Category Archives: News and Features

Renovation, Technical Stuff

Take This Shelf and Hang It!

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As usual, things are really humming over here at Rubenstein Renovation HQ. We have been slowly shipping newspapers and manuscript collections to our offsite facility since the end of August. It’s been very exciting to watch our collections move offsite. We have been seeing quite a few empty shelves appear, which means we are making some real progress!

The Rubenstein Library has also officially taken occupancy of the 3rd floor of Perkins, our temporary library. Although we are not moving offices or the reading room until mid-late December, we are starting to move in some special shelving and hang it at the heights we require. For those of you who really obsess about this kind of thing (and who doesn’t??), most of the shelving in Perkins/Bostock is 9” wide. We have quite a few 11” shelves in the Rubenstein Library, and the extra space allows us to shelve our records cartons and document cases more efficiently than if we were using 9” shelving. We do not have a lot of space in our temporary location so any space advantage we can manage is key.

The shelf hanging process began this week! It is a tedious process, as you can imagine, but we have been moving quickly. Thanks especially to one of our student assistants who is actually a shelf whisperer!

For more information about the renovation, please visit our renovation website.

Post contributed by Molly Bragg, Collections Move Coordinator in Rubenstein Technical Services.

Renovation, Technical Stuff

Newspaper Superlatives

As they work their way through the Rubenstein’s basement, the holdings management staff have been nominating newspapers for superlatives. And the winners are…

The Journal of the Times — asserting its cuteness with a quarter for scale.

Post contributed by Jessica Janecki and the Holdings Management Team in Technical Services.

 

Events, From Our Collections, News and Features

Middlesworth Award Winners Announced!

The Rubenstein Library is pleased to announce this year’s winners of the Chester P. Middlesworth Awards!

The Middlesworth Awards were established to encourage and recognize excellence of research, analysis, and writing by Duke University students in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Funding for the awards has been provided by Chester P. Middlesworth (A.B., 1949) of Statesville, North Carolina.

This year’s winners are:

Catherine A. Miller, for her paper “Women-in-Action’s Brand of Biracial Activism: The Politics of Race, Gender, and Class in 1960s-1970s Durham,” written for Dr. Karin Shapiro and Dr. William Chafe, History 195S-06: Racial Justice.

Joline Y. Doedens, for her paper “How to Go to the Gynecologist’s Office: Feminist Realities in Durham in the 1970s,” written for Dr. Kathy Rudy, Women’s Studies 195S: Senior Seminar.

Julia Simenauer, for her poems “The Island of Moss and Snow,” written for Dr. Deborah Pope, English 109S-01: Poetry and Memory.

The Duke University Libraries will host an award presentation for both the Middlesworth Award and the Durden Prize followed by a reception in the Rare Book Room on October 26 at 3:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend this public event!

 

 

New at the Rubenstein Library, News and Features

Introducing the 2012 Nobel Laureate Economist’s Papers

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Alvin Roth, from http://scholar.harvard.edu/roth.

The 2012 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Honor of Alfred Nobel (commonly known as the Nobel Prize) was awarded yesterday to Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.”  We in the Rubenstein Library were delighted to hear this, as the Alvin Roth Papers arrived here last year and are now available for scholarly use as part of the Economists’ Papers Project.

Much of Roth’s work involves decision-making and matching within markets; perhaps the most important real-world application of his ideas involves more efficiently matching organ donors to those in need of a transplant.  His papers at the Rubenstein include drafts of his writings on these and other topics, a wealth of information from Roth’s early career at the University of Pittsburgh, and correspondence with dozens of economists including his fellow Nobel laureate Lloyd Shapley, Robert Aumann, and many more.

The Alvin Roth Papers join many other important collections in the Economists’ Papers Project in game theory and market design, including the papers of Leonid Hurwicz, Oskar Morgenstern, Martin Shubik, and Vernon Smith.  Congratulations, Professor Roth!

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections. 

Events, Hartman Center, News and Features, Readings and Talks

The Future of Trendspotting: JWT’s Ann Mack

Date: Thursday, October 18, 2012
Time: 5:00 PM reception, 6:00 PM talk
Location: Gothic Reading Room, Perkins Library
Contact information: Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, 919-660-5836 or j.reid(at)duke.edu.

The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2012 with a lecture series of advertising luminaries. Please join us next Thursday for the third talk in the series.

Ann MackAnn Mack, Director of Trendspotting at JWT will talk about 10 Trends that will Shape the World in 2012 and Beyond, sharing details on some of the key trends that brands will need to understand in the years ahead. Mack will outline these changes in the global zeitgeist, explain what’s driving them, and detail how they’re starting to play out in society. She will also discuss the role of trends at JWT and her process, as well as her career trajectory.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the lecture series website.

This 20th Anniversary Lecture Series event is sponsored by the Duke University Office of the Provost, Fuqua School of Business, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Markets & Management Studies, Duke Marketing Club, and JWT.

Post contributed by Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, Director of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History.

From Our Collections, In the Conservation Lab, Technical Stuff

Boxy Lady

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Figuring out suitable storage for historical artifacts in a collection is a daily challenge for archivists in the Rubenstein Library’s Technical Services Dept. Our goal is to provide easy access to the artifacts while protecting them in a safe and secure manner. Many times we can manage this with the standard boxes and padding materials we have on hand. However, there are times when the artifacts, because of their unusual shape or fragile condition, don’t quite fit the standard. This is when we call on our friends in the Conservation Services Department to find the best storage solution.

Such was the case with three artifacts in the Doris Duke Memorabilia Collection. A baseball bat with Doris Duke’ name carved through it, a football to Miss Duke from the coaches and players of the Midgets football team that she sponsored, and a partial weathervane believed to be from Duke Farms were prime candidates for Conservation’s resourceful storage solutions. I didn’t know what to expect, but when the newly boxed artifacts safely arrived back to Technical Services for labeling and barcoding, I was truly impressed at the results.

