The Hartman Center houses a Vertical Files collection from Brouillard Communications, a division of the J. Walter Thompson Company advertising agency, with files on an extensive set of industry groups and individual companies. While processing this collection I came across this 1948 ad for Avondale Mills of Alabama. The ad celebrates graduates from an Avondale Negro School with a quote from Booker T. Washington (“Cast down your bucket where you are”) and encouragement to take advantage of the opportunities that education provides, whether in one of Avondale’s mills—the ad points out that 1 in 12 Avondale employees were African American, about 600 out of the 7,000 total workforce—or in any of a number of other professions. As a corporate public relations piece, it is effusively inspirational.
We tend to think of Birmingham as the epicenter of the civil rights movement, a place Dr. King once called the most segregated city in America, where racial oppression was at its harshest. Bull Connor, the bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church, King’s letter from jail there. History, however, is more complicated and more vexing. In 1897 Braxton Bragg Comer (who would serve as Governor of Alabama from 1907-1911) established a mill in the Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, not far from the city center. Comer’s vision, carried out and expanded by his sons and other family members, was to create an ideal Progressive-era mill village, complete with schools, hospitals and dairy farms to serve the employees. Avondale employed men and women (and also some children, which brought sharp criticism from child labor reformers), white and black, and offered profit sharing and retirement plans, medical care, living wages, affordable housing, even access to vacation properties in Florida. By the time this ad ran in the Saturday Evening Post, the company had expanded to several mills and 7,000 employees who, as the ad proclaims “participate in Avondale’s ‘Partnership-with-People’.”
This all sounds very much like contemporary progressive economic and social rhetoric, and the list of Avondale’s employee benefits would be appealing today. The following decades, of course, would see the collapse of the textile industry in the U.S. South as production moved overseas (the Avondale Mills would themselves close for good in 2006), but here in this ad is a remarkable testimony to a social experiment that combined progressive social welfare ambitions with company town paternalism.
Post contributed by Richard J. Collier, Technical Services Archivist, John. W. Hartman Center.
One of my most vivid memories of the Rubenstein Library is one of my first. Shortly after starting to work as a student assistant in the fall of 2011, I entered the dark, dusty labyrinth of the library’s old stacks and grabbed an item to reshelve. With great trepidation, I drew back both metal gates on the 1926 elevator, pushed the button for the fifth floor, and hoped that the creaky old machine would actually make it to our destination. Once I got out of the elevator and my pulse had returned to normal, I found the item’s home on the bottom of a row of shelves, set it back in its proper place, stood up, and found myself eye-to-label with the Stonewall Jackson Papers.
As a lifelong history nerd, I had known that I would enjoy working in the Rubenstein, but it was not until that moment that I realized exactly how cool the Rubenstein was, and what a great resource it is for the Duke community. That point was driven home even further when, as an undergraduate majoring in History and German, I used the Rubenstein frequently as a researcher. Knowing how important the Rubenstein is to researchers in a wide variety of fields made it all the more exciting to sign on as a Senior Move Assistant during the transition from our old space to the new.
In the two weeks since I started working full-time, I have been busy measuring volumes to help figure out where items are going to be stored in our new space, and “linking” bound-withs to help ensure that items which are physically bound together actually show up that way in the catalog. The move process is not simply moving items from point A to point B, and back to a refurbished point A. It is also an opportunity to improve and simplify many aspects of the library, and it is very exciting to be part of that process. Having worked and done research in both the old space and the temporary space, I can say that I am thrilled for the opening of the new Rubenstein Library. The move process is making a great campus resource even better, and I can’t wait to see the final result of the next few months of work!
Post contributed by Michael Kaelin (T ’15), Senior Move Assistant at the Rubenstein Library. Michael worked as a Student Assistant for four years. Originally from Wilton, CT, his interests include history and literature.
The Meet Our Staff series features Q&A interviews with Rubenstein staff members about their work and lives.
