interaction, Cognitive Computing… These are all great leads for terms I might use to look for articles and books on this topic.
Suggestions for databases where I could find literature on the topic. I asked ChatGPT, What are some good library databases I could search to find more information about the topic of AI literacy? ChatGPT replied with: IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, ScienceDirect, JSTOR, Proquest, arXiv, and Web of Science. It also suggested checking with my library to see what’s available. A more direct route to this type of question would be consulting the Duke Libraries Research Guides and/or connecting with the Subject Specialist at Duke who is familiar with the resources we have available on any given topic.
Suggestions for improving writing. As ChatGPT has been trained on a large corpus of text, it has accumulated a range of dictions and writing variations within context. I have found it particularly useful for checking grammar and sentence structure in American English, as well as for suggesting alternative phrasing, synonyms, or quick translations of my writing into another language. Additionally, I have experimented with asking ChatGPT to rewrite my paragraph, but if it produced an unexpected response, it may indicate that my writing contains parts that do not make sense in that particular language. Nonetheless, it is important to thoroughly review the text and ensure that it meets your criteria before taking it.
What It’s NOT Good For
DO NOT ask ChatGPT for a list of sources on a particular topic! ChatGPT is based on a Large Language Model and does not have the ability to match relevant sources to any given topic. It may do OK with some topics or sources, but it may also fabricate sources that don’t exist.
Be wary of asking ChatGPT to summarize a particular source, or write your literature review. It may be tempting to ask ChatGPT to summarize the main points of the dense and technical 10-page article you have to read for class, or to write a literature review synthesizing a field of research. Depending on the topic and availability of data it has on that topic, it may summarize the wrong source or provide inaccurate summaries of specific articles—sometimes making up details and conclusions.
Do not expect ChatGPT to know current events or predict the future. ChatGPT’s “knowledge” is based on the dataset that was available before September 2021, and therefore, it may not be able to provide up-to-date information on current events or predict the future. For instance, when I asked about the latest book published by Haruki Murakami in the US, ChatGPT responded with First Person Singular, which was published in April 2021. However, the correct answer is Novelist as a Vocation, which was released in November 2022. Additionally, ChatGPT did not seem aware of any recent developments beyond September 2021. It’s worth noting that Murakami’s new novel is expected to be released in April 2023.
AI chat technology is rapidly evolving and it’s exciting to see where this will go. Much like Google and Wikipedia helped accelerate our access to information in their heyday, the existence of these new AI-based tools requires their users to think about how to carefully and ethically incorporate them into their own research and writing. If you have any doubts or questions, ask real human experts, such as the library’s Ask a Librarian chat, or schedule a one-on-one consultation with a librarian for help.
Resources
Alkaissi, H., & McFarlane, S. I. (2023). Artificial Hallucinations in ChatGPT: Implications in Scientific Writing. Cureus, 15(2), e35179. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.35179
Over the last several years, Duke, like many other institutions, has made a significant investment in computational research, recognizing that such research techniques can have wide-ranging benefits from translational research in the biomedical sciences to the digital humanities, this work can and has been transformative. Much of this work is reliant on researchers being able to engage in text and data-mining (TDM) to produce the data-sets necessary for large-scale computational analysis. For the sciences, this can range from compiling research data across a whole series of research projects, to collecting large numbers of research articles for computer-aided systematic reviews. For the humanities, it may mean assembling a corpus of digitized books, DVDs, music, or images for analysis into how language, literary themes, or depictions have changed over time.
The Law of Text and Data Mining
The techniques and tools for text and data-mining have advanced rapidly, but one constant for TDM researchers has been a fear of legal risk. For data-sets composed of copyrighted works, the risk of liability can seem staggering. With copyright’s statutory damages set as high as $150,000 per work infringed, a corpus of several hundred works can cause real concern.
However, the risks of just avoiding copyrighted works are also high. Given the extensive reach of copyright law, avoiding protected or unlicensed works can mean narrowing research to focus on extremely limited datasets, which can in turn lead to biased and incomplete results. For example, avoiding copyright for many researchers means using very old, public domain sources materials, which skews their scholarship to focus on works written by authors that do not represent the diverse voices found in modern publications.
Thankfully, there is a legal pathway forward for TDM researchers. Unlike the situation in most other nations, where text and data-mining has benefited from special enabling legislation, the United States has instead relied on fair use, the flexible copyright doctrine that has been key to US innovation policy. While fair use has the reputation of being nebulous and confusing (you might recall hearing it described as the “right to hire a lawyer”) there are good reasons to believe that with appropriate safeguards, non-commerical academic research is reliably protected by fair use. Only a handful of recent efforts have focused on helping researchers better understand the scope of these fair use rights for TDM research. For example, UC Berkeley spearheaded an NEH-funded project to build legal literacies for text and data mining in 2020. I’m happy to say that Authors Alliance, a nonprofit that supports authors who research and write for the public benefit, is working to further advance understanding of fair use as applied to TDM research through new resources and direct consultation with researchers under a new Mellon Foundation supported project titled “Text and Data Mining: Demonstrating Fair Use.”
Unfortunately, fair use isn’t the only legal barrier to text and data-mining research. For researchers who seek to use modern digital works–for example, ebooks available only in ePub format, or movies only available on DVDs–a whole series of other laws can stand in the way. In particular, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA,” a creature of late-90s copyright and information policy), Congress created a special set of restrictions on users of digital materials, seeking to give copyright owners the right to place digital locks on their works, such as DRM, to prevent online piracy. The DMCA imposes significant liability for users of copyrighted works who circumvent technical protection measures (e.g., content scramble for DVDs) unless those users comply with a series of complex exemptions promulgated by the U.S. Copyright Office.
In 2021, Authors Alliance, the Association of Research Libraries, and the American Association of University Professors joined together to successfully petition the US Copyright Office for such a DMCA exemption for text and data mining in support of academic research. That exemption now allows researchers to circumvent technological protection measures that restrict access to literary works and motion pictures. Like other exemptions, it is complicated, containing requirements such as the implementation of strict security measures. But, it is not impenetrable, especially with clear guidance.
An Invitation to Learn with Us About Legal Issues in Text and Data Mining
To that end, I’m pleased that Duke University Libraries, the Franklin Humanities Institute, and others units at Duke are working with Authors Alliance to take the lead in supporting researchers to overcome legal obstacles to TDM. Together, this spring we will host a series of workshops for faculty, librarians, and others at Duke as well as other Triangle area universities. On March 23, we’ll host a workshop focused on legal issues in TDM using textual materials, and then on April 4, another workshop on TDM with visual and audio-visual materials. Each workshop will give an overview of the state of law as applied to TDM – practical tips and guidance, as well as substantial hands-on discussion about how to address particular challenges. We also plan to use these workshops to gather feedback: about where the law is confusing, or in its current state, inadequate for researchers. That work is done with an eye toward identifying ways to improve the law to make computational research using TDM techniques more accessible and efficient.
All are invited to join. You can register for these workshops below.
Legal Issues in Text and Data Mining: Literature and Text-Based Works
Thursday, March 23
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (Lunch Provided) The Edge Workshop Room (Bostock Library 127) Register to attend
Legal Issues in Computational Research Using Images and Audiovisual Works
Tuesday, April 4
2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall (Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, C105) Register to attend
The 5 Titles series highlights books, music, and films in the library’s collection, featuring topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and/or highlighting authors’ work from diverse backgrounds. Each post is intended to briefly sample titles rather than provide a comprehensive topic overview. Liz Milewicz, Ph.D., Head of Digital Scholarship & Publishing Services and co-Director of Scholar Works: A Center for Scholarly Publishing, has selected the five titles this month to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Please note: The content linked in this post is punk-typically offensive and may also challenge notions of conventional femininity.
So, you may be thinking that “Five Titles” is supposed to be a blog series about books. Think again! Just as you may be thinking, punk rock is just about angry young white dudes. Again, think! If punk is anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, and anti-corporate, who better to speak truth to power than women? And, true to that punk ethos, this list of five songs includes women of color, queer women, and women who push back on punk. A global movement that forms itself around and against powers that attempt to contain it, punk can’t really be contained in this list of five or even fully expressed in a blog post. If you think an important voice is missing, suggest your punk rock girl in the comments! Completely lost at this point in the paragraph and have no idea what girl-powered punk is all about? Then listen on and let the lesson begin…
Bikini Kill, “Rebel Girl”
With so many bands, songs, and scenes from the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s, it’s hard to choose just one that captures the audacity and exuberance of third-wave feminism expressed through music. So why not start with Bikini Kill, whose lead singer Kathleen Hanna embodied the band’s confrontational style, at times wearing pigtails and panties on stage while singing songs of female empowerment. “Rebel Girl” celebrates confident women, an anthem to walking with your head up and a sense of your own power: “That girl thinks she’s the queen of the neighborhood… She IS!” Bikini Kill pushed for women to connect and express themselves by starting bands and creating zines, and it influenced culture and politics as well as the music scene.
These Russian punks are not a band but a queer-feminist art collective that uses punk as a political protest. Unlike the Western punk scene formed around musicians and shows, Pussy Riot emerged in 2011 in response to political corruption by Vladimir Putin and complicit support by the Russian Orthodox Church. Their “punk prayer” asked Mother Mary to become a feminist, join their protest, and “banish Putin!” The band was imprisoned for hooliganism, but that didn’t quiet the group, which continues to release videos and songs online and whose support has only grown through the Russian government’s attempts to silence them.
If we’re going to talk about punk-rock women in the US today, then we have to talk about Fea. Based in San Antonio, this Chicana feminist punk band pushes hard (and humorously) against perceptions that the feminist movement is irrelevant. “Feminazi” pays playful homage to that torch song of punk, “Anarchy in the UK” (Sex Pistols), while bringing it home to the modern-day USA. This song in particular highlights the political activism of punk rock women as well as their inclusivity, as they speak for women’s rights throughout the world: “Yo soy, yo soy feminista!” – “私はフェミニストです!” – “I am, I am a feminist!”
G.L.O.S.S. (or Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit), a trans-feminist hardcore punk band, challenged conceptions of punk and gender. Fast tempos and aggressive lyrics define hardcore, not its audience or its artists. Yet, the predominance of heterosexual male bands and violent mosh pits tended to marginalize women, trans-women, queers, people of color, and people with disabilities. G.L.O.S.S. gave voice to people living on the edges of mainstream society, creating a hardcore scene where they were centered and raising awareness of a number of social issues, including transphobia and women’s rights. They also generated controversy, highlighting the complexities of intersectional identity when their violent lyrics attacked mainstream gender and sexuality norms.
This Black feminist punk band pushes against stereotypical punk with melodic, easy-going songs and lyrics that shift the boundaries between male and female, black and white, familiar and other. Their music sets a new stage for punk, creating space for Black women to inhabit and centering punk rock’s utopian values: fierce insistence on a better world and determination to live fully in the present. True to the ethos of 3rd Wave feminism and the Riot Grrrl movement, Big Joanie embraces DIY and the power to reshape culture — including making the punk music scene more inclusive and diverse through organization of the Decolonise Fest.
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
“When You are Waiting to be Healed” by June Eric-Udorie
“Canfei to Canji: The Freedom of Being Loud” by Sandy Ho
“How a Blind Astronomer Found a Way to Hear the Stars” by Wanda Diaz-Merced
“The Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People” by s.e. smith
Attendees are also encouraged to read other essays in the book (they’re all bite-sized, we promise!) and bring a favorite to discuss with the group. As always, though, anyone is welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read.
