Preparing our oversize manuscripts for the upcoming renovation means spending lots of time in a corner of the stacks, pulling folder after folder out of our oversize cabinets and trying to prepare these giant documents and photographs to be moved in a few months. “Oversize” is a term that archivists use to refer to things that are bigger than legal- or letter-sized paper. At Duke, our oversize documents range in dimensions from 11×14 all the way up to 40×50 inches in width and height. (We have things in our collections that are even bigger, but their move prep is a different process.)
The oversize cabinets have been used to house collections for decades, and there are hundreds of folders in each cabinet. It’s challenging work, but also fascinating to spend time with manuscripts and photographs that we’ve never had a chance to see in our years of working at Duke. (Usually, as Technical Services archivists, we work with new or unprocessed collections; most of the oversize cabinet collections are very old and were processed a long time ago.) There are so many wonderful collections in the Rubenstein, there’s no way that we would normally have the time to poke through them all — except now we get to, because we have to check them over for the renovation. Here are our favorite “new to us” discoveries from our oversize stack work. This project will be ongoing for the next several months, so more photos to come as we keep digging!
This huge panoramic photo features J.B. Duke and his fellow directors of the Aluminum Company of America in July 1925. From the George Garland Allen Papers.Here's a close-up of J.B. Duke, with his trademark cigar. This photograph was taken shortly before his death in October 1925.Civil War veteran Randall B. Williams, from Maine, poses with all his Civil War memorabilia for a 1924 reunion photograph. He was 80 years old at the time. From the John Mead Gould Papers.Not everything we find is old: Students presented poet and author Fred Chappell with this acrostic poem after his visit to their classroom. From the Fred Chappell Papers.There is a penciled caption at the top that reads, "This was dropped from an Airplane in Durham N.C. about June 11, 1919. The plane passed over my home, and it was the first one I ever saw! -- Mrs. Angier." From the John Cicero Angier Papers.
Post contributed by Mary Samouelian and Meghan Lyon, archivists in Rubenstein Technical Services.
Since August of 2009, when the Doris Duke Collection first opened for research, patrons using the collection have regularly shared with me two pieces of feedback. First is that there is no historical timeline capturing the major events in Doris Duke’s life that could provide context for the collection. The second is the challenge of navigating such a large and complex collection. Because the Doris Duke Collection is divided into smaller collections and the Rubenstein Library holds other collections that contain materials related to or about Doris Duke, discovering all the various parts can beguile even the most seasoned of researchers.
Acknowledging the merit of this feedback, staff from the Rubenstein Library, including me and Noah Huffman, the Archivist for Metadata and Encoding, teamed up with Application Developer, Will Sexton, Web Developer, Derrek Croney, and Digital Projects Developer, Sean Aery from the Duke University Libraries Digital Experience Services to create a “people portal” to the Doris Duke Collection. The expectation is that this portal will both introduce you to Doris Duke and some of the wonderful materials within the collection, and assist you in effectively navigating the collection and therefore having greater success in finding the materials you’re looking for.
Screen-capture of the Interactive Timeline
The portal has four major features. The first is the interactive timeline, highlighting key events in Doris Duke’s life. By visually representing her life we hope to offer a quick glance to facts and information about Doris Duke. There are several really snazzy features to this timeline. You can scroll from event to event by clicking on the arrow to the right or the left, or if you’re interested in jumping around in the timeline, let’s say to see what Doris was up to in the 1940s, you can scroll the timeline bar below and select a specific year and associated event(s).
Screen-capture of the portal's Biographical HistoryScreen-capture of the portal's Doris-related collections list
The second feature is the Biographical History. This presents the events in a more linear fashion and not only offers an enticing sample of the material or materials in the collection related to that particular event, but guides you to the collections within the Doris Duke Collection that contain additional information about that event. The idea is to connect the physical materials in the collection to a more abstract event. So for example, if you want to see a selection of materials related to Doris Duke’s wedding to James Cromwell and their honeymoon, you can locate the event and then click through some materials related to that event. You can then select the “Sources” hyperlink. This shows the three collections that contain material(s) related to this event.
The third feature of this portal is perhaps the most exciting. To help you have a fuller research experience, we have included all the collections within the Rubenstein Library associated with Doris Duke, with a direct link to each of the finding aids. By scrolling down this list, you’ll not only see the various smaller Doris Duke collections, such as the papers associated with the Shangri La residence, but other collections within the library that contain materials about Doris Duke. These collections include the James B. Duke papers, since he was her father, and the Duke Endowment Archives, since she was a board member. This list will expand as we not only open additional materials in the Doris Duke Collection but also as we continue to find collections and resources in the library related to Doris Duke.