Craig Breaden joined the Rubenstein as our Audiovisual Archivist three years ago. Prior to his time at Duke, he spent seven years at the Russell Library at the University of Georgia. He has a BA and MA in history from Texas Christian University and Utah State University, respectively, and an MLS from UNC . He works on everything from small single-film collections to grant-funded preservation projects involving thousands of audiovisual items. He facilitates preservation work, provides access to obsolete formats, processes (inventory and catalog) collections, and functions as the go-to oral history guy.
Tell us about your academic background and interests.
I started out interested in frontier history particularly, and how popular images of the American West inform the way Americans think about themselves, their creation myths, the rest of the world. I’ve also had a lifelong love of music and a fascination with recorded audio and video. Our audiovisual heritage provides a different, animated view of the past, and can carry a unique emotional weight.
What led you to working in libraries?
I’d had some experience working in a special collections library while in college, but it took a long while for me to come to the profession. Some folks are late bloomers, I guess. After years of working in corporate atmospheres unrelated to my academic background, I’d come to the point where I wanted to start making a difference and make a living. It was the idea that work should mean something, make some kind of contribution to the society as a whole. There are of course all kinds of ways to do this, but I thought I should play to my strengths. I had a challenging and satisfying year of teaching 8th grade social studies, but knew that I could give more outside the classroom by focusing on what we might consider the raw materials of educators, those cultural heritage resources that give voice to the past. It so happened that one of the best library schools in the country (UNC-Chapel Hill) was just down the road, and I applied and fortunately got in. I decided to focus on my background and my interest in A/V, and while in school pursued audiovisual archiving as an emphasis of my library education. I owe a big debt to the Southern Folklife Collection and its director, Steve Weiss, in helping me on my way, and to the great librarians at the University of Georgia for giving me a shot.
How do you describe what you do to people you meet at a party? To fellow librarians and library staff?
I usually tell people I’m an archivist in Duke Special Collections. Sometimes that leads to further conversation, other times not. I think in general there’s a real disconnect, a misunderstanding about what history really is. It’s hard to say to most people that what we think of as history is what it is because of what we do in libraries and archives like the one here at Duke. Colleagues get it, but I think usually the best introduction for them is when they get a CD or tape or film as part of a collection and wonder, at the very basic level, what to do with it.
What does an average day look like for you?
One of the great things about my job is that there aren’t many average days, but most days hold some combination of digital preservation, inventorying collections, answering reference questions via email, figuring out how to run a film or a video or audio tape so that we know what’s on it, and advising colleagues on portions of their collections that hold AV. Then there are often questions related to policy creation and the changing landscape of digital preservation. And let’s not forget the meetings….
What do you like best about your job?
I like figuring out problems that fall into my domain of expertise. I do a ton of troubleshooting and tinkering to get AV to simply play back in a way that it can be accessed, and these nuts-and-bolts successes are always satisfying and really essential to what I do. I also enjoy meeting donors and getting to know the personalities behind the stuff, just as it’s always great to help a researcher plug into something they might not have been aware of. And of course my colleagues – every one of them brilliant in completely different ways.
Craig with the Rubenstein’s newest flatbed film editing suite, the Steenbeck
What might people find surprising about your job?
The amount of time spent with spreadsheets and on email. The first is part and parcel of what we do, that is, knowing what we have, the second is all about attempting to efficiently communicate (jury’s out on that, though). Pleasantly surprising is that amazingly smart colleagues have something interesting to show or talk about every day. Archives can be mind-blowing.
Do you have a favorite piece or collection at The Rubenstein? Why?
The H. Lee Waters Films for their big heart, the Frank Clyde Brown field recordings for all the secrets they hold in their wax cylinder and lacquer disc grooves (and that will soon be secret no longer), the home movie collections we have that tell a story beyond what’s happening onscreen, and all the fragile and forgotten bits of film and video that share our shelves equally and continue to have a voice.
Where can you be found when you’re not working?
With my kids, cooking, strumming a guitar (sometimes all three at once).
What book is on your nightstand/in your carryall right now?
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro; The Innkeeper’s Song by Peter S. Beagle; Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go by Laura Wagner; and Haiti: The Aftershocks of History by Laurent Dubois.
The Meet Our Staff series features Q&A interviews with Rubenstein staff members about their work and lives.