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 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.
The 5 Titles series highlights books, music, and films in the library’s collection, featuring topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and/or highlighting authors’ work from diverse backgrounds. Each post is intended to briefly sample titles rather than provide a comprehensive topic overview. This month the five titles have been selected by Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Humanities and Social Sciences Department Head and Librarian for Literature, and Haley Walton, Librarian for Education and Open Scholarship. Video games are among the most influential media of the twenty-first century: a multi-billion-dollar global industry that weaves playable stories of otherworldly adventure, pulse-pumping action, and sweeping emotional depth into our daily lives through our computers, consoles, and phones. From Candy Crush to The Last of Us, games can appeal to players from any age group or socio-cultural background, yet the stereotype of the cisgender, white male “gamer” persists. This month’s five titles reinforce that gaming is and has always been for everyone by exploring how race, gender, queerness, and disability in gaming and game development impact how we, the players, see ourselves and our societies.
Cooperative Gaming: Diversity in the Games Industry and How to Cultivate Inclusion by Alyna M. Cole and Jessica Zammit. Brief, readable, and impactful, this book sets the stage for diversity issues in games and the game industry using survey data collected by the International Game Developers Association, and the authors’ not-for-profit organization Queerly Represent Me. In a culture that can be hostile toward mere mentions of adding diverse characters and themes to video games, the authors address the challenges marginalized groups face trying to develop games that represent their experiences, to push back against abusive opposition to their inclusion in the business of gaming and play itself, and to offer their voices to ensure they are accurately portrayed in the games they love. The five chapters provide context and usable resources for cultivating inclusion in workplace culture, game development, and larger gaming-centric events. With many years of combined experience in the pitfalls and bright points of the game industry, Cole and Zammit call out the problems but also lay the groundwork for cultivating a more diverse future for games and gamers.
Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games edited by Jennifer Malkowski and Treaandrea M. Russworm. This scholarly collection of essays examines portrayals of race, gender, and sexuality in a wide range of video games spanning casual games, indie games, and mainstream AAA games. It is part of a more recent wave of scholarly criticism that examines issues of identity and representation in video games, moving away from past scholarship that focused on the relationship between narratology and ludology. The editors and contributors aim to look at how elements like images, sound, and plot can create a sense of identity for players and how this can be expressed through the code and software itself. The book also examines how games have been impacted by movements like #gamergate, #BlackLivesMatter, and #INeedDiverseGames. It is divided into three sections: Part One – Gender Bodies, Spaces; Part Two – Race, Identity, Nation; Part Three – Queerness, Play, Subversion. Readers of this book will better understand how video game players see themselves (or don’t see themselves) in their games.
Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming by Kishonna L. Gray. In this book, Kishonna L. Gray interrogates Blackness in gaming at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability. She uses theories and methods from many disciplines, such as feminism, critical race theory, media studies, and anthropology. She is particularly interested in how marginalized players interact with games and creates fan content. As she notes in the introduction, “given the continual valuing of whiteness and masculinity in digital spaces, it is necessary to explore the often unstable relationship that develops between the user and technology, highlighting institutional, communal, and individual barriers that impede full inclusion of marginalized users” (3). A particular highlight of this book is how she provides narratives and snippets of text messages and conversations gathered from group and individual interviews she has conducted over the last decade, providing real-life grounding to the theoretical points she makes in each chapter. Bonus: the book begins with a foreword by Anita Sarkeesian, creator of Feminist Frequency.
The Queer Games Avant-Garde: How LBGTQ Game Makers are Reimagining the Medium of Video Games by Bonnie Ruberg. “Queer people are the avant-garde of video games because we’re willing to do things other people aren’t,” states Naomi Clark at the start of this exciting collection of essays by creators and gamers working on queering video games (e.g., creating games that reflect queer stories and culture). The eponymous movement is composed of queer experience-centric “‘indie’ games developed largely outside the traditional funding and publishing structures of the games industry” that “are scrappy and zine-like,” rather than the sleek AAA titles with teams of hundreds and millions of dollars behind them. While the big-budget game industry has been trying to include more diverse voices, it can still be considered a cautious approach. The gamemakers whose voices comprise this volume are producing games by, about, and for queer players to tell the stories they want to see right now—no waiting for the industry to catch up. Queer people have always been a part of video gaming; in Ruberg’s volume, over twenty creators share their essential progress toward queering video games.
Gaming Disability: Disability Perspectives on Contemporary Video Games, edited by Katie Ellis, Tama Leaver, and Mike Kent. A collaboration between scholars of disability and game studies, this newly released volume addresses the challenges and opportunities people with disability experience in video gaming culture and communities—and with representation in the games themselves. Developers, activists, and educators offer their perspectives in 19 chapters covering topics from the history of disabled character representation in video games, gaming with blindness, how scars affect characterization in Bioware’s sci-fi epic Mass Effect 2, and how playing a physical movement-based game like Pokémon Go forces us to confront the (in)accessibility of our urban environments. There is no question that people with disabilities are often excluded from games and game culture through interfaces that assume a normative body. This book emphasizes that “disabled gamers do not accept this exclusion and have become active agents of change.” The authors challenge us to explore the perspectives of people with disabilities and to create a more inclusive space inside games and the gaming community.
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation, by Camonghne Felix. When Felix goes through a monumental breakup, culminating in a hospital stay, everything—from her early childhood trauma and mental health to her relationship with mathematics—shows up in the tapestry of her healing. In this exquisite and raw reflection, Felix repossesses herself through the exploration of history she’d left behind, using her childhood “dyscalculia”—a disorder that makes it difficult to learn math—as a metaphor for the consequences of her miscalculations in love. Through reckoning with this breakup and other adult gambles in intimacy, Felix asks the question: Who gets to assert their right to pain? “Black girls get to write about benign heartbreak too,” she writes. Dyscalculia negotiates the misalignments of perception and reality, love and harm, and the politics of heartbreak, both romantic and familial.
Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens. In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she’s been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants. Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing–a teenage ghost pining for a woman who can’t see her and doesn’t know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George’s case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly. She reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involved an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training). From NPR, “Nell Stevens’ debut novel Briefly, A Delicious Life is a curious mashup of historical fiction, a ghost story, and a queer love story.”
Heartbroke: Stories by Chelsea Bieker. From the acclaimed author of Godshot and “a pitch-perfect ventriloquist of extraordinary talent and ferocity” (T Kira Madden) comes a defining book of Californian stories where everyone is seeking or sabotaging love United by the stark and sprawling landscapes of California’s Central Valley, the characters of Heartbroke boil with reckless desire. A woman steals a baby from a shelter in an attempt to recoup her own lost motherhood. A phone-sex operator sees divine opportunity when a lavender-eyed cowboy walks into her life. A mother and a son selling dream catchers along a highway that leads to a toxic beach manifest two young documentary filmmakers into their realm. And two teenage girls play a dangerous online game with destiny. Heartbroke brims over with each character’s attempt to salvage grace where they can find it. Told in bright, snapping prose that reveals a world of loss and love underneath, Chelsea Bieker brilliantly illuminates a golden yet gothic world of longing and abandonment under an unrelenting California sun. Learn more about this title in the Los Angeles Times book review here.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters.
The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon. As Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his estimable father. It’s not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna. And then the world explodes. In the trenches in Galicia, fantasies fall flat. Heroism gets a man killed quickly. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for is the attention of Osman, a fellow soldier, a man of action to complement Pinto’s introspective, poetic soul; a charismatic storyteller; Pinto’s protector and lover. Together, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches, survive near-certain death, and tangle with spies and Bolsheviks. Read what The New York Times has to say about this novel here!
Are you stuck in a reading rut? Has that stack of books you’ve been meaning to read suddenly lost all appeal?
Oh, honey. You need to check out our Mystery Date with a Book display next to the Perkins Library Service Desk, now through February 15.
Our librarians have hand-picked some of their all-time favorite literary crushes. Trust us. Librarians are the professional matchmakers of the book world. They’ve picked out some titles guaranteed to improve your circulation, if you know what we mean.
Each book comes wrapped in paper with a come-hither teaser to pique your interest. Will you get fiction or nonfiction? Short stories or travelogue? Memoir or thriller? You won’t know until you “get between the covers,” nudge, nudge. Aw, yeah.
So go ahead, take home a one-night stand for your nightstand. Who knows? Your pretty little self might just fall in love with a new favorite writer!
Don’t forget to “Rate Your Date” and let us know what you thought of your match. Look for the rating card included with your book, and return it for a chance to win a library swag bag!
The situation in southern Türkiye and northern Syria is dire. On 6 Feb. 2023 , a significant earthquake of 7.8 Richter scale devastated this region with Kahramanmaraş being the epicentre. Since that first earthquake, there have been a number of earthquakes and aftershocks registering as high as 7.6 and earlier today of 5.4. The destruction and loss of life is enormous and is compounded by freezing temperatures with snow and rain.
Below are a few resources for those seeking to give donations. No donation is too small, everything helps. These are only suggested organisations and not meant to be comprehensive.
From Prof. of Ottoman History at New York University, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer: is collecting donations directly to her account, so far raised about $12, 500.
Venmo: @AyseBrammer
Zelle: abb12@nyu.edu
The White Helmets are directly involved in the rescue in the impacted Syrian region. They are well-organized. You can easily donate to them with one click: https://www.whitehelmets.org/en/
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.
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.
The 5 Titles series highlights books, music, and films in the library’s collection, featuring topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and/or highlighting authors’ work from diverse backgrounds. Each post is intended to briefly sample titles rather than provide a comprehensive topic overview. This month, Librarian for Visual Studies and Dance, Lee Sorensen, has selected five titles focusing on Five Black Artists that we should know. Check out Lilly Library’s Current Exhibition Catalog section to discover additional established Black artists and emerging BIPOC artists.
Beauford Delaney: A Retrospective (1978). Delaney is the finest example of an early, crucial Black artist noticed by great writers of his time. James Baldwin and Henry Miller discuss his work, and Delaney was a friend of Georgia O’Keefe. This edition is a catalog from the Studio Museum in Harlem, one of the earliest venues where Black artists could be shown. Delaney painted in Harlem in the 1930s and 1940s but moved to Greenwich Village, partially to hide from his ethnic community that he was gay. Poor and introverted his whole life, he died a year after this show.
Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. Howarden Pindell is one of the principal Black abstract expressionist painters. This book is a catalog of a German exhibition of her work, located in the Current Exhibition Catalogs section of the Lilly. Pindell’s multimedia exhibition includes a film mentioned in the catalog; she says, “I wanted the title to be a clear and obvious reference to what takes place in the film. Rope represents being hung during a lynching. Fire represents lynching where a flammable substance is applied to the body, such as coal, tar, oil, and the victim is burned alive. … Water represents the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas of kidnapped and enslaved African men, women and children. Indigenous people were also kidnapped and sent to Europe to be sold.” The ‘Rope/Fire/Water’ catalog is in English.