The final feature is a quiz to test your knowledge of Doris Duke. We wanted to provide an entertaining way to introduce newbies to Doris Duke and also test those who think they know everything about her. We think you’re in for some surprising revelations!
Screen-capture of the Doris Duke trivia quiz. (Answer: True.)
Since this people portal is the first of its kind, we welcome your feedback and any suggestions for improvement. Visit the live people portal here. If you want to learn more about the technology behind this portal, including the use of Encoded Archival Context (EAC), a newly adopted XML standard for encoding information about the creators of archival materials and the circumstances of record creation and use, see Will Sexton’s blog (with the most awesome title ever!) Engineering the Killer Rabbit: How We Represented a Timeline of Doris Duke’s Life in XML.
Post contributed by Mary Samouelian, Doris Duke Collection Archivist.
Preparing the Rubenstein Library holdings for the move requires the coordination of different departments completing different sets of tasks, sometimes in a specific sequence. For example, first our conservation team will go through a range of books and check their condition to see if they need any extra attention before moving. Next, our holdings management team comes through and looks for missing barcodes and checks the records of our titles. Lastly, students and staff come through and load volumes into trays that are moving offsite. So, how do we coordinate and communicate the efforts of all these different groups?
Three words: color-coded post-it notes.
Conservation has tended to flag their efforts with yellow notes, holdings management uses blue, and everyone uses hot pink as signal that something is 100% “ready to move.” In some parts of the stacks, yellow post-its are also used to signal a manuscript box that needs to be reviewed for padding. Also, book-traying teams use post-it notes to signal where they have left off on sealing Tyvek envelopes or duplicating barcodes in preparation for loading books into trays.
We have other tools for tracking more preparation efforts, such as spreadsheets and access databases. The post-it note system is just as effective as these more sophisticated tools. Post-it notes are easy to understand, easy to update, do not require the use of technology, and are easy to access by people in different departments. Although we really rely on technology to make this move happen, it is nice to know that we can also rely on good old-fashioned paper tools.
While working on preparing print materials for the Rubenstein Library’s upcoming move, I came across a few books on American women’s etiquette. I glanced inside and found rules, rules, and more rules! Although the publication dates range from 1873-1924, the authors seemed to agree on specific social laws of conduct. For instance, one must never shout hello to an acquaintance across the street (“a certain sign of vulgarity”), and a lady should never have a man on each arm or vice versa (apparently, this is only done in Ireland). One of the books decreed never to join in a dance unless you skillfully know the steps. Otherwise, one will “bring disorder into the midst of pleasure!”
Books on etiquette for American womenDecorum: a practical treatise on etiquette and dress of the best American society, written in 1881 by John Ruth."A lady should never take the arms of two men, one being upon either side, nor should a man carry a woman upon each arm. The latter of these iniquities is practiced only in Ireland; the former perhaps in Kamtskatcha.""Never hazard taking part in a quadrille, unless you know how to dance tolerably; for if you are a novice, or but little skilled, you would bring disorder into the midst of pleasure."
These social rules were listed under headings describing every instance of everyday life imaginable- dressing, eating, visiting relatives or friends, attending church, weddings, traveling, even how to not hurt a person’s feelings. It was very interesting to see how vastly different American society and culture were 100 years ago. We have our rules as well (whether followed or not), but nothing like these prim guidelines.
Cullen Cornett is a Holdings Management Assistant in Rubenstein Technical Services.
One of my ongoing processing projects for the past year was to arrange and describe the Edwin and Terry Murray Collection of Role-Playing Games, a vast collection with thousands of books, boxed games, miniature pieces, card sets, magazines — all relating to the world of RPGs. Most of these items received individual attention. For example, each volume in the collection has been described at an item level, including its title, publisher, and year, to better help our patrons browse across the various game worlds and decades of RPG publishing. Users can download a spreadsheet from the finding aid and search and sort the materials to their heart’s content. Since these materials are all stored offsite, I also included each box or volume’s barcode to speed the recall of these materials to the reading room.
Cart of RPG books, ready to go offsite
One of the best parts of working with RPGs was the fact that they contain such colorful and imaginative artwork. Even if I didn’t have any interest in playing the game, the covers of the many volumes or boxes easily grabbed my attention. Some of the highlights? For me, the movie-based games were always fun to find.
Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters, of course.
I also enjoyed learning more about the many, many variants and knock-offs of Dungeons and Dragons — why reinvent the wheel when you can just change the words around a bit? But the funniest, in my opinion, were the games that clearly tried to reach new audiences — like these two games aimed at people who liked bunnies.
