All posts by Kate Collins

KIC’n It at the Rubenstein Library

April 18, 2013 Kate Collins

As our faithful readers know, back in February we finished moving our collections in preparation for our upcoming renovation, but there is one thing that didn’t make the trip with us: our old photocopier. Instead we’ve upgraded to a KIC Scanner for our reading room. What’s a KIC Scanner?

It’s a free, self-service scanner that make it easy to produce high resolution color scans. The KIC Scanner can accommodate material up to 17 x 24 inches, and it has an adjustable bed that makes it possible to scan most books without injuring their spines.

You can save your file in a variety of formats including PDF, JPG, and RTF, and for typed or printed material you can also create a searchable PDF. Once you’re done scanning, you can email the resulting files to yourself or save them to a USB flash drive.

Sample Scan — A scan from *The Nature-Printed British Sea-Weeds*, made on our KIC scanner

Post Contributed by Kate Collins, Research Services Librarian.

Bingham Center, Events, Readings and Talks

Robin Morgan & Marie Anderson: The Women’s Pages & The Women’s Liberation Movement

April 16, 2013 Kate Collins

Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Location: Perkins Library, Room 318 (Rubenstein Library Classroom)
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

robin morgan — Police officer and Robin Morgan, Miss America protest, Atlantic City, 1968

Please join the staff of Sallie Bingham Center of Women’s History and Culture for a talk by Kimberly Wilmot Voss addressing the intersection of the women’s pages of newspapers and women’s liberation leaders in the 1960s and 70s, and the differences in coverage by those women journalists compared to the mainstream press.

Voss is an Assistant Professor and Area Coordinator of Journalism, University of Central Florida, and is a 2012 recipient of a Mary Lily Research Grant from the Sallie Bingham Center.

Light refreshments will be provided.

From Our Collections, Hartman Center

Mad Men Monday, Episode 3

April 15, 2013 Kate Collins

Episode 3, shown on April 14^th, showcased a couple of client meetings in the SCDP offices, along with some personal get-togethers outside the workplace.

Last night’s episode featured references to Jaguar, Heinz Ketchup, All laundry detergent, Teflon and Clearasil, Italian food, champagne, and the most mundane product of all: toilet paper. Enjoy our selection of highlighted ads, outdoor advertising designs, and advertising cookbooks that reflect the brands and themes that Mad Men characters interacted with last night. A gallery of our selected images may also be found on Pinterest and Flickr.

Bingham Center, Events, Readings and Talks

Race, Gender and Identity in Artists’ Books

March 22, 2013 Kate Collins

Date: Monday, March 25, 2013
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Perkins Library, Room 318 (Rubenstein Library Classroom)
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

The book form can become a vehicle for personal histories and obsessions. Please join us for a discussion of how Clarissa Sligh and Nava Atlas have explored their own experiences of race, gender, and identity through book arts. Both artists have placed their papers at the Sallie Bingham Center, which also has a collection of over 300 artists’ books by women.

Photos of Nava Atlas and Clarissa Sligh

Clarissa Sligh is a visual artist, writer, and lecturer. When she was 15 years old she became the lead plaintiff in the 1955 school desegregation case in Virginia. After working in math and science with NASA and later in business, she began a career as an artist, using photographs, drawings, text, and personal stories to explore themes of transformation and social justice.

Nava Atlas is known both as a vegetarian cookbook author and as a fine artist. Her artists’ books engage images, text, and structure to explore themes of social justice and women’s roles. Many of her works re-appropriate found materials and challenge the language and images used to reinforce gender roles and stereotypes.

Read more about Atlas and Sligh in the Spring 2012 issue of Women at the Center.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian, Sallie Bingham Center

Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library

Family “Letter” Donated to the Franklin Research Center

March 21, 2013 Kate Collins

Braun Family — Marley and Jason Braun donate Slave Bill of Sale to the Rubenstein Library

Marley Braun recently contacted the Rubenstein Library because she wanted to find a proper home for a very peculiar “letter” that belonged to her great-grandmother, Mrs. Edna Balderston. Perhaps Mrs. Balderston was shocked when she opened the “letter” envelope to find that it actually contained two bills of sale for 3 slaves in Baltimore dated October 11, 1805. The slaves listed in the bills were named Elizabeth, age 20, Harriet (her daughter), 6 months, and Delilah, age 14, for a total of $493.

The slave bills stayed in the family for a few generations behind glass until Marley, a former 10-year Duke employee, and her husband Andy, ’92 Duke alum, decided the bill deserved a place where it could not only be cared for but shared with people interested in its history. Marley and her son Jason came to the Rubenstein this past week to donate the bill of sale and view other bills of sale currently held by the Rubenstein in the African American Miscellany Collection. The bills within this collection span from 1757-1863 and this new addition will further help document the experience of African Americans during the era of slavery; thanks to the Braun family, Marley, Andy, Jason, and Hayley for this fascinating addition to our collections.

Post contributed by John Gartrell, John Hope Franklin Research Center Director.

From Our Collections

Black Presence in the Picture File

February 22, 2013 Kate Collins

The Picture File is a collection that covers an expansive scope of visual history. With over 6,000 items spanning the 17th to 20th centuries, it is the kind of collection that makes mining the African American experience both exhaustive and exciting. This reality is best exemplified by the presence of this photograph located in the Geographic Series.