Rashid Johnson: Message to our Folks (2012). Rashid Johnson is a multi-media artist best known for his paintings and conceptual drawings. His technique is powerful brush strokes (“slashes”) on larger canvases giving a feeling of immediacy to his work. However, in 2008, Johnson produced a series of clean-line metal sculptures of giant gun sights. Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos (2008) is at the Whitney (and an even larger one at The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond). Gun sights have been a constant theme of Johnson’s work, but this larger-than-life sculpture makes it possible to see anything through the crosshairs of a gun. “Johnson explores the complexities and contradictions of black identity in the United States, incorporating commonplace objects from his childhood in a process he describes as “hijacking the domestic” and transforming materials such as wood, mirrors, tiles, rugs, CB radios, shea butter and plants into conceptually loaded and visually compelling works that shatter assumptions about the homogeneity of black subjecthood.”
McArthur Binion: Re:Mine (2015). Binion lived at the edge of art fame for most of his 74 years before becoming iconic–his name appears in nearly every survey of art by Artists of Color–he worked steadily. Taking his inspiration from machines, i.e., geometric forms, Binion returns them to the humanness of hand painting. Stand back from the paintings; they seem to be color field work, move in closer, and see micro and macro simultaneously. “Influenced equally by music, storytelling, and individual history, McArthur Binion has described his approach to painting from the position of a “rural Modernist” and one through which he “bridges the lyricism of colour with a Black rural sensibility.” Binion’s paintings, predominantly composed of oil paint stick and paper on board, form the nexus of place and history, from Binion’s childhood in the South to his time in New York in the early 1970s and his current home of Chicago.”
Beverly McIver: Full Circle (2021). Duke faculty member Beverly McIver’s work is some of the most powerful paintings of any era. Her themes include the Black clown (based on learning that the circus didn’t hire Black people as clowns) and the painter’s layers of Black identity. Commissioned to paint the portrait of retiring NC Museum of Art Director Larry Wheeler, she painted him in blackface and red high heels. “From early self-portraits in clown makeup to more recent works featuring her father, dolls, Beverly’s experiences during COVID-19, and portraits of others, Full Circle illuminates the arc of Beverly McIver’s artistic career while also touching on her personal journey. McIver’s self-portraits explore expressions of individuality, stereotypes, and ways of masking identity; portraits of family provide glimpses into intimate moments, in good times as well as in illness and death.”
Pulitzer-Winning Poet and U.S. Laureate Charles Simic died this week. If you want to learn more about his significance to the world of poetry, you can read this Washington Post obituary or watch this short PBS News Hour video. The Poetry Foundation website also has an accessible biography and a place to start with some of his poems.
If you want to dive in deeper to his work, we have you covered. Here’s just a selection of what we have:
Suffering from romance withdrawal while waiting for the third season of Bridgerton? Low Maintenance Book Club is here for you. We’ll be reading and discussing Suzanne Allain’s Mr. Malcolm’s List at our next meeting on Thursday, February, 9that noon. As always, you’re welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read. Copies of the book are available through Duke University Libraries and your local public library.
The meeting will be held over Zoom, so make sure to RSVP to receive an invitation link the morning of the 9th. We hope to see you there!
If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu)
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin. On a bitter-cold day in December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees Sadie Green amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform. He calls her name. She pretends she hasn’t heard him for a moment, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts. Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Read or listen to NPR’s delightful review of this novel here!
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka. Maali Almeida―war photographer, gambler, and closet queen―has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake, and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster around can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka. Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a “thrilling satire” (Economist). Read what The Guardian wrote about this novel: “The scenarios are often absurd – dead bodies bicker with each other – but executed with a humour and pathos that ground the reader. Beneath the literary flourishes is a true and terrifying reality: the carnage of Sri Lanka’s civil wars. Karunatilaka has done artistic justice to a terrible period in his country’s history.”
Acne: A Memoir by Laura Chinn. From the creator and star of Florida Girls comes a hilarious and profound memoir about family, happiness, and really aggressive acne. Despite having dirty-blonde hair and fair skin, Laura Chinn is mixed-race: the daughter of a Black father and a white mother, which on its own makes for some funny and insightful looks at identity. Laura’s parents were both Scientologists and nonconformists in myriad ways. They divorced early in Laura’s childhood, and she spent her teen years ping-ponging back and forth between Clearwater, Florida, and Los Angeles (with an extended stint in Tijuana for good measure). This is not a sad story. There is Jell-O wrestling. There is an abnormal amount of dancing. There is information about whether you can drink gallons of sangria while taking unregulated Accutane acquired in Mexico. But mostly there is love, and ultimately there is redemption. Laura explores her trauma through anecdotes riddled with grit and humor, proving that in the face of unspeakable tragedy, it is possible to find success, love, and self-acceptance, zits and all. Read a review from Oprah Daily to learn more.
The Dream Builders, by Oindrila Mukherjee. After living in the US for years, Maneka Roy returns home to India to mourn the loss of her mother and finds herself in a new world. The booming city of Hrishipur, where her father now lives, is nothing like the part of the country where she grew up, and the more she sees of this new, sparkling city, the more she learns that nothing—and no one—here is as it appears. Ultimately, it will take an unexpected tragic event for Maneka and those around her to finally understand how fragile life is in this city built on aspirations. Written from the perspectives of ten different characters, Oindrila Mukherjee’s incisive debut novel explores class divisions, gender roles, and stories of survival within a constantly changing society and becoming increasingly Americanized. It’s a story about India today and people impacted by globalization everywhere: a tale of ambition, longing, and bitter loss that asks what it really costs to try and build a dream.
The Family Izquierdo by Ruben Degollado. The tight-knit Izquierdo family is grappling with misfortunes none of them can explain. Their beloved patriarch has suffered from an emotional collapse and is dying; eldest son Gonzalo’s marriage is falling apart; daughter Dina, beleaguered by the fear that her nightmares are real, is a shut-in. When Gonzalo digs up a strange object in the backyard of the family home, the Izquierdos take it as proof that a jealous neighbor has cursed them-could this be the reason for all their troubles? As the Izquierdos face a distressing present and an uncertain future, they are sustained by the blood that binds them, a divine presence, and an abiding love for one another. Told in a series of soulful voices brimming with warmth and humor, The Family Izquierdo is a tender narrative of a family at a turning point. Read more about this book in The New York Times Book Review here!
The theme for this month’s Collection Spotlight is “New Year, New You.” We’re featuring books to help you with any resolutions or goals you might have made this month, ranging from managing stress, developing better habits, learning more about DEI issues, improving study skills, and more. You can find these titles in our Collection Spotlight display near our Perkins Library Service Desk on the first floor of Perkins. Also, make sure to share an affirmation or word of encouragement for others in our Duke Community!
Here is a selection of some of the titles you will find:
Duke authors have averaged nearly 200 publications a year in PLOS journals over the last five years. For the next two years, authors will no longer have to cover PLOS publishing costs from their own funds. The cost of this arrangement represents a major investment from the libraries, but it should result in savings for the university overall, as it will help many individual authors avoid having to pay fees separately, and make it possible for many more authors to publish open access without having to budget for it themselves.
Details for authors
This agreement covers manuscripts accepted during 2023 and 2024 with corresponding authors affiliated with Duke University, Duke University Medical Center, Duke University Health System, and Duke Kunshan University. For six of the twelve PLOS journals, there is a benefit if any contributing author is affiliated with Duke, not only the corresponding author. Eligible authors will be identified by the institutional affiliation entered in the PLOS manuscript submission system. Additional details can be found on this FAQ page.
Supports authors from less resourced countries and institutions
We look forward to assessing the impact of this program, and to collaborating with PLOS and the academic library community on strategic next steps for support of Open Access publishing.
The Duke University Libraries are proud to present the 2023 Andrew T. Nadell Prize for Book Collecting. The contest is open to all students enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate/professional degree program at Duke, and the winners will receive cash prizes.
Winners of the contest will receive any in-print Grolier Club book of their choice, as well as a three-year membership in the Bibliographical Society of America.
You don’t have to be a “book collector” to enter the contest. Past collections have varied in interest areas and included a number of different types of materials. Collections are judged on adherence to a clearly defined unifying theme, not rarity or monetary value.
Visit our websitefor more information and read winning entries from past years. Contact Kurt Cumiskey at kurt.cumiskey@duke.edu with any questions.
Today is Jane Austen’s birthday! As always I like to celebrate with a blog post highlighting interesting things to read and new books that have been published about her. If you are seeing this post early enough, you can sign up for a virtual birthday event at the New York Public Library that takes place at 2:00pm EST today: What is it About Jane? Celebrating Jane Austen’s Birthday
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.
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam. Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives. Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans transports us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to early America, and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures. Read this The New York Times review to learn more.
Becoming Eve: my journey from ultra-Orthodox rabbi to transgender woman by Abby Stein. The powerful coming-of-age story of an ultra-Orthodox child who was born to become a rabbinic leader and instead became a woman. Abby was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, and her way of life. Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be? Learn more in this review by The Humanist.
Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan. Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a “sun child” from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as others treated her with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni’s Room. Learn more about Talusan’s memoir in a review from The New York Times.
Sorted Growing up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place: A Transgender Memoirby Jackson Bird. When Jackson was twenty-five, he came out as transgender to his friends, family, and anyone with an internet connection. Assigned female at birth and raised as a girl, he often wondered if he should have been born a boy. Growing up in Texas in the 1990s, he had no transgender role models. In this “soulful and heartfelt coming-of-age story” (Jamia Wilson, director, and publisher of the Feminist Press), Jackson chronicles the ups and downs of growing up gender-confused. With warmth and wit, Jackson recounts how he navigated the many obstacles and quirks of his transition–like figuring out how to have a chest binder delivered to his NYU dorm room and having an emotional breakdown at a Harry Potter fan convention. From his first shot of testosterone to his eventual top surgery, Jackson lets you in on every part of his journey, explaining trans terminology and little-known facts about gender and identity along the way. Sorted demonstrates the power and beauty in being yourself, even when you’re not sure who “yourself” is. Learn more in this LGBTQ Reads guest post by Bird.
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara. A gritty and gorgeous debut that follows a cast of gay and transgender club kids navigating the Harlem ball scene of the 1980s and ’90s, inspired by the real House of Xtravaganza made famous by the seminal documentary Paris Is Burning. It’s 1980 in New York City, and nowhere is the city’s glamour and energy better reflected than in the burgeoning Harlem ball scene, where seventeen-year-old Angel first comes into her own. Burned by her traumatic past, Angel is new to the drag world, new to ball culture, and has a yearning to help create a family for those without. When she falls in love with Hector, a beautiful young man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, the two decide to form the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. But when Hector dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone. Told in a voice that brims with wit, rage, tenderness and fierce yearning, The House of Impossible Beauties is a tragic story of love, family, and the dynamism of the human spirit. Learn more here.
“Art and nature shall always be wrestling until they eventually conquer one another so that the victory is the same stroke and line: that which is conquered, conquers at the same time.” – Merian
I love bugs. I remember my mother highlighting glistening beetles and fuzzy moths in the glow of our porchlight, imbuing me with an appreciation for the behaviors and strangeness of insects. It is estimated that there are millions of species of insects that we will never encounter, many quietly slipping into extinction unstudied. With the global population, I have watched their numbers dwindle as the years pass. The public perception has remained one of distaste, blind to these creatures’ beneficial function and beautiful adaptation.