Directly following the completion of her master’s studies in information science, Liz Adams joined The Rubenstein in 2013 as the Stacks Manager. Since January, she has served as the Collection Move Coordinator. She holds two degrees from the University of Michigan, a BA in English and an MSI.
We know you’re officially the move coordinator–what’s your unofficial title at the Rubenstein?
I’m a bit of a “gal Friday” in my attempts to alternately harangue or kindly beseech people to move forward on projects because collections can’t move without everyone’s involvement. No one would listen to me if I just said “move this!”
Tell us about your academic background and interests.
In undergrad, I worked in a public library. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my English degree and I knew I didn’t want to teach, but I liked books. I especially liked how tight-knit everyone in the library was and how we worked together to help people find what they needed. I went straight to grad school from undergrad, during which time I worked at a special collections library. Broadly speaking, my professional interests surround the idea of access and creating better, more useful access points for researchers and staff members alike. I think this can be accomplished through physical means—making things as physically accessible as possible– which is how my current job fits into that goal.
How do you describe what you do to people you meet at a party? To fellow librarians and library staff?
The people I meet at a party are generally familiar with the big construction project that’s happening on West campus and the Rubenstein. I tell them it’s my job to move our materials from temporary swing space to a permanent location and to figure out all that encompasses: good, bad, and ugly.
For people who might not immediately understand why there’s a whole position dedicated to this task, I’d highlight just how much material we have in our collection. Much like when you’re moving from one house to another, you find more things requiring your attention at every turn (and realize how much stuff you own!). You have to decide what stays, what should move, and how you’re going to arrange things in a new space. No one likes moving and everyone else at The Rubenstein is so busy, there needs to be someone separate to help plot things out.
What does an average day look like for you?
It’s a lot of Excel! One of the big headings under the umbrella of the move is the reclassification of all of our materials. We’re going from a system of 125 legacy call numbers (some more intuitive than others!) to Library of Congress. Part of what I’m doing now is sorting through a list of our 280,000 print materials that have been reclassified. I figure out which of those things should move on-site after being housed off-site during the renovation and before we had all this space. I ask questions like, which materials are high-interest? Which materials are high-use?
What excites you about the move?
When I was the stacks manager, I saw the confusion experienced by our student workers when retrieving materials. At times, it really required a fine-toothed comb to find items. When the move is completed, everything will be in the same classification scheme and organized by size. Students and staff will hopefully be able to find materials more easily.
It’s also nice to think of moving into a brand new space that no one else has lived in. You get to really make your mark. In fact, you get to make the first mark, which as a competitive person, I love. I like to imagine that I’ll be the first person to walk in – my moon landing. Although I doubt it will be me!
What might people find surprising about your job?
I think my job is a lot of what people might expect. It’s a lot of organizing things, talking to people, and making sure things are done in a timely fashion.
Do you have a favorite piece or collection at The Rubenstein? Why?
I really like the Anna Schwartz collection. She was an economist who worked with Milton Friedman. It’s really interesting to see the personal and professional interplay of a female economist in the mid-twentieth century. She talks about comments made by a coworker and how she “took them to task” – you go Anna Schwartz!
Where can you be found when you’re not working?
I enjoy a good picture show at the Carolina theatre. I can be found eating my way through the Triangle. You might see me huffing and puffing while running, and I sometimes pretend to be a yogi.
What book is on your nightstand/in your carryall right now?
In my bag I have New Introduction to Bibliography by Philip Gaskell.
On my nightstand, of a totally different flavor, is The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos.
Interview conducted and edited by Katrina Martin, Library Assistant in Technical Services.
The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University has received a grant of $200,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support Voices of Change: Preserving and Presenting Radio Haiti. This two-year project, set to begin in July 2015, will preserve and make widely available the written- and spoken-word archives of Radio Haiti Inter, the country’s oracle of democracy from the late 1960s until its closure in 2003. The announcement of the award coincides with the fifteen year anniversary of the assassination of the station’s owner and Haiti’s most prominent journalist, Jean Dominique, and amidst continuing news coverage about the ongoing trial of his accused murderers.
