Category Archives: Do Your Research

Do Your Research, From Our Collections, New Finding Aids, Technical Stuff

New Finding Aid: The South Asian Pamphlets Collection

Indian Handicrafts, July 1963
Indian Handicrafts, July 1963



The RBMSCL’s South Asian Pamphlets Collection (collection guide here) contains some 7500 pamphlets published in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka between 1920 and 2005.

These English-language publications were received by Duke University’s Perkins Library over four decades through the Library of Congress South Asia Cooperative Acquisition Program (SACAP).

The pamphlets cover such topics as agriculture, arts, economic development, education, industry and commerce, international relations, politics and government, religion and philosophy, rural development, tourism, and women. In particular, the pamphlets form an impressive body of primary sources on ethnic and political conflict, as well as the effects of wars, poverty, and mass education, and issues regarding Islam and other religious traditions.

Researchers wishing to use these pamphlets should note that the entire collection is stored in our off-site storage facility. Please contact the RBMSCL (special-collections(at)duke.edu) at least 24 hours before your visit so that we can request the pamphlets you’d like to see.

Do Your Research, News and Features

Congratulations to the 2009 Middlesworth Award Winners

The RBMSCL welcomed the start of Parents’ Weekend with a Friday afternoon reception honoring the winners of the 2009 Chester P. Middlesworth Awards. Given annually, the awards recognize the authors of the best undergraduate and graduate student papers based on research in the collections of the RBMSCL. Funding for the awards is provided by Chester P. Middlesworth (A.B., 1949) of Statesville, NC.

2009 Middlesworth Award winners Samuel Lee Iglesias and Martin Park Hunter
Undergraduate student winner Catherine L. Daniel delved into the papers of well-known Durhamites, including those of James and Benjamin Duke (collection guides here and here), for her study, “Black Hospitals as an Avenue for Social Change: A Narrative of the Life of a Segregated Institution in the New South: Lincoln Hospital, Durham, North Carolina.”

Undergraduate student winner Samuel Lee Iglesias studied the papers of Vanderbilt economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (collection guide here) for his paper, “The Miscommunications and Misunderstandings of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen.”

Graduate student winner Martin Park Hunter drew from a number of primary sources, including the United Methodist Church Records (collection guide here), for his paper, “The Names Have Not Changed: The Story of Caswell County Methodism.”

Just a reminder to all you Duke students busily scribbling away on term papers: you could be the next Middlesworth Award winner! Details about submitting your paper can be found here.

Bingham Center, Do Your Research, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, News and Features, Travel Grants

Now Accepting Travel Grant Applications

The RBMSCL is now accepting applications for our 2010-2011 travel grants. The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History will award up to $1,000 per recipient to fund travel and other expenses related to visiting the RBMSCL to use their collections. The grants are open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars living outside a 50-mile radius from Durham, NC.

More details—and the grant application—may be found here. Applications must be postmarked no later than January 29, 2010. Recipients will be announced in March 2010.