When I approached my mentor, Kristen Tapson, with a desire to create experimental artistic commentary on this phenomenon in partnership with the archive, she guided me in developing a project plan that centered themes both bold and unappreciated- women in
science, insects, dynamic illustration, meditative virtual reality (VR). On the one hand, I was determined to use my skills as a computational media student to capture the experience of insects, leveraging game design frameworks to craft an application that would honor both the robust source material and its real life counterparts. It was a labor in service to awareness and conservation. At the same time, the goal of the project was not a product, but a process. The archives contain a wealth of information in volumes that I found intimidating. Even as a student, it lay nested in esoteric depths of academia that deterred me. I was curious if working from these academic texts and images, developing a pipeline for recontextualizing them as 3D models for use in VR environments, would increase accessibility and engagement.
What followed this past summer were hours of discussion dissecting the compelling aspects and challenges of bringing archival materials to VR under the supervision of Lee Sorenson, Librarian for Visual Studies and Dance . Through weekly meetings, we refined research questions and narrowed down materials. Slowly, the archive lost its daunting aura. Overlapping histories and collections that were difficult to decipher gained feasibility through Lee’s expertise. I familiarized myself with ideal source libraries and search terms and took measures to ensure I incorporated them justly.
Our research centered on Maria Sybilla Merian, one of the first female naturalists who produced extensive volumes of entomological illustration in the 1600s. Merian’s life was one of
boldness and transformation just like her artistic subjects. The dominating scientific attitudes of the time period, in theological perfectionism and inattentiveness to uncovering the secrets of iinsects’ lives, characterized them as indivisible entities. Merian’s process was one of the first to challenge this characterization, providing accurate and intimate depictions of the rich metamorphosis of insects and their associated environments. Her detailed documentation helped lay a strong foundation for modern entomological studies. She would nurture various species from their pupal form to adulthood, sketching the stages in between. Our research focused on the images and descriptions from Merian’s first book Raupen (loosely translated to caterpillar), published in 1679. Merian illustrated this book in her early 20s and 30s while living in her home in Nuremberg. We felt this, as one of her earliest works, captured the dynamic and exploratory qualities of her processes and musings. Merian’s respect and nurturance for her subjects translated into rich stylistic detail that I wanted to capture in my translations of her work to 3D models.
In terms of modeling approach, my process improved over the course of the summer as I learned new techniques to remedy past mistakes. Essentially, I had to sculpt representations of the key figures in a given illustration in the modeling program Blender, and then carefully map the fine details of each illustration into its corresponding model representation. Initially, I attempted to model excessive details from square bases that sharpened the softer qualities Merian tried to capture in her moths and caterpillars. It wasn’t a gentle approach but it produced valuable output on what not to do. Eventually, cylindrical-based objects provided a reproducible and accurate result that flowed better with the linework. One key limitation of VR experiences is the level of detail it can render in the environment. This revised method of modeling from cylinders supported significant detail in a computationally efficient way.
Armed with an arsenal of virtual bugs, I began development in the game engine Unity to bring them to life. One can think of the animation process as having similarities with the movement of the human body, which is not positionally fixed and rigid but rather a system of components receiving signals from the brain. Similarly, building out a virtual body that is life-like and compelling requires conceptualizing the subject as a sum of its necessary components. I needed separate pieces to represent the body of the insect and two opposing planes for the wings. The wing planes need to be given coded instructions to rotate around the hull of the body in an erratic pattern to simulate fluttering. The central body needed to subtly totter on its axis with the force of this fluttering. The entire entity needed to be responsive to other components in the scene, chasing after light sources and flowers.
Merian greatly inspired my own process. She was patient and open to transformation. She was motivated by passion for her subject matter. These are values I wanted to embody in my technical production. They are takeaways I assert as valuable to future VR development. In evolving the tech, it is important not to look at the product as one of spontaneous emergence. It is merely a larva, a transitional body that we should analyze closely for nuance so that we might understand how the next chapter comes about. Similarly, the experiences created in the VR medium should be transformational and varied. It’s important that we use it for advocacy and experimentation that go beyond pure entertainment. The desire for immersion and rich sensory experiences continues to expand, with terms like “Metaverse” drawing ominous conceptions to a fully virtual environment that parallels our own world. It’s important that this virtual revolution does not channel all of its creative power onto a narrow set of interests, subjects, and experiences. Ethical questions arise about how to ensure that we take this technology as an opportunity to self-reflect and build awareness through meaningful and enriching creations and experiences. This project contributes to these conversations in terms of subject matter, intention, implication, and effect. Creating this experience, which centers undervalued species and a less known artist, is a contribution to the body of work setting an example for experimental and ethical VR immersion. It has an intentional goal of not just entertainment but awareness. In terms of its implications, the process itself takes meaningful strides towards reproducibility, which ensures that more people can pull meaningful and niche subjects into the esoteric immersive space and be empowered to tell stories.
Calling attention to the quote at the beginning of this article, there is an inherent contradiction to my work. On the one hand, the artist and subjects I am working with are highly natural. They existed in a time and space vastly different from my own. The experience I wanted to create was a case for the fascination and vitality of insects, for the patience incited by nature. All the same, the artistic medium I choose is highly technical and arguably the opposite of natural experience. It is a manufactured illusion for the senses that could not possibly compare to the real thing. I believe Merian’s view implies that this contradiction, this “wrestling,” is a necessary part of the process that benefits both competitors. Art and nature need each other and can be mutually liberated through their inevitable clash. All the same, it’s important to acknowledge the function of my work. It is not meant to exist as its own reality. It is merely a tool for introspection and advocacy, ideally redirecting the audience towards further learning and experiences.
Moving into next semester, I plan to continue polishing this project. I want to add more content, more interaction and functionality. The understandings gathered from this process are valuable for future work inspired by the archive. I hope to instill future projects with historical and cultural depth. One of the limitations of the current process for developing the images into functional 3D assets is that it still requires modeling skill to be properly functional. In the future, we will explore procedural modeling programs that streamline the image-to-asset development process for a more general audience.
Look at all those joyous little faces. That’s the power of books! (Image courtesy of Book Harvest.)
In memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and in support of our local community, the Duke University Libraries are running a children’s book drive now through January 10, 2023.
The books we collect will be donated to Book Harvest, a North Carolina nonprofit that believes in the power of books to change children’s lives and works to ensure that all children can grow up in homes full of books. Since it was launched in 2011, Book Harvest has donated almost 2 million books to children throughout North Carolina.
We need new and gently used books for children of all ages, especially board books and picture books for the youngest readers, as well as Spanish and bilingual books, and books with diverse characters and story lines. Please, no encyclopedias, dictionaries, or books in poor condition.
Where to Donate Books
Look for the book collection bins in the following locations, and please help us fill them!
Perkins Library, in the lobby across from the von der Heyden Pavilion
Perkins Library, Shipping and Receiving (Lower Level 1, near the Link)
Lilly Library, main lobby
Music Library, main lobby
Smith Warehouse, Bay 10, Shipping and Receiving
Ford Library, Fuqua School of Business
Goodson Law Library, Law School
Medical Center Library
Don’t have books but want to donate?
We’ve got you covered with the help of the Regulator Bookshop in Durham! Here’s how it works:
Upon checking out, use the code libraries to ensure your books count toward our book drive. (NOTE: This is not a discount code. You will not see a change in price.)
Select “In store pickup” as the shipping choice, and the Regulator will make sure the books get to Book Harvest.
You are also invited to volunteer for the MLK “Dream Big” community drive and to attend the 2023 celebration! Duke University Libraries is a proud sponsor of this annual event.
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 Party – Monday, 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!
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.
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!
Celebrate the end of Fall Semester 2022
with the Stampede of Love!
Kiwi of the Stampede of Love – photo courtesy of Stampede of Love stampedeoflove.org
Have you heard about the “mane” event
at Lilly Library?
Where did Fall Semester go? December is here, and with it, exams await all Duke students. Because the First-Year students live on East Campus, the staff at Lilly Library does its best to offer support and relieve the stress of the fall semester for our “neighbors” experiencing their first finals at Duke. Extending our hours to a 24/7 schedule during exams, offering a study break with refreshments, and providing a room dedicated as a relaxation station are longstanding Lilly traditions.
Our favorite tradition is hosting the Stampede of Love, miniature therapy horses who bring smiles to stressed students (and librarians!). If you decide to trot over to East Campus neigh-borhood, saddle up for Lilly’s end of semester events:
Saturday, December 10th: 225 continuous hours!?!
Beginning at 10am, Lilly expands its schedule to 24/7 through the examination period, ending at 7pm on Monday, December 19th. Info for all Duke Library Hours
Studies show creating art reduces stress and enhances well-being. So come make a zine with us during finals week to celebrate and reflect on your semester. Zines are mini-magazines that can be anything you can imagine. For this project, we will create a personal storybook to remind us of the challenges and accomplishments we’ve nailed this semester. We will repurpose book jackets by cutting them up and adding collages to our zine pages; no two zines will be alike! All you need to do is drop in between exams and studying. Zine-making materials and snacks will be provided.
Where: The Oasis, Room 418, Perkins Library
When: Monday, Dec. 12th, 2:30 to 4 pm, and Thursday, Dec. 15th, 11 am to 12:30 pm
Growing up in the American South, finding community with other Filipino Americans often felt difficult, especially compared to my relatives living in Filipino enclaves on the West Coast. Thus, when I chose to attend a Southeastern university like Duke, it was no surprise when I found little Filipino presence on campus, both in academics and in campus life (though it should be noted, there has been progress in this area even just in my short time on campus, such as the development of a Filipino student group and the approval of the Asian American Diaspora Studies minor).
However, I was surprised by the encouragement from faculty across seemingly-unrelated departments like History, Literature, and Spanish of my independent pursuits of Filipino/Filipino American Studies projects. My first academic foray into Filipino/Filipino American Studies was a summer history project completed after my freshman year, looking at mestiza (meaning “mixed,” traditionally someone of Spanish and Filipino heritage but now generally used to refer to any Filipina with a light skin tone) history through the autobiography of a Filipina American guerrilla leader in World War II. That project led me to Catherine Ceniza Choy’s book on Filipina nursing migrations called Empire of Care, which exposed me to feminist Filipino American studies and wound up being the basis of the research I pursued through the LIFE Summer Research Grant.
This summer, I conducted research on migrant Filipina nurses and other migrant Filipina female care laborers that became the foundation of my senior thesis in the Literature/Global Cultural Studies department, asking why the migrant Filipina nurse has not received the same level of scholarship in critical theory as other migrant Filipina care laborers. The history of Filipinas migrating to the United States to fill nursing shortages goes as far back as the Philippine-American war (1899-1902), when the United States set up nursing schools in the Philippines as an imperial ‘civilizing’ project, meaning that the migrant Filipina nurse is the oldest ‘figure’ of a migrant Filipina migrating to perform care labor in the Global North. However, studies of migrant Filipina care laborers tend to focus on domestic and sex workers rather than nurses, which, going into the summer, attributed to narratives that surround nurses granting the field an aura of professionalism and even heroism, especially compared to narratives around domestic and sex work.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the reality that, while Filipino nurses might be called heroes in the United States, they are hardly treated as such. Despite making up only 4% of registered nurses in the United States, Filipina/os made up nearly a third of all COVID-related deaths in the field. Going into the summer, my hope was to investigate the gap between the narratives and the actual lived experiences of Filipino nurses who have migrated to the United States over the past century or so. By investigating historical documents such as nursing education manuals and nurse recruitment advertisements and comparing them to first-person accounts from Philippines-trained nurses who migrated to the United States, such as those collected by Catherine Ceniza Choy in Empire of Care, I aimed to get a sense of the narratives that were created to attract nurses to America and how those narratives led to their oversight in critical theory.