Jean Dominique and Michèle Montas at Radio Haiti Inter, 1995
The Human Rights Archive at the Rubenstein Library received the archives of Radio Haiti in late 2013 as a gift from Michèle Montas, the station’s co-anchor and widow of Dominique. “To me, Duke University was the most welcoming environment for these unique archives, with knowledgeable teams of scholars and archivists able to preserve the past and help to use that recent past as a tool to re- imagine the future,” commented Montas about her decision to place the archives at Duke.
As evidenced in the more than 3,000 recordings and 70 linear feet of paper records comprising the collection, Radio Haiti distinguished itself from other media outlets in Haiti by covering not only events in Port-au-Prince but news from the rural areas of Haiti, including a grassroots democratic movement that eventually overthrew the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986. It was the first independent radio station in Haiti, and the first to broadcast in the language of the people, Haitian Creole, instead of the French spoken only by Haiti’s elite.
The collection is one of the most important and comprehensive resources available for studying and understanding the recent history of Haiti. Primary materials related to Haiti are relatively rare, and the archives of Radio Haiti are particularly distinct both for the depth and breadth of their coverage. According to Laurent Dubois, project advisor and Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke, “The Radio Haiti Archives represent a tremendous resource for scholars, educators, and the general public interested in culture and politics in Haiti from the late 1970s to the present. Under the leadership of Jean Dominique and Michèle Montas, the station served as a critical voice for reportage, debate, editorials, and news for several decades.” Access to these important primary materials will allow scholars to write the history of the country in nuanced and participatory ways.
As part of preparing the grant proposal, Library staff completed a pilot project cleaning and digitizing a selection of tapes from the Radio Haiti Archives.
Grant funding will support a full-time project archivist fluent in both Haitian Creole and French to oversee the arrangement, description, digitization and preservation of these materials. To support multilingual and international research, audio recordings will be described in French, Haitian Creole, and English, and will be made freely available online via Duke’s Digital Collections, the Digital Public Library of America, and the Digital Library of the Caribbean.
In order to promote easy access to these materials in Haiti, the Library will partner with the Forum for Scholars and Publics at Duke and FOKAL (La Fondation Connaissance et Liberté/Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète), a community organization in Haiti, to place digital copies of the recordings in libraries throughout Haiti. The team will also explore creating podcasts from the recordings to allow for easier access in regions with intermittent internet connectivity.
The Radio Haiti collection is a singular resource supporting a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the last 50 years’ of Haiti’s history. By preserving and making accessible these archives, Duke University Libraries seeks to advance the dialogue not only about Haiti’s past but also about its future.
Those interested in learning more about the archives of Radio Haiti are encouraged to visit the pilot site developed collaboratively between the Forum for Scholars and Publics and the Library at http://radiohaitilives.com/. This site includes access in Creole and English to all the recordings reformatted as part of the planning phase of the grant.
Post contributed by Kat Stefko, Head of Technical Services.
The Voices of Change project was made possible through a generous grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities.
Since August of 2014 I’ve had the pleasure of arranging and describing the papers of Reverend Jeanne Audrey Powers. In 1958, Rev. Powers became one of the first women to be ordained in the United Methodist Church, and in 1995, she publicly came out as a lesbian in her most famous sermon, “The Journey.” The reactions she faced as a result of coming out were mixed. Many, like the GCCUIC (General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns) supported her unswervingly, while others, most notably the Institute on Religion & Democracy, campaigned against her, hoping to force Powers into an early retirement.
Interchurch Center Chapel in New York City, 1980
Reverend Powers was involved in organizing the Re-Imagining Conference, the Minneapolis interfaith conference of clergy, laypeople, and feminist theologians that stirred controversy in U.S. mainline Protestant denominations. “Re-Imagining: A Global Theological Conference By Women: For Men and Women,” grew out of a response to the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women 1988–1998. The conference aimed to encourage churches to address injustices to women worldwide and promote equal partnership with men at all levels of religious life. Participants met at the Minneapolis Convention Center from November 4-7, 1993. It brought together 2,200 people, one third of them clergy, and most of them women. 83 men registered. Attendees represented 16 denominations, 27 countries, and 49 states.