From Picture File, 1600s-1979, Box 4, folder m162.1

At first glance, the photograph is rather striking, if not disturbing. An African American man standing with hands shackled, surrounded by four uniformed white men. The back of the photo however describes a different story, “Members of the Georgia Hussars with [unidentified African American man] at Clyo, GA in 1908(?) to prevent lynching of prisoner.” The inscription further notes, “This negro afterward died of tuberculosis and syphilis in Chatham County Jail while awaiting a new trial on appeal.”

Note on back of photoraph — Note on back of photograph

The historical record of local protection against the lynching of African Americans is indeed a controversial one. But this interesting image at least captures the actual presence of authorities standing guard against violence against this incarcerated man.

Post contributed by John Gartrell, Director of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture. This is the third in a series of posts on interesting documents in our collections to celebrate Black History Month.

Bingham Center, Events, Readings and Talks

The Power of This Story: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Durham 1960-1990

February 21, 2013 Kate Collins 1 Comment

The Sallie Bingham Center has partnered with the Women’s Studies Senior Seminar to present a series of public conversations exploring how social change happened here in Durham. Each panel features individuals and representatives of organizations whose papers are held by the Bingham Center. Please note the different locations for each panel.

Panel 1:

Joanne Abel, YWCA’s Women Center, Triangle Area Lesbian Feminists, and War Resisters League
Barb Smalley, Ladyslipper Music
David Jolly, NC Lesbian and Gay Health Project

Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Time: 5:30-6:30 p.m. (Reception to follow)
Where: East Duke Parlors, East Campus, Duke University

Panel 2:

Jeanette Stokes, Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South
Kat Turner, Lesbian Health Resource Center and NC Lesbian and Gay Health Project
Donna Giles, Triangle Area Lesbian Feminists and Feminary

Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Time: 5:30-6:30 p.m. (Reception to follow)
Where: Perkins Library, Room 217, West Campus, Duke University

Panel 3:

Mandy Carter, Southerners On New Ground (SONG) and War Resisters League
Caitlin Breedlove, Southerners on New Ground (SONG)
Steve Schewel, Founder, Independent Weekly

Date: Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Time: 5:30-6:30 p.m. (Reception to follow)
Where: Durham County Library, 300 N. Roxboro Street, Durham, NC

Sponsored by Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, Rubenstein Library; Durham County Library; Duke Program in Women’s Studies; Vice Provost of Academic Affairs; the Pauli Murray Project; and in conjunction with Women’s Studies Senior Seminar.

Renovation

The Move by the Numbers

February 18, 2013 Kate Collins 2 Comments

After a month of intensive activity, the largest and most complicated phase of the Rubenstein Library move wrapped up, and we bid farewell to William B. Meyer, our wonderful library movers, on Feb 12. In the 24 days that these 15 movers were onsite they relocated more than 30,000 linear feet of rare books, manuscript collections, university archives, pamphlets, and other material to both our temporary library and the Library Service Center.

Map Cases — Our map cabinets in their new home

We are excited to report that we have a considerable amount of our collection up in our new home on the 3^rd floor of Perkins:

17,600 linear feet of books, manuscripts, university archives and other collections
39 map cabinets
4-volume, double-elephant edition of Audubon

The movers transported 836 large blue trucks of material to our offsite Library Service Center!

The team at LSC has already ingested 148,727 items! Thank you LSC team!!

Please note that due to the HUGE amount of material sent to LSC, some items are still being processed into their system. As such, it may take longer than usual for some materials to be pulled.. Researchers are encouraged to contact the Rubenstein Library to confirm that their collections have arrived before coming to the reading room. Please call the Rubenstein Library at 919.660.5822 or send us a message. Thank you to all our patrons, researchers, colleagues, friends and fans for their continued patience and support as we finalize the Rubenstein Library move!

But that’s not all!

Although one phase of the move is complete, there is still plenty of work and moving to be done between now and the start of the Rubenstein Library Renovation. We are still prepping our newspaper collection for transport to LSC, and we still need to move the art collection, including the portraits in the Gothic Reading Room. Stay tuned for more updates as we complete these projects.

Last but not least, you can always relive the exciting events from the last 6 weeks anytime on our blog: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/tag/movediary/

Post contributed by Molly Bragg, Collection Move Coordinator.

From Our Collections, Renovation

Week 3 is done!

January 25, 2013 Kate Collins

We’re three weeks in to our move which means we’re halfway there! It does feel like we’ve reached a tipping point with the shelves in our new space feeling more full than our old space. Here are some of our favorite that have made the move with us this week:

Portable ECG — The portable electrocardiograph from the History of Medicine Collections is indeed portable

Our collection of glass eyeballs, a perennial favorite from the History of Medicine Collections, has also made the move.

Renovation

Things We Will (Probably) Miss: Our Old Elevator

January 24, 2013 Kate Collins 2 Comments

As the Rubenstein Library moves out of our space in original West Campus library building, it also means we won’t be using the 1928 elevator to carry us through all seven floors of the building anymore. While I could never decide if I found this elevator endearing or frightening, I think I’m going to miss its old school charms. It has a heavy metal door and a brass gate that need to be opened and closed by hand, as well as instructions on how to use the button and the door and gate.

If you want a chance to experience the thrills of Otis yourself, here’s a little video of a trip from the third floor up to the sixth floor in our former home.

Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University