With the help of the Duke Libraries Staff and my thesis advisor, I developed a ‘syllabus’ for the summer that included reading seminal works of Filipino critical theory, reading through American nursing histories and education manuals to understand their framings of the nursing profession and how these narratives align with American cultural ideas of the Philippines and Filipino culture, and delving into the Rubenstein Library’s archival collection of student nurse recruitment ads from the 1950s. Diving into this work introduced me to new fields of study and got me thinking about resources that I had not previously been exposed to through my classes. Looking into nursing education manuals made me think critically about my own education and the ways that hegemonic narratives seep their way into ostensibly “objective” things like professional training. Especially in such a care-centered profession as nursing, training in “ethics” is just as important as the technical, scientific skills — but how do you teach people to care? And what — or who — do you teach them to care about?
This, proving much more difficult than teaching someone to administer shots or change bedsheets, seems to be how Filipinas got so heavily recruited into the profession — seen as naturally docile and nurturing, they were seen as ideal hires that would also work for deeply unethical wages. But the “docile and nurturing” narrative, though admittedly a belief that many Filipinos hold and pride ourselves on even to this day, is itself tied to American colonialism. When Americans initially established nursing schools in the Philippines, there were worries that the native people were too ‘uncivilized’ for the profession. That is, until the advantages of having an American-trained candidate pool of potential laborers for a profession the United States struggled to fill became apparent and initiatives to recruit Filipinas to the Western world began.
Doing this research further spurred my passion for Filipino American studies and put me in a much better position to begin my thesis work. I was exposed to so many of the Libraries’ resources — and how to use them — that I would not have been otherwise, which was a boon to me when the semester started and I did not have as much time to dedicate to my research. I also learned how to work with mentors, how to better organize and articulate my thoughts and questions around my research, and how to seek support when I needed it. I was also further enlightened to the ways that people go about researching topics at institutions that do not necessarily have an established department that aligns with their work. The work I was able to do this summer finally proved to me that my interests in Filipino/Filipino American studies are not “out of place” at Duke. That realization has been such a comfort and something I’ve returned to many times when working on my thesis throughout the Fall semester has sometimes felt defeating. I am immeasurably grateful to the Duke Libraries staff for believing in me and my project, and I hope to continue carving out a space for Filipino studies at Duke.
For the final Low Maintenance Book Club of 2022, we’ll be reading and discussing the entirety of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own on Thursday, December 8th. As always, you’re welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read. Copies of the book are available through your local public library and Duke University libraries in both print and ebook format.
The meeting will be taking place over Zoom, so make sure to RSVP to get an invitation link the morning of the 8th. We hope to see you there!
If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu)
Today, as inflation and economic uncertainty put severe stress on library collection budgets across North America, cooperative collection development is en vogue once again. Fortunately, librarians who collect for international and area studies have always been at the forefront of collaborative efforts to build robust and distinctive collections, even during tough economic times. One of the earliest and finest examples of such initiatives is the South Asia Acquisitions Program (SACAP), which this year celebrates its sixtieth anniversary.
The South Asia Cooperative Acquisitions Program (SACAP) was launched by the Library of Congress in 1962. This federal initiative was intended to foster the systematic and collaborative collecting of books, journals, and ephemera from this large, diverse, and multi-lingual region by research libraries right here in the United States. Recognising the importance of this field of study and the timeliness of this project, Duke University Libraries joined 10 peer institutions in agreeing to pay an annual fee of $500 USD—over $4,900 USD by today’s standards (according to the CPI Inflation Index)—in exchange for a selection of the latest South Asian publications. This collective investment in international collecting was an unparalleled success and SACAP continues to this day with Library of Congress field offices in New Delhi and Islamabad.
The materials on display in this 60th anniversary exhibition come from Duke University Libraries’ South Asia Pamphlet collection. Reputed to be the largest such collection in North America, it contains approximately 7,500 English-language pamphlets, with another 392 in Urdu and Bengali still waiting to be catalogued. The pamphlets cover a plethora of subjects: in addition to the items currently displayed in the Hubbard Case, there are pamphlets documenting tourism, economic development, arts, and refugees, among other topics. The collection comes from several South Asian countries: India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
The 5 Titles series highlights books, music, and films in the library’s collection, featuring topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and/or highlighting authors’ work from diverse backgrounds. Each post is intended to briefly sample titles rather than provide a comprehensive topic overview. This month, the five titles have been selected by Librarian for Philosophy and Religious Studies, Cheryl Thomas. The “Love Medicine” stories of writer Louise Erdrich are an example of the ways in which fiction can be a catalyst for sharing the stories of marginalized communities and informing readers through the lyricism of prose about unfamiliar worlds and cultures. Erdrich’s stories introduce us to the lived experience of Native American Indians, drawing ley lines between the past and present, telling stories of loss, fragmentation, community, and a searing quest for identity in the face of deliberate erasure. Edrich is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She opened Birchbark Books in her hometown of Minneapolis in 2001 to birth a space where Native American Voices could be discovered. Her bookstore features a robust collection of current and emerging Native Voices. Begin your introduction to Erdrich’s writings with the “Love Medicine Series.”
Set on a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation, Love Medicine is an epic story about the intertwined fates of two families: the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. With astonishing virtuosity, each chapter of this stunning novel draws on various voices to lighten its tales. Black humor mingles with magic, injustice bleeds into betrayal, and through it all, bonds of love and family marry the elements into a tightly woven whole that pulses with the drama of life. Erdrich has written a multigenerational portrait of strong men and women caught in an unforgettable whirlwind of anger, desire, and the healing power of love medicine.
The Beet Queen covers the years from 1932 to 1972 and takes place primarily in the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota. One of the story threads centers on Russell, a war hero, highlighting the presence of Native Americans in the US Military, their sacrifice, and the grudging acceptance they found there. In November 2020, the National Native American Veterans Memorial opened in Washington, D.C., dedicated to the Native heroes and their distinguished service to the US military.
Tracks is a tale of passion and deep unrest. Over the course of ten crucial years, as tribal land and trust between people erode ceaselessly, men and women are pushed to the brink of their endurance—yet their pride and humor prohibit surrender. Tracks expose the tension – a thread throughout Erdrich’s novels – of traditional Indigenous culture and beliefs and Catholicism’s role in forcing assimilation and how the “old ways,” for some Native Indians, were abandoned to survive in a white Christian colonial society. Tracks characters also tell the stories of two significant epidemics that decimated the Ojibwe tribe; smallpox and tuberculosis.
The Bingo Palace was written shortly after the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. At its essence, this story is about postcolonial capitalism, the gains and losses for the Indigenous community, and the complexities of casinos on reservation land. It is also a tale of spiritual death and reawakening; of money, desperate love, wild hope; and the enduring power of cherished dreams.
The final novel in the “Love Medicine Series” The Last Report on the Miracles of Little No Horse, centers on Father Damien Modeste, who has served his beloved Native American tribe, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse, for over fifty years. Now, nearing the end of his life, Father Damien dreads the discovery of his physical identity, for he is a woman who has lived as a man. Deftly Erdrich weaves a story through the lens of a gender-fluid priest who questions the very roots of his belief system; sent to the reservation to convert, he finds within Indigenous spirituality acceptance unavailable within Catholicism while also being honored by that very system for his “good” work with the Ojibwe people.
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old. Our Missing Hearts is an old story about how supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact. Learn more here, The New York Times Book Review.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is a story of a boy born to a teenage single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damage to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion and, above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Read more in The Washington Post’s book review.
Acceptance by Emi Nietfeld. As a homeless teenager writing college essays in her rusty Toyota Corolla, Emi Nietfeld was convinced that the Ivy League was the only escape from her dysfunctional childhood. But upward mobility required crafting the perfect resilience narrative. She had to prove that she was an “overcomer,” made stronger by all she had endured. The truth was more complicated. Emi’s mom was a charming hoarder who had her put on antipsychotics but believed in her daughter’s brilliance—unlike the Minnesotan foster family who banned her “pornographic” art history flashcards (of Michelangelo’s David). Emi’s other parent vanished shortly after coming out as trans, a situation few understood in the mid-2000s. Both a chronicle of the American Dream and an indictment of it, this searing debut exposes the price of trading a troubled past for the promise of a bright future. Told with a ribbon of dark humor, Acceptance challenges our ideas of what it means to overcome. Read this NPR review to learn more.
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen. Jensen is a Métis woman, and she is no stranger to the violence enacted on Indigenous women’s bodies on Indigenous land. In Carry, Jensen maps her personal experience onto the historical, exploring how history is lived in the body and redefining the language used to speak about violence in America. In the title chapter, Jensen connects the trauma of school shootings with her experiences of racism and sexual assault on college campuses. “The Worry Line” explores the gun and gang violence in her neighborhood the year her daughter was born. “At the Workshop” focuses on her graduate school years, during which a workshop classmate repeatedly killed off thinly veiled versions of her in his stories. In prose at once forensic and deeply emotional, Toni Jensen shows herself to be a brave new voice and a fearless witness to her own difficult history–as well as to the violent cultural landscape in which she finds her coordinates. Read more about Jensen’s debut book here and an interview with Clemson University here.
Dog Flowers: A Memoir by Danielle Geller. A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother’s life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family’s troubled history. When Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal while attempting to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash. Geller, an archivist and a writer uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home and their shared need to leave it. Geller embarks on a journey that will end at her mother’s home: the Navajo reservation. Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Read more about this story in the Southern Review of Books.
EXTENDED DEADLINE: Spring 2023 Archival and Digital Expeditions
Are you interested in developing your skills in designing learning experiences for students? Interested in engaging students with digital and physical primary source materials? Consider participating in Archival and Digital Expeditions!
Archival and Digital Expeditions is a unique opportunity for graduate students to work with a faculty member to design a learning module involving archival materials. The collections can be physical materials in Duke’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, or any variety of digital collections available at Duke or elsewhere. There are numerous possibilities.
Eligibility: Any Duke PhD student who has completed one academic year at Duke.
Stipend: $1,500 for designing the module. An additional $500 is available to students who teach their module in a subsequent semester.
Expected time commitment: 70-75 hours over the course of the semester to be spent consulting with their sponsor, library staff and other experts and researching, developing and testing the module.
It’s Alive: Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Movie Posters
A hallowed tradition at Lilly is shining our collection spotlight on seasonal films and readings to reveal treasures hidden in our collections. For Halloween in 2022, a thirst for 1970s and 80s type horror film is all the rage. Dare to visit the Lilly Library Lobby to discover films and books that will haunt you!
What is it about Horror – Films
When gathering the frightful films featured, we asked Stephen C., the Duke Libraries’ Team Lead for Western Languages in Monographic Acquisitions for suggestions. Because of Stephen’s knowledge and interest in film, we invited him to curate (and order) new titles to give our horror collection a jolt! Enjoy Stephen’s latest batch of horror-ful Halloween picks just waiting for you below:
Death Screams – Lilly DVD 34682 (filmed in North Carolina)
DeathScreams A slow-burn slasher filmed in and around Shelby, NC in 1982. It’s the last night of the local carnival and a maniac with a machete is picking off the local teens. A low-budget marvel full of regional charm (Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge anyone?) with some of the best extended small-Southern-town fair/carnival footage ever.