Is this weathervane from the Coach Barn at Duke Farms the same as the one in the Memorabilia collection? It’s up to researchers to find out!

Because of Conservation’s thoughtful and inventive solutions, these three artifacts are now available to researchers. To view the final results and to read how Conservation created these boxes, see the Preservation Underground blog.

All ready for research use!

Post contributed by Mary Samouelian, Doris Duke Collections Archivist.

Bingham Center, Events, News and Features, Readings and Talks

Make Your Own History Reading, Sept. 19th

Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Time: 3:30 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Laura Micham, 919-660-5828 or laura.m@duke.edu

Cover of Make Your Own HistoryJoin the staff of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture for a reading from the new anthology Make Your Own History: Documenting Feminist and Queer Activism in the 21st Century (Litwin Books, 2012) with co-editor Kelly Wooten, research services librarian with the Sallie Bingham Center, and contributor Alexis Gumbs, founder of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind multimedia community school and long-time Bingham Center collaborator.

Light refreshments will be served!

Several other contributors to this volume have Bingham Center connections, including co-editor Lyz Bly, Alison Piepmeier, and Kate Eichhorn, all Mary Lily Research Grant recipients; Sarah Dyer, donor of the ground-breaking Sarah Dyer Zine Collection; and Angela DiVeglia,  former intern.

Make Your Own History has chapters about colleting zines; documenting the LGBT community: the future of collecting electronic and online records; and a look at how the Second Wave continues to contribute to the feminist movement. Read more about this book or buy a copy online from Litwin Books.

Post contributed by Laura Micham, Merle Hoffman Director of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.h

From Our Collections, Rare Books, Renovation

Renovation Round-Up

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It has been a busy summer here at Rubenstein Renovation HQ. With the help of the entire Rubenstein staff, we have prepared over 50,000 rare books for the move! These are books that have been reviewed and loaded into acid-free cardboard trays for safe transport to and storage at the Library Service Center.

We have made progress on the archival and manuscript collections front as well, and these collections are now almost 100% ready to move to our swing space and the LSC. Below, please find some highlights of some of the work being done:

  • Oversize Materials: 670 linear feet of oversize materials and flat files have been reviewed and re-packaged for long term storage.

    Archivists Meghan Lyon and Mary Samouelian prepare oversize folders for the move.
  • Ledger-mania: Our Conservation Lab has been working wonders on our extensive collection of ledgers. The bulk of this work has been completed. Our ledgers have never looked better! Read more about the ledgers project on the preservation department’s blog Preservation Underground.
  • Extra Extra!The Rubenstein Newspaper collection is getting enhanced catalog records, better housing and some much needed TLC in preparation for its journey and new life over at the LSC. This has been a multi-team undertaking led by the Rubenstein Print Materials Coordinator, her holdings management team, our colleagues at Perkins Technical Services, and of course the Perkins conservation team.

    Newspapers in new boxes, ready fto ship to the LSC
    Newspapers in new boxes, ready to ship to the LSC
  • Manuscript Box Stabilization: Many of our manuscript collections are housed in flat boxes. To keep things from needlessly shifting during transport we have padded boxes with what will forever be affectionately referred to as “burritos.” These are pieces of folder stock rolled into tubes and wrapped in tissue paper so they stay rolled. Here are the burritos in action.

    Flat manuscript box, padded and ready to move.
  • A new Rubenstein Renovation website is in the works! Stay tuned for an announcement about this site, it will be a one-stop shop for all your renovation news needs.

What’s Next?

We are beginning the home stretch of our move preparation efforts. Materials are starting to be shipped over to the Library Service Center in small but consistent batches now that the Center’s 3rd module is nearly online.

The bulk of our materials will be moving in January and early February 2013. This will be a very busy time at the Rubenstein, so if you are planning on visiting us during this time, please contact us so we can plan ahead for your visit. Don’t forget that the reading room will actually be closed December 17, 2012 – January 6, 2013 so we can move the reading room and our offices over to our temporary location on the 3rd floor of Perkins library. We look forward to welcoming you to swing space on January 7, 2013!

Post contributed by Molly Bragg, Collections Move Coordinator in the Rubenstein Technical Services Dept.

News and Features, Publications

Introducing RL Magazine

As you can tell if you’ve been reading the Devil’s Tale, there is a lot going on at the Rubenstein Library.   Our new magazine, RL, gathers the highlights between two covers.  The first issue includes articles on the upcoming renovation, notable gifts and acquisitions, and new initiatives.  We’ve also included a list of upcoming events.  We invite you to read RL online [pdf, 2MB] or to pick up a copy next time you visit.  We welcome your feedback and suggestions.  The next issue will come out this winter, followed by two issues every year (summer and winter).

News and Features

Introducing our new registration and requesting system!

Today, the Rubenstein Library launched a new online registration and item requesting system!

Some of the exciting features of this new system:

  • No more paper forms! New researchers will register online and returning researchers will re-register in our new system. (Don’t worry: it’s quick & easy!)
  • Registration is shared with UNC’s Wilson Library, so you can register just once at either location!
  • Request your books and manuscripts directly through links in the library catalog, from anywhere: at home, in the office, or on a bus!
  • Manage your requests directly in your user account.
Account screen for the new registration and item requesting system.

The registration and item requesting system is called Aeon, and is used at several other special collections libraries. Once you’ve used it at Duke, you’ll be well prepared to use collections at Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Texas, and many other universities!

Please ask staff at the public service desk if you have any questions about using this new system. We’ll happily help you to register and request your materials.