From a card distributed by OLOC, Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. Taken by Lynn Carpenter Schelitzhe in 2001 when Powers was 69. There is a quote on the back of the card by Gloria Steinem that reads, “One day, an army of grey haired women may quietly take over earth.”
Jeanne Audrey Powers’ papers include planning materials, conference recordings (on cassette tapes, which I hadn’t seen for years!), and material documenting the backlash from the conference by opposing groups. These materials are set aside as their own series to facilitate use by researchers and other readers. The conference also garnered considerable attention from the mainstream media including this 1994 article in the New York Times about the conference and the controversy that erupted afterward.
Riverside Church, from part of a “pre-article” for People Magazine, 1980
Rev. Powers’ papers also document her extensive professional accomplishments and contributions as well as her personal history. Photographs from her childhood, stories about her family, and even two locks of hair can be found within the 98 boxes of material. The materials related to Rev. Powers’ activism, including her support for equal treatment for all persons in the church, are my favorite feature of the collection.
For example, the collection includes Rev. Powers’ files associated with the group, Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns. In 1984, in response to “unwelcoming policies toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons,” the group issued a call to local churches to “reaffirm that their ministry was open to all persons, including gays and lesbians.” The “Open the Doors” campaign was sponsored by the Reconciling Congregation group. The goal was to go to the United Methodist Church’s 1996 General Conference in Denver, Colorado to foster discussion around creating a more welcoming atmosphere in the church for lesbian and gay members. The campaign had a moderate level of success with several hundred people attending “Open the Doors” events at the General Conference. However, the UMC policies discriminating against gays and lesbians were not changed.
The Jeanne Audrey Powers Papers is a treasure trove of materials that I have greatly enjoyed processing. It’s hard to believe that they will be ready for researchers to use quite soon—an exciting prospect!
Rev. Powers in 2007, age 75
Post contributed by Rachel Sanders, Technical Services Intern for the Sallie Bingham Center.
Are you interested in painting but aren’t sure how to mix your colors? The Jennie Chambers Papers might be able to help. The Chambers family lived in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in the mid-nineteenth century. Jennie Chambers was an author and amateur artist who went on to write for Harper’s Magazine, publishing “What a School-Girl Saw of John Brown’s Raid” in 1902 (still available online today). Duke has held the Jennie Chambers Papers for several decades, but I recently revisited the collection to enhance its online description and update its housing to our current standards. Most of the papers are letters between Jennie and her family or drafts of Jennie’s writings. But I most enjoyed finding this kind-of-grimy paper that includes all of her notes about mixing paint colors. It looks like she frequently used these notes for her paintings. I love the spots of paint and the smears of oil that stain the page, and it was really fun to see what sorts of things she painted. For foliage, mix deep green, Prussian blue, and yellow ochre. Do you want to paint mahogany? Mix Indian red, vermillion, and Vandyke brown.
My archivist’s heart also loves that she signed and dated the page. The only thing missing from the collection are her actual paintings.
Post contributed by Meghan Lyon, Technical Services Archivist.
Post contributed by Matthew Farrell, Digital Records Archivist.
I can claim without controversy that the web is among the more popular avenues for communicating, publishing, and otherwise interacting with information. Although professionals involved in the creation of websites often have titles (engineer, web designer, information architect) that borrow the language of corollaries in the physical world, information on the web and how one experiences it is inherently ephemeral. Relics of the early web still extant online often owe their continued life to chance, such as the website for the 1996 film Space Jam or the long-thought-lost-until-a-copy-was-discovered-on-a-floppy-disk first website.
In order to preserve Duke’s web presence, in 2010 the University Archives partnered with Archive-It, a service of the Internet Archive, to take snapshots of various websites. In the five years since we have captured close to 500 Duke-related websites. Comparing a site’s evolution over time can be striking. This portal allows one to compare Duke homepages at different times. For example:
Duke University homepage, 2010
Duke University homepage, 2015
The following screencaps are for the Duke Chapel’s website.