Mutations Like an update on Tod Browning’s Freaks crossed with an unfunny Little Shop of Horrors, this British production from 1974 features Donald Pleasence as a mad scientist turning his victims into plant-infused monsters. Featuring a cast of sideshow performers; including Kenly, NC native Esther Blackmon, the alligator-skin woman (who also appeared inThe Sentinel)
Mystics in Bali
Indonesian supernatural horror from 1981 that is guaranteed to be one of the weirdest things you’ll ever see! The plot concerns an American woman named Cathy who ventures to Bali to learn about black magic but is soon a floating vampiric head with trailing organs/entrails under the control of a witch called the Queen of the Leák. And it only gets more odd from there!
Alison’s Birthday – VC 12657
Alison’s Birthday Any movie that begins with teens using a Ouija board is nearly guaranteed to portend evil befalling the cast and this 1981 horror from Down Under is no exception. Alison’s 19th birthday is upcoming and a wicked ritual is in the works for her that will transfer her soul to a crone. Acquired on the original VHS for extra experience enhancement.
Pieces A sick 1983 Spanish piece of chainsawsploitation from director Juan Piquer Simón. Filmed in Madrid but supposed to be set on a Boston college campus, this sordid tale tells of a madman sawing up co-eds for his own ghastly ends. If you can somehow survive the duration you’ll be “rewarded” with a shocker of an ending!
Bloodthirsty TrilogyA fangsome trio of early/mid 70s vampire films from Japan’s Toho Studios: ‘Lake of Dracula’, ‘Vampire Doll’ and ‘Evil of Dracula’. Creepy mansions, golden eyes, hellish prophecies, empty coffins, dark secrets, thunderous nights and terrifying nightmares reign in these atmospheric and stylish cinematic takes on the vampire.
Is it alive? Perhaps! Your appetite for the horror film genre may be alive, so also check out our collection spotlight books to satisfy. Explore horror films around the world, and learn about their creators and audiences. Classic movie posters, graphic novels, analysis of the use of music, and film criticism compel you, yes, compel you to read them.
Giallo! : genre, modernity, and detection in Italian horror cinemas
Giallo! : genre, modernity, and detection in Italian horror cinemas
Taking their name from the Italian for yellow– reflecting the covers of pulp crime novels–these genre movies were principally produced between 1960 and the late 1970s.
These cinematic hybrids of crime, horror, and detection are characterized by elaborate set-piece murders, lurid aesthetics, and experimental soundtracks.
Jordan Peele’s Get out : political horror
Jordan Peele’s Get out : political horror
This collection of sixteen essays is devoted to exploring Get Out’s roots in the horror tradition and its complex and timely commentary on twenty-first-century US race relations.
Scored to death 2 : more conversations with some of horror’s greatest composers
Scored to Death 2 collects 16 brand-new, info-packed, terrifyingly entertaining interviews with renowned composers who have provided the music for some of horrors most revered films, film franchises, and TV shows, including Get Out, Us, Martin, Re-Animator, The Walking Dead, Puppet Master, Saw, Creepshow, Day of the Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Dark Shadows, Burnt Offerings, The Terminator, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Ring, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Audition, Ghoulies, Happy Death Day, It Follows, Gretel & Hansel, and many more!
Queer horror film and television : sexuality and masculinity at the margins
Moving from the margins to the mainstream, via the application of psychoanalytic theory, critical and cultural interpretation, interviews with key directors and close readings of classic, cult and modern horror, this book will be invaluable to students and researchers of gender and sexuality in horror film and television
This summer, I pursued a project on queer Muslim environmentalisms in the United States, which I hope to develop into an honors thesis with the International Comparative Studies program at Duke. My main questions for this project are as follows: (1) How do Muslim and queer environmentalisms connect? (2) How can the intersection of queer and Muslim perspectives shift Anglo-Western dominated environmental discourse? (3) How is this reflected in the lives and expressions of queer Muslims within the United States? I developed an interest in this topic after realizing that my identities as queer and Muslim greatly strengthened my commitment to the environment. My queerness and Muslimness motivate my search for an understanding of nature and the environment beyond Anglo-Western accounts, which are often dominated by capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and human exceptionalism. The Anglo-Western consideration of nature as objective and stagnant, at the mercy of human domination, is present in mainstream environmentalist movements and supports “the very relations of power that produce environmental problems” (Whitworth, 2018, 74–75). To unlearn these power relations, I look to new paradigms to restructure the way I think about the environment. Although I have much more to explore, I find that putting queerness and Muslimness in dialogue could open new possibilities for understanding the environment.
To address my questions, I first situated queer Muslim politics within my thesis by analyzing the interactions between white settler colonization, homocolonialism, and Islamic fundamentalism. I then applied the analysis to envision the potential of queer Muslims in environmental discourse. This formed the first chapter of my thesis. Additionally, I searched for connections in leading literature on Muslim environmentalisms and queer environmentalisms, keeping in mind that “queer” and “Muslim” encompass robust, pluralistic frameworks. The foray I take into these connections will constitute the second chapter of my thesis. Finally, I focused on the perspectives of leading queer Muslim figures in the United States, which will become the third thesis chapter. This summer, I explored environmental motifs in Saba Taj’s there are gardens at the margins, a mixed media visual art exhibition highlighting queer Muslims. After observing the exhibition, displayed online and at the Duke University Nasher Museum, I wrote reflective poetry about the pieces.
My research process so far has brought me healing; I finally could put language to my experiences as a queer Muslim. Before I could talk about environmentalism specifically, I had to reckon with the perceived contradiction in my identity. How can I be both queer and Muslim, especially if Muslims are seen as heterosexist and regressive in contrast to the more queer-affirming, progressive West? In my work this summer, I demonstrated how this dichotomy developed due to the rise of homonationalism in the West, and by extension homocolonialism, coupling with the development of Islamic fundamentalism to ideologically oppose one another. In the Oriental Islam-West dichotomy, queer Muslims are treated as objects, perceived by others but grossly underrepresented as voices. For this thesis, I intend to take the focus off queer Muslims as objects and instead center their perspectives on an important topic, such as environmentalism. Through an intersectional queer Muslim perspective, my intention is to find a comprehensive environmentalism, one that accounts for homocolonialism, Orientalism, and heteropatriarchy but is not defined solely by relationships with systemic oppression.
Although there is nearly no literature on queer Muslim environmentalisms specifically, an abundance of literature on queer environmentalisms and Muslim environmentalisms exists separately. Despite the reality that scholarship in queer and Muslim environmentalisms has also been impacted by homocolonialism and Orientalism (as with nearly every aspect of society), these rich perspectives share commonalities and points of solidarity. Prominent literature in queer and Muslim environmentalisms challenge anthropocentrism, embody humorous and satirical tones, find comfort in contradiction, disrupt conceptions of time as linear, create relationships with the environment beyond a problem to be solved, and see humans and nature as intrinsically linked. These similarities all in some way resist white settler-colonial, heteronormative enviornmental discourse.
While drawing connections between queer environmentalisms and Muslim environmentalisms separately could hint at the potential of queer Muslim environmentalisms, interacting with the lives and expressions of queer Muslims themselves provides the best insight into their relationship with the environment. As demonstrative of Kimberle Crenshaw’s writings on intersectionality, queer Muslim environmentalisms as an intersectional perspective is not merely the summation or overlap of queer environmentalisms and Muslim enviornmentalisms. Rather, it is a unique perspective truly understood by the people who experience both of these identities.
To capture genuine expressions of queer Muslim environmentalisms, I analyzed and wrote poetry on Saba Taj’s there are gardens at the margins, a mixed-media exhibit highlighting queer Muslims in the American South. In an interview with The Georgia Review, Saba Taj talks discusses her intentional concealment of the people she paints, protecting them and asserting that they do not have to prove themselves to outsiders. The subjects make eye contact with the viewers, positioning them as the perceiving rather than the perceived. Saba Taj emphasizes an Islamic concept called barzakh, which is mentioned three times in the Qur’an and represents “an activity or an active entity that differentiates between two things and (paradoxically) through that very act of differentiation provides for their unity” (Bashier, 2004, p. 7). Barzakh is both a connection and a limit among other limits, “called for to provide for the unity of the posited duality. This process can go on indefinitely until we arrive at a concept of the Limit that meets the two limited things, between which it differentiates, with two faces that are one” (Bashier, 2004, p. 7). In the Qur’an, barzakh refers to the in-betweeness of the afterlife and material world or the love among Allah and Allah’s creations. Common symbols of barzakh include the meeting between fresh and salt waters, the garden as a meeting between humans and Nature, and the ability of the third eye to see connections of limits. Saba Taj employed this concept as a symbol for how queer Muslims blur gender boundaries through their very existence. In my reflective poetry, I marveled at the contradiction within barzakh, feeling humbled by the infinities of nature interconnected with me and beyond my comprehension. Drawing on motifs of bees, gardens, and mirages in the paintings, I noticed how Taj’s application of barzakh nuances our understanding of our relationship with Allah and with non-human creation.
Reflecting on barzakh, I remembered a Ted Talk I watched by Amrou Al-Kahdi, a Muslim drag queen navigating their queer and Islamic intersections. In reckoning with the supposed impossibility of their queer Muslim identity, Al-Kahdi found beauty in the contradiction of quantum physics; the duality of light as simultaneous particles and waves helped them revel in their paradoxical existence as an intentional part of Allah’s creation. I not only found immense healing in Amrou Al-Kahdi’s talk, but also began to see the particle-wave nature of light as an example of barzakh. While it may seem incompatible for light to exist as two forms simultaneously, its duality can allow for both distinction and connection. I can embrace the messy contradiction of the world, finding peace and beauty in my inability to compartmentalize reality to my restrictive human logic. Queer Muslims may live paradoxically, but maybe that is not a bad thing. Maybe that contradiction is a reflection of the beauty in Islam, requiring more than pure logic to comprehend.
In the next school year, I plan to complete my thesis by revising my first chapter on the politics of queer Muslims, writing a chapter on the connections between queer and Muslim environmentalisms, and interviewing more queer Muslims about their relationships with the environment. I am grateful to the Deans Summer Research Fellowship for their support in this project.
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!
This blog post was contributed by Luo Zhou, Chinese Studies Librarian, International & Area Studies Department, Duke University Libraries.
A beautiful silk painting has just been hung above the microfilm cabinet across from the Gillespie East Asia Reading Room. The work of an unknown artist, this contemporary Japanese silk painting (16.5” x 48” with frame) is a replica of a famous Chinese painting called Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple (煙寺晚鐘圖) by the Chan Buddhist monk painter Muqi (Muxi) 牧谿 (1207–1291), who lived towards the end of the Southern Song Dynasty period (1127-1279). Muqi is the art name (Hao 號) of the monk’s Dharma name (Fachang 法常). He was initially from Sichuan and later moved to Hangzhou, the capital of Southern Song Dynasty. Although he was not very well known in his lifetime, he is today widely recognized as the predecessor of Chinese Chan (Japanese: Zen) Buddhist painting.