Wabbit Wampage and Bunnies and Burrows: 2 different RPGs featuring scary smart rabbits.
You may remember our blog posts about the RubensteinGame Night, celebrating the opening of the collection last winter. Since then, we received another very large addition, and we needed to work closely with our Conservation Department to figure out how to house the hundreds of hand-painted figurines and miniatures that arrived with the collection. I think they had as much fun as I did down in the lab. Check out this post from Preservation Underground to learn more about stabilizing and housing the tiny dragons and other creatures that make up the Miniatures, Props, and Pieces Series. And, be sure to view the photo essay on Flickr for detailed shots of the pretty and gruesome monsters in the collection.
Post contributed by Meghan Lyon, Accessioning Associate in the Technical Services Dept.
There’s something satisfying about reading a journal, and I don’t think it has much to do with the fact that a lot of journals try to discourage readers from exploring their contents, either. Instead, what I think appeals to me about journals is the familiar and candid tone of an author writing to him or herself. It’s thrilling to feel like the secret confidante of someone whom you’ve never met. There’s a lot of honesty in a journal, and that honesty transcends time to resonate with people totally outside of the context of the author’s life.
I’ve been privileged to work with the History of Medicine Collection in the Rubenstein Library this semester, and in the course of my project came across the journals of a young American medical student living in Paris, France in the early 1840s. Before I had really been able to familiarize myself with the contents of the journals – barriers mainly being Spencer’s handwriting – I imagined that the writing would be fraught with tales of the revolutions and political upheaval that characterized French politics in the 19th Century. What I found instead, though, was a window into the daily life of a bright, detail-oriented young medical student living in beautiful and romantic Paris, France even before the iconic Eiffel Tower was built.
The first entry in the journal is almost 30 pages long and describes a tour of Parisian monuments. Spencer starts with a jaunt around the grounds of the Palais des Tuileries and ends with a visit to the Arche de Triomphe on the Champs Elysées. When I said detail oriented, I was referring to things like the fact that Spencer recorded in yards the length and breadth of the Palais des Tuileries and described the arrangement and structure of the gardens there, too. The level of attention to detail, while surprising for a modern reader like yours truly, is likely because outside of recording the dimensions himself, Spencer would not easily be able to either recall or discover that information elsewhere. Another thing to remember is that photography hadn’t been really popularized yet, though it existed. 1840 is approximately contemporary with the birth of the Daguerrotype, an early photographic process. In 1840, if you wanted to remember something, you had to take down the facts yourself.
Even though it’s hard to imagine a Paris without the Eiffel Tower, some things in Spencer’s journals make him really accessible. For example, I was happy to find that he had an appreciation for puns; Spencer hearteningly described a fête happening down by the river as the “Seine of the action.” I totally LOL’d in the reading room at Perkins for that one, but then I do love a good pun.
The tidbits that make Spencer seems so contemporary exist right alongside descriptions of things that make his experiences totally foreign. He writes about doing rounds with a physician and watching amputations. As you might imagine, the practice of surgery has changed rather a lot since 1840. From Spencer’s descriptions, amputation was a considerable part of a surgeon’s practice at that time. Spencer also describes a side-show that he saw in Paris in terms of the various medical ailments that were afflicting the performers. Spencer recorded his ideas about what was wrong with the four-legged man and the level of approximate curvature of the spine of a man with dwarfism. I thought it was fascinating to see these people through the lens of his medical training. The journals also hold some botanical specimens that Spencer collected during his time in France. One of them makes an appearance in the image posted here.
The History of Medicine Collection has another later manuscript by Thomas Spencer, too. We learn from it that upon his return to the United States, he took up practice as a pathologist in Philadelphia, PA. The records from Spencer’s practice are taken with the same careful attention to detail and in the same beautiful script as his journals.
The journals tell what Spencer saw. They are his carefully collected memories from the two years he spent based in Paris. His experiences, which are so different from our own, lay out the scope of history, but his personality, humor, and opinions make him seem like a peer.
Nathalie Baudrand was the History of Medicine Collections Intern for Spring 2012 and is a graduate student at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science.
The Rubenstein Renovation team has been spending a lot of time thinking about, planning for, and generally fretting over how we are going to move portions of our priceless collection of rare books to the Library Service Center (LSC) in preparation for the renovation. Right now we are estimating that between 150,000 and 200,000 print items will be sent to LSC. Books at the LSC are stored in book trays, which are made of cardboard and resemble a box that is open on two sides. We will be taking some of our books into our new enabling space as well, but these will not be packed into trays.