Duke University Chapel homepage, 2010
Duke University Chapel homepage, 2015
While the above examples are changes that are, at least in part, cosmetic changes to information, capturing web content allows us to preserve and provide access to the social and intellectual conversations on campus. We have had success capturing Develle Dish in both DukeGroups and their more recent Sites.Duke iteration.
Because the Duke Fact Checker was not officially associated with the university, his blog went down after his passing in early 2014. Though its no longer available at its original URL, we were able to get annual captures of his commentary between 2012 and 2014.
All of this is great but was previously difficult to access without knowing how to use the system. As of February 2015, there are two easy ways to browse and search through the Duke Web Archives. First, the University Archives created a collection guide to the Duke-related websites. The 500 or so URLs are arranged loosely by organizational type and can be browsed here.
Because of the way the web is crawled, some sites may have been crawled that don’t appear in the collection guide. To help address this problem as well as provide another avenue into the collection, there is a search function provided by Archive-It and their Wayback Machine here. Using the Wayback search, one can search for any URL. If the site appears in our collection, even if only partially, the search will return it.
We are currently at work to address Social Media, so look for future posts around that subject.
Post contributed by Matthew Farrell, Digital Records Archivist.
When Angier B. Duke (1884-1923) and Mary L. Duke (Biddle) (1887-1960) were born, Trinity College was still plodding away in Randolph County, and the American Tobacco Company was just a twinkle in James B. Duke’s eye. Still, W. Duke, Sons, and Company, the family business founded by Washington Duke, was so successful that parents Benjamin N. and Sarah P. Duke could already afford to give their son and daughter a childhood that wildly exceeded that of previous generations in terms of comfort and education. The couple’s first son, George Washington Duke, died at about two or three years of age in the early 1880s. His life preceded the time span of most of the papers held by the Rubenstein Library, and only a few reminders of his brief existence can be found, such as the haunting note from Ken Roney, Ben’s uncle, following the death of Roney’s son: “You know and I know now, how hard it is to give up a promising son.” Given this tragic past, the couple’s second and third children were much doted upon by their parents.
Among the few remaining mementos of their childhoods in the Benjamin Duke papers, some of the most amusing are the letters the children wrote to their father when he was away on business in New York. A young Angier was full of demands—for a sword case, a pair of shoes, and a visit from “Uncle Buck”: “when he comes he must stay with us longer.”
In 1893 he also sent along his first school composition, an essay on Christopher Columbus (historical myths intact). Mary delighted in telling her father of her April Fools’ Day pranks:
“I have had a right good time April fooling people. I fooled Mrs. Robinson, and brother, and many other people. I don’t think you can fool anybody much up there.”
While the ties between the Duke family and Trinity College were obviously very strong (“Duke University,” need I say more?), it still seems extraordinary how closely connected Angier and Mary were with the campus community from a young age. A steady stream of professors were welcomed at the Duke home, including former presidents Crowell, Kilgo, Few, and many other names you might be able to pick off a university building in passing. Sarah P. Duke hosted literary societies such as the Shakespeare Club, and guest speakers also lodged at the Duke home. Angier and Mary’s private tutor was Arthur H. Meritt, whose day job was professor of Latin, German, and Greek.
Community events also drew together the Dukes and other Durham residents with the college faculty, including spelling bees and athletic matches. An 1896 letter from Angier to his father conveys his enthusiasm for an upcoming “kite-sailing” contest to be held by Professors Lockwood and Meritt. The same Professor Lockwood (physics and biology) used a nine-year old Mary, or rather four Mary’s, as the subject of one of his trick photograph experiments.
Mary L. Duke (Biddle)
When the time came for Angier and Mary to attend college—well, it’s safe to say that Carolina wasn’t on the table. By the time they began their respective terms at Trinity (Angier in 1901 and Mary in 1903), the siblings already had buildings named after them, built with funds from their father and grandfather. The Mary Duke Women’s Building was demolished long ago to make way for new dormitories, while the Angier B. Duke Gymnasium, better known by the nickname “The Ark,” still stands on Duke University’