Art historians generally agree that Chan painting in China developed in the thirteenth century. Chan Buddhist painters used the same tools and techniques created and refined by generations of Chinese artists, but they applied these means in the Chan spirit, which could be explained as the abundance of emptiness or the nothing of Being.
Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple (煙寺晚鐘圖) by Muqi Fachang. Source: Hatakeyama Memorial Museum of Fine Art
Muqi received a more immediate recognition in Japan. His works were collected and brought from China to Japan. Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple is one of his surviving works from the original set of Eight View of the Xiao and Xiang River (瀟湘八景) paintings. It is currently housed at Hatakeyama Memorial Museum of Fine Art (畠山記念館) in Tokyo, Japan. The painting is found to be listed in the Ashikaga Shugunate collection. The collector, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (足利義滿, 1358-1408), the military ruler in Japan, was passionate about Muqi’s paintings. His collection catalog listed 134 works of Muqi. Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple used to be displayed in his tea room. His seal as a collector (道有) shown below, is one important key to link this silk painting with Muqi’s original art work.
Collection Seal of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu
It is unknown exactly how the contemporary Japanese version of the Muqi painting arrived at Duke University, but we do know that it was most likely first hung in the office of University Librarian Jerry D. Campbell, who worked at Duke from 1984 to 1995. For a long time after Campbell’s departure, this objet d’art was housed in an office in Lilly Library, on Duke’s East Campus.
This Japanese silk painting is now located above the microfilm cabinet and next to the religion section of the East Asian collection, where books on Buddhism, Daoism, and other Asian religious forms and practices can be found.
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi. This winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize and national bestseller is “an innovative reimagining of the family saga.” In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth. The first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English. Read more about this striking novel in a thoughtful review by The New Yorker.
Crying in the Bathroom: A Memoir by Erika L. Sánchez. From the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, an utterly original memoir-in-essays that is as deeply moving as it is hilarious. Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the nineties, Erika was a self-described pariah, misfit, and disappointment–a foul-mouthed, melancholic rabble-rouser who painted her nails black but also loved comedy, often laughing so hard with her friends that she had to leave her school classroom. Twenty-five years later, she’s now an award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist, but she’s still got an irrepressible laugh, an acerbic wit, and singular powers of perception about the world around her. Raunchy, insightful, unapologetic, and brutally honest, Crying in the Bathroom is Sánchez at her best–a book that will make you feel that post-confessional high that comes from talking for hours with your best friend. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Erika’s poignant memoir, and listen to her interview with NPR to learn more.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants. Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair. Read more in this review by The Atlantic.
The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison. Here is the Nobel Prize winner in her own words: a rich gathering of her most important essays and speeches, spanning four decades that “speaks to today’s social and political moment as directly as this morning’s headlines” (NPR). These pages give us her searing prayer for the dead of 9/11, her Nobel lecture on the power of language, her searching meditation on Martin Luther King Jr., her heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. She looks deeply into the fault lines of culture and freedom: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, “black matter(s),” human rights, the artist in society, the Afro-American presence in American literature. And she turns her incisive critical eye to her own work and that of others. An essential collection from an essential writer, The Source of Self-Regard shines with the literary elegance, intellectual prowess, spiritual depth, and moral compass that have made Toni Morrison our most cherished and enduring voice. Learn more in Morrison’s candid interview with Bitch Media.
The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings. Reminiscent of the works of Margaret Atwood, Shirley Jackson, and Octavia Butler–a piercing dystopian novel about the unbreakable bond between a young woman and her mysterious mother. Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother’s disappearance. That she was kidnapped. Murdered. That she took on a new identity to start a new family. That she was a witch. This is the most worrying charge because in a world where witches are real, peculiar behavior raises suspicions and a woman–especially a Black woman–can find herself on trial for witchcraft. But fourteen years have passed since her mother’s disappearance, and now Jo is finally ready to let go of the past. Yet her future is in doubt. The State mandates that all women marry by the age of 30–or enroll in a registry that allows them to be monitored, effectively forfeiting their autonomy. At 28, Jo is ambivalent about marriage. When she’s offered the opportunity to honor one last request from her mother’s will, Jo leaves her regular life to feel connected to her one last time. Read the LA Times Book Review to learn more.
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.
The 5 Titles series highlights books, music, and films in the library’s collection featuring topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and/or highlighting the work of authors from diverse backgrounds. Each post is intended to briefly sample titles rather than provide a comprehensive topic overview. This month, the five titles have been selected by Graduate Humanities Intern Rebekah Cowell.
Audre Lorde wrote, “There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” Discussing social justice issues without including disability justice and its intersections with race, sexuality, gender, and socioeconomic class is impossible. According to 2015-2016 data from the U.S. Department of Education, over 19 percent of all enrolled undergraduate students and 11.9 percent of post-baccalaureate students self-identified as having a disability. In higher education, disability justice is another access point to achieving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Disability at Duke is a robust student and faculty collaboration bringing disability justice and pedagogy together. These five titles selected for consideration come from Duke University Libraries and feature the lived experiences of activists who have fought and continue to fight for disability justice.
Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong. In Chinese culture, the tiger is deeply revered for its confidence, passion, ambition, and ferocity. Drawing on a collection of original essays, previously published work, conversations, graphics, photos, commissioned art by disabled and Asian American artists, and more, Alice uses her unique talent to share an impressionistic scrapbook of her life as an Asian American disabled activist, community organizer, media maker, and dreamer. From her love of food and pop culture to her unwavering commitment to dismantling systemic ableism, Alice shares her thoughts on creativity, access, power, care, the pandemic, mortality, and the future. As a self-described disabled oracle, Alice traces her origins, tells her story, and creates a space for disabled people to be in conversation with one another and the world. Alice is the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project and the editor of the acclaimed anthology Disability Visibility.
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. A personal collection about creating spaces by and for sick and disabled queer people of colour and creative “collective access” — access not as a chore but as a collective responsibility and pleasure — in our communities and political movements. They write, “When we do disability justice work, it becomes impossible to look at disability and not examine how colonialism created it. It becomes a priority to look at Indigenous ways of perceiving and understanding disability…” Bringing their survival skills and knowledge from years of cultural and activist work, she explores everything from the economics of queer femme emotional labor to suicide in queer and trans communities to the nitty-gritty of touring as a sick and disabled queer artist of colour. Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of colour are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind.
Exile and Pride by Eli Clare. Exile and Pride is essential to the history and future of disability politics. With a poet’s devotion to truth and an activist’s demand for justice, Clare deftly unspools the multiple histories from which our ever-evolving sense of self unfolds. His essays weave together memoir, history, and political thinking to explore meanings and experiences of home: home as place, community, bodies, identity, and activism. Here readers will find an intersectional framework for understanding how we actually live with the daily hydraulics of oppression, power, and resistance. At the root of Clare’s exploration of environmental destruction and capitalism, sexuality and institutional violence, gender and the body politic, is a call for social justice movements that are truly accessible to everyone. With heart and hammer, Exile and Pride pries open a window onto a world where our whole selves, in all their complexity, can be realized, loved, and embraced.
Haben: The Deafblind Woman that Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma. Haben is a human rights lawyer advancing disability justice. She believes disability is an opportunity for innovation and teaches organizations the importance of choosing inclusion. Haben grew up spending summers with her family in the enchanting Eritrean city of Asmara. There, she discovered courage as she faced off against a bull she couldn’t see and found in herself an abiding strength as she absorbed her parents’ harrowing experiences during Eritrea’s thirty-year war with Ethiopia. Their refugee story inspired her to embark on a quest for knowledge, traveling the world in search of the secret to belonging. Haben defines disability as an opportunity for innovation. She learned non-visual techniques for everything from dancing salsa to handling an electric saw. She developed a text-to-braille communication system that created an exciting new way to connect with people. Haben pioneered her way through obstacles, graduated from Harvard Law, and now uses her talents to advocate for people with disabilities.
Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann. One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn’t built for all of us and of one woman’s activism–from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington– Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann’s lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy’s struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a “fire hazard” to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher’s license because of her paralysis, Judy’s actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. As a young woman, Judy rolled her wheelchair through the doors of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in San Francisco as a leader of the Section 504 Sit-In, the longest takeover of a governmental building in US history. Working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy successfully pressured the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled peoples’ rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Get spooky with the Low Maintenance Book Club! At our October 27th meeting, we’ll discuss selections from the award-winning short story collection Night of the Living Rez: “Burn,” “In a Jar,” “The Blessing Tobacco,” and “Night of the Living Rez.” As always, you’re welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read!
We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2021-2022 library writing and research awards. Every year the Duke University Libraries run a series of essay contests recognizing the original research and writing of Duke students and encouraging the use of library resources. Congratulations to this year’s winners!
Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using sources from the Libraries’ general collections.
First/Second Year Winner: Laura Boyle for “Pop Prophet: King Princess’ Subversion of Dominant Desire,” nominated by Dr. Matthew Valnes
Third/Fourth Year Winner: Darren Janz for “Somlandela: Julius Malema and the Rise of a New South African Populism,” nominated by Dr. Karin Shapiro
Honors Thesis Winner: Caroline Petronis for “Blurring Contagion in the Information Age: How COVID-19 Troubles the Boundaries of the Biomedical and Socioinformatic,” nominated by Dr. Nima Bassiri
Recognizing excellence of analysis, research, and writing in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Undergraduate Award: Adrianna DeLorenzo for “To What Extent Did British Prisoners of War During World War One Feel Ashamed as a Result of Captivity?” Nominated by Dr. Kristen Neuschel
Graduate Award: Mariko Azuma for “The Lure towards Comfōto: Japan’s Early Hotels of the 20th Century.” Nominated by Dr. Gennifer Weisenfeld
Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using primary sources for political science or public policy.
Ana Herndon for “The Historical Merit of Ethnic Studies: A Study on the Importance of Diverse Higher Education on Social Change.” Nominated by Dr. Cecilia Márquez
Thang Lian for “Kan i ton than lai (We will meet again): A Lai Mi Family Oral History”
Tina Xia for “Waiting to be seen”
Join Us at the Awards Reception!
We will be celebrating our winners and their achievements at a special awards reception coinciding with Duke Family Weekend. All are invited to join us for refreshments and the opportunity to honor the recipients.
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.”
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).
This post by Joseph Mulligan is part of an occasional series on graduate students’ “Intern Experience” at Duke University Libraries. Joseph received his PhD in Romance Studies in 2022 and is currently a Post-Doctoral Associate at Duke.
Like many graduate students, I spent much of my academic career reading and researching in the library. But I also participated in initiatives based out of the Libraries (like Archival Expeditions) and worked in various Libraries departments. Perhaps my most formative experience was through my work as a Humanities Unbounded Graduate Assistant (2019-2022) in Duke Libraries’ Digital Scholarship and Publishing Services (DSPS) department. The skills I learned from my libraries work have been translatable in surprising ways. In this post I share my experience so that graduate students in the earlier stages of their programs might see how working with the libraries can be an integrating force in their doctoral experience.