In late 2011, we decided that we would load the books into book trays ourselves for two key reasons. First, loading the books ourselves will make processing the books into the LSC a much faster process, because our staff at LSC will not have to load the books. This means the books will be available to the public sooner. Secondly, we believe it will be safer for the books to travel off campus already loaded into trays as opposed to traveling on rolling book trucks.
Empty book trays in various stages of assembly.
This whole project was a very abstract plan floating out on the move horizon until the last few weeks, when we have started traying books in earnest. First, we had to find a place to store hundreds (eventually thousands) of flat and assembled book trays in the library. Second, loading books into trays is not nearly as simple as it sounds. The trays come in 5 sizes and each size has a high and low sub-size to account for book height. It is essential to match the books to the correct tray size for safe storage (books of varying sizes should not be loaded into the same tray). However there are many nuances to this process. For example, some of our books fit one size in width, but another in height and so on and so forth. Additionally the trays need to be full, but not over or under filled.
LSC measuring block, to help us figure out what tray size is best for each book.
There are also a number of our books have been placed in Tyvek envelopes by our conservation team for safe keeping. As these books are trayed, we have to transfer call numbers and barcodes from the book flags to the envelope. Finally, we are also tracking the barcodes of each volume and tray for record keeping and easy retrieval after the move. All in all, this is a very involved process.
Books that are trayed and ready to move.
Currently the books are not scheduled to move to LSC until next winter, but we are starting now because as you can guess, book traying can be a time consuming process. Unfortunately, the downside of being so pro-active is that it will take us longer to retrieve our books when patrons request them. We do have strategies in place to minimize retrieval time, and we are extremely thankful for our patrons’ patience. This is a lot of work for everyone in the Rubenstein, but we believe this is the best way to move our books. The end result will be a collection that is safe, ready to move, and quite impressive-looking as well! For more pictures of the Rubenstein move, check out our Rubenstein Renovation set on Flickr.
Post contributed by Molly Bragg, Collections Move Coordinator.
Among the many fascinating documents, portraits, and letters of early Methodist preachers and missionaries in the Frank Baker Collection of Wesleyana and British Methodism are a variety of woodcut prints, engravings, and other visual sources depicting subjects as varied as social satire and British birds that might be rather unexpected in a collection that is primarily concerned with religious history. As an art historian, I am particularly drawn to such visual records, and so was especially struck by both the beautiful technique and the relative completeness of a portfolio of etchings by George Cruikshank in which the artist depicts various scenes from the adventures of Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff.
Cruikshank, a prominent nineteenth-century British artist who worked primarily in graphic media, is known for his virulent social satires and is frequently discussed alongside similarly comic-minded Brits such as William Hogarth and Thomas Rowlandson. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Cruikshank’s reputation was well-established and the artist had already completed prints for pamphlets by his friend, William Hone, a series of illustrations of the works of Charles Dickens, and the first English edition of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales. It is around this time that Cruikshank began work on a concept for a collaborative project with Robert B. Brough which, upon its publication in 1858, would be entitled The Life of Sir John Falstaff: A Biography of the Knight from Authentic Sources.
Robert Brough’s The Life of Sir John Falstaff: A Biography of the Knight from Authentic Sources of 1858
A copy of Brough’s rather unusual text is available in Rubenstein Library and provides an imaginative biography of the fictional Falstaff, who appears in the Bard’s Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsorand who is himself believed to have been a satirical portrayal of one of Shakespeare’s unfortunate contemporaries.
Cruikshank’s etchings appear throughout The Life of Sir John Falstaff, illustrating twenty scenes with expressive lines and an abundance of humorous detail in a compact, approximately 5×8” book-size format. While processing visual sources in the Baker Collection, I came across a larger set of these same prints; seventeen unbound plates on crisp white paper that are approximately 10×14” in size. The higher quality of the etched lines and cross-hatching seems to indicate that the Baker portfolio is an earlier edition. Missing only three scenes from the set reproduced in Brough’s text, the Baker Collection series begins with a print that is dated 1857 and bears a handwritten dedication along the bottom of the page, signed lightly in pencil by the artist and brought to my attention by archivist Michael Shumate.
Large-scale printed version of Cruikshank’s etching, next to the printed frontispiece of Robert Brough’s The Life of Sir John Falstaff: A Biography of the Knight from Authentic Sources of 1858.
The Falstaff print, a smaller copy of which also appears at the start of Brough’s book, depicts the portly title character, perched on a seat wearing pseudo-chivalric garb and staring out at the viewer, his mouth pursed in what can only be described as a mischievous grin. In addition to the volume’s title, publisher, and other documentary information, the print is inscribed with Cruikshank’s inimitable stylized signature which corresponds directly to the dedication, “Richard Ellison Esq. – with the regards of Geo. Cruikshank” scribbled below.