In the first semester working with DSPS, I spent much of my time in the proverbial sandbox: researching current trends in digital humanities scholarship, identifying methodologies used widely in academia, and studying how digital projects are organized and funded. For instance, I learned how interactive web maps are being used by practitioners of spatial history. I discovered that corpus analytics, or text mining, is entirely accessible for scholars who wish to incorporate digital methods into their research — even if they are not card-carrying, self-proclaimed Digital Humanists. Moreover, I started thinking about the critical importance of applying metadata to items in one’s digital research archive. Through these first explorations, I discovered methods and tools that would advance my research agenda, and, to my surprise, I realized I could use these same tools in the undergraduate classroom, to help facilitate students’ critical reflection on primary sources.
The digital methods I learned from this first semester with DSPS carried over into my pedagogical research as a fellow in Archival Expeditions, directed by Katie Henningsen of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. In my project, sponsored by José María Rodríguez García of Romance Studies, I innovated a module of a modern Spanish literature survey course by integrating digital image repositories and web mapping activities into lesson plans that promoted collaborative inquiry. Specifically, I created a digital reproduction of two art exhibits that were displayed in the Museo Circulante (also known as Museo del Pueblo) of the government-sponsored service-learning program Misiones Pedagógicas in 1930s Spain. These exhibits reproduced paintings that dated back to the 16th and 17th centuries. I complemented this digital reproduction by compiling an archive of photographs which documented the exhibit openings as well as other activities undertaken by the program. Additionally, I incorporated this archive of documentary photographs into an interactive web map – Misiones Pedagógicas Cartografiadas – which visualizes the dispersion of the outreach program and identifies participants at a given location, visually representing the participants in the form of a photograph, when one is available. (Access the module here.) The following year, I incorporated these digital approaches into a seminar I developed for first-year students, Culture on Wheels (taught with the support of the Bass Instructional fellowship). I also presented this work at the 2022 Modern Language Association annual convention, as part of a panel I convened titled Digital Methods in Humanities Pedagogy.
Aside from helping me incorporate digital methods into my teaching, the Humanities Unbounded assistantship with DSPS also developed my ability to support the research of fellow graduate students as well as Duke faculty and visiting scholars, specifically with respect to digital image management, text mining, and network analysis. For the MicroWorlds Lab, the Manuscript Migration Lab, and the National Humanities Center, I designed and led workshops that explored how digital images can be managed as data (using Tropy), how large digital corpora may be approached efficiently (using OverviewDocs), how networks of intellectual and material exchange can be studied and visualized from a relational perspective (using Kumu). In my prsentations I highlighted key features of the relevant tools and developed video tutorials that were used as pre-workshop activities but also designed as standalone modules open to the public.
Finally, during fall 2021, I worked closely with Humanities Unbounded Visiting Scholar Dr. Gay Byron of Howard University, who spent the 2021-2022 academic year deeply engaged in archival research on the collection of Ge’ez (Ethiopic) manuscripts held in special collections at the Rubenstein Library. At the intersection of philology and the history of religion, Dr. Byron’s research consisted, in part, in complementing and supplementing the Rubenstein’s catalogue description of this collection as well as creating a digital archive of the manuscripts and scrolls. With the support of Andy Armacost (the Rubenstein Library’s Curator of Collections) and through consultations with other archivists, I helped Dr. Byron establish a workflow for her project, designate roles between her and her assigned Research Assistant, incorporate the software Tropy into her research process, and build a customized taxonomy with a metadata template that, when applied to her files, effectively organized her archive for easy reference, annotation, and sharing.
In each of these cases, my position in the Libraries allowed me to collaborate with faculty and students to create, develop, and sustain innovative scholarship. The Libraries are distinctive in offering these kinds of opportunities for exploration and cross-disciplinary partnership, and as a result of my work here, I’ve been able to cultivate skills that continue to enrich my scholarship and teaching.
Films, Books, and Music of the 1980s in the Libraries’ Collections
Do you know that the creators of Stranger Things are from Durham, North Carolina?
The supernatural series may be set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, but creators Matt and Ross Duffer grew up in Durham. Although the identical twins grew up in the 90s, the series is awash with popular culture references from the 1980s. They lived in Durham County and attended the Duke School for elementary and middle school, graduating from Jordan High School. The Duffer brothers later attended Chapman University in California where they studied film and media arts.
Enjoy the ambience of Hawkins – we mean Durham – and immerse yourself in the 1980s. Discover movies, books, comics, and music of the era in our Duke Libraries’ collections.
Films of the 1980s
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Spain) DVD 30088
To give a sense of the world beyond Hawkins/Durham, we’ve highlighted international films from the same period including Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Spain), Police Story (Hong Kong), Cinema Paradiso (Italy), and My Neighbor Totoro (Japan).
Films that the Hellfire gang watched include popular titles like Ghostbustersand E.T. – and, yes, those are in our film collection.
Visit the Library Things Collection Spotlight in our lobby to browse these films* – and more (the full list is here) – that we’ve selected from our film collection.
Note: The list incudes some titles which you can stream via your Duke NetID.
Music of the 1980s
LL Cool J’s Radio (1985)
Heavy Metal, Punk, Rock, Electronic, Pop, Rap – the 1980s are calling! Songs and artists featured in the show are seeing a resurgence of interest and gaining new audiences. If you wonder why “old” music such as Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (1985), Metallica’s Master of Puppets (1986), and the Clash have been at the top of playlists, you can thank Stranger Things. The 1980s also saw the rise of Rap as a musical force with the emergence of iconic performers such as LL Cool J, Grandmaster Flash, and Run D.M.C.
The Duke Music Library has a collection of CDs embracing all musical genres including rock, folk and rap. Don’t want to immerse yourself in the 1980s with a boombox or other older formats? Your Duke NetID provides access to streaming music platforms. Interested in the same sort of 1980s (and more recent) music of Stranger Things? Alexander Street Music database can lead you directly to genres of popular music.
Books of the 1980s
Stephen King’s It
While film, music, and the rise of gaming of the 1980s populate the atmosphere of Stranger Things, books about – and of – the period illuminate popular culture. A selection of suspense and fantasy novels by writers such as Stephen King, graphic novels (which evolved from comic books), and books examining contemporary culture are available in the Lilly Library lobby. Peruse these highlighted titles, plus a few eBooks in our Lilly Collection Spotlight Reading List.
To quote Stranger Things‘ character Dustin:
… I am on a curiosity voyage, and I need my paddles to travel. These books… these books are my paddles…
Our Duke Libraries and your Duke NetID provide “paddles” that encompass books, film, music, and a breadth of online resources. Explore Duke Libraries’ “library things” and embark on your own curiosity voyage!
This post was written by Ciara Healy, Librarian for Psychology & Neuroscience, Mathematics, and Physics.
Banned or challenged books are alive and well across the country. Recently there have been PTA and livestreamed school board meetings devoted to banned books, with parents and students alike defending or protesting Critical Race Theory in schools. Two places to learn more about this ongoing issue is Unite Against Book Bans and EveryLibrary Institute.
The American Library Association (ALA) offers lists of books as part of their annual Banned and Challenged Books week kicking off September 18th through the 24th of September. The list of the top ten most banned and challenged books of 2021 can be found on their website. Thanks ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom!
Th 2021 list linked above has a mix of books covering challenges to books about race and a surprising number of LGBTQIQ+ titles and the reasons for their being challenged or banned in schools and libraries.
If you are interested in learning more, there are several upcoming opportunities. First, Duke Alumni has programs beginning on September 27th through December 14th at the Karsh Alumni and Visitors center and through Zoom. To register, use this link for the events: https://tinyurl.com/48wbv2p5.
Also, check out the Collection Spotlight featuring Banned and Challenged books, which can be found in Perkins Library on exhibit near the book drop at the Perkins Service Desk.
Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Until Frida has a very bad day. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good. An “intense” ( Oprah Daily ) page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic. Watch Chan discuss her novel on the Today Show and listen to her on the Lit Hub Radio podcast.
Nuclear Family by Joseph Han. Things are looking up for Mr. and Mrs. Cho. Their daughter, Grace, is busy finishing her senior year of college and working for her parents, while her older brother, Jacob, just moved to Seoul to teach English. But when a viral video shows Jacob trying—and failing—to cross the Korean demilitarized zone, nothing can protect the family from suspicion and the restaurant from waning sales. Struggling with what they don’t know about themselves and one another, the Chos must confront the separations that have endured in their family for decades. Set in the months leading up to the 2018 false missile alert in Hawaiʻi, Joseph Han’s profoundly funny and strikingly beautiful debut novel is an offering that aches with histories inherited and reunions missed, asking how we heal in the face of what we forget and who we remember. Learn more in The New York Times Book Review and NPR’s Book of the Day podcast interview with Han.
Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse is the mesmerizing story of a landmark sexual assault investigation and the female private investigator who helped crack it open. In the fall of 2002, Erika accepts a new contract job investigating lawsuits as a private investigator. Erika knows she should turn the assignment down. Her own history with sexual violence makes it all too personal. But she takes the job anyway. Over the next five years, Erika learns everything she can about P. I. technique, tracking down witnesses and investigating a culture of sexual assault and harassment ingrained in the university’s football program. But as the investigation grows into a national scandal and a historic civil rights case, Erika becomes increasingly consumed. When the case and her life both implode simultaneously, Erika must figure out how to help win the case without losing herself. Read The Washington Post review and listen to her Colorado Public Radio interview to learn more.
We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Told from the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold on to its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom. This New York Review of Books article asks the hard questions about oil extraction, climate change, and the intersectionalities in Mbue’s visionary novel.
Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after a tragedy. In twelve striking, luminescent stories, a boy unearths a jar that holds an old curse, which sets into motion his family’s unraveling; a man, while trying to swindle some pot from a dealer, discovers a friend passed out in the woods, his hair frozen into the snow; a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s projects the past onto her grandson; and two friends, inspired by Antiques Roadshow, attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs. Night of the Living Rez is an unforgettable portrayal of an Indigenous community and marks the arrival of a standout talent in contemporary fiction. Listen to Talty, a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation discuss how these stories came to be in his NPR interview.
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When our chat service is not available the chat option will not show on your screen. The app also provides access to the library homepage, email, and phone number. The app is a mobile version of Ask a Librarian
Philosophy is a discipline whose historical canon is dominated by European males (despite active and influential contributions of women in the field’s formation) and that typically attracts fewer women to its college classrooms. Want to change the face of philosophy?
This fall, Duke undergraduate students can contribute to a global initiative to reform philosophy while learning about and taking part in open scholarly publishing. Project Vox, a collaboration between Duke University Libraries and the Department of Philosophy, is the basis for a new tutorial course, ISS 395T. In this course students will learn and apply skills in researching primary and secondary sources and images and in writing for Project Vox’s audience — teachers, students, scholars, and interested members of the public.
The two graduate instructors leading this course, Dana Hogan and Yasemin Altun, are alums of the Project Vox team. Their recent posts to its “Behind the Scenes” blog series offer insight into the skills and experience they’ve acquired as well as the kinds of work students will do in this course:
The Low Maintenance Book Club is starting off the semester with a bang—our first in-person meeting since 2020 and a superstar reading selection (if we do say so ourselves)! Join the Low Maintenance Book Club on Wednesday, September 21st at 5:30pm for a discussion of selections from Janelle Monáe’s The Memory Librarian: the introduction, “The Memory Librarian” and “Timebox.” We’ll be meeting outdoors at the tables near the breezeway between Perkins & Bostock. In case of inclement weather, we’ll send a rain location to participants who have RSVP’d.
Copies of the book can be found at Duke University Libraries