Autograph Signature: George Cruikshank’s signature in a dedication written in pencil along the bottom of the Baker print.
How this unique object came into the possession of Frank Baker, a former professor in Duke’s Religion Department, is a mystery; however the prints themselves invite further study. Did this 1857 portfolio serve as a kind of prototype for the images included in Brough’s 1858 book? What was the historical reception of Falstaff, and how would Cruikshank’s prints have been understood by nineteenth-century individuals? Indeed, these questions and countless other subjects of interest to art historians, British scholars, and literature students emerge in this visual document. Fortunately for those who, like myself, are intrigued by Cruikshank’s work and would like to learn more, Duke Libraries maintains a number of different sources on the topic, located at both the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library and within Lilly Library’s collection. In addition to the Cruikshank materials, the Baker Collection of Wesleyana contains more than 10,000 visual documents including portraits, landscapes, maps, and many other fascinating scenes.
Elisabeth Narkin is a doctoral student in Duke’s Dept. of Art, Art History and Visual Studies. She is also a student assistant in Rubenstein Technical Services.
Like most everyone else, I’ve been enjoying our beautiful spring weather. However, part of me still yearns for the winter I never experienced. So I’m returning to a manuscript I cataloged last year that contains illustrations I now associate with the chillier months.
Surgeon Major A. F. Elliot served several tours of duty with the 2nd West India Regiment in West Africa, primarily in Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Ghana. He maintained diaries for six of those tours, from 1866-1881, and used calligraphy for all month titles. There are also watercolor paintings, photographs, and charts.
I don’t read manuscript volumes I’m cataloging in their entirety or I’d never be able to keep pace with the new acquisitions arriving. Duke Alumni Magazine had also published an article on this volume. After I finished my catalog record, I reviewed the volume again to see if we had missed anything. That’s when I came across this title for September 1874.
Surgeon A. F. Elliot’s diaries, 1866-1881, contain his calligraphic headings for each month. This 1874 heading was painted by his friend, Lieutenant Bale.
Elliot’s first entry for the month states “Rain & drizzle in the morning—Bale has drawn the heading this month[,] emblematical weather—rain all day.” I continued my perusal. October’s heading was fun, but November’s was stunning in both its design and detail.
The watercolor paintings by John Edward Bale in the volume are 7”x3” in size.
My student assistant, Sophia Durand, and I recently did a little research and found that these watercolors were painted by Elliot’s friend John Edward Bale, who was a member of the 1st. West India Regiment. Bale was promoted from Lieutenant to Captain during the months he created these paintings, and his signature changed accordingly. He retired from the Army as a Major, continued painting in both oil and watercolors, and several of those works have been sold at auction houses.
Do you see “December?” Hint: If this was a painting of Perkins Library, look at the Gothic Reading Room windows.
At the time I admit I was a tad disappointed that Bale painted only an accompanying illustration for Elliot’s December entry, rather than incorporating the month into it. To compensate, it pleased me that the church looks somewhat like the original Perkins Library building we are now in the process of renovating.
Imagine my astonishment when I discovered I was wrong about the absence of the month in the painting. I only became aware of it after I took a digital image of it for this blog post. Do you see “December”?
I’ve showed the paintings to my colleagues in Technical Services, and many of us rank these watercolors among our most amazing discoveries made while processing a manuscript collection.
Post contributed by Alice Poffinberger, Archivist/Original Cataloger in the Technical Services Dept..
My part in the preparation for the Rubenstein’s upcoming renovation is to assist in making sure that all of our beloved materials have accurate records before the move. Imagine when you have moved to a new house or dorm room and realized you just can’t find that book from that library that’s overdue. Now multiply that scenario by thousands of volumes and the importance of our task becomes clear!
Rows of books checked by the Holdings Management Team
Our Holdings Management Team members are going through the stacks systematically, checking records and barcodes on periodicals, reference items, pamphlets, and many, many sets of books. Out of the 13,000 volumes I personally have checked, over 2,000 needed to be fixed in some way. Our way of keeping track of various interdepartmental progress? Multi-colored post-it notes line the ends of shelf rows (ours are blue).
Roald Dahl's signature inside one of our books
It is always interesting to open a book and see the owner’s signature or personal bookplate. Today, I found a Roald Dahl book that was signed by the author in 1988. Once, I found a book on proper housekeeping that was signed to a friend on my birthday (except 200 years before I was born). I’m excited for the next 13,000 volumes!
Cullen Cornett is a Holdings Management Assistant in the Rubenstein Technical Services Dept.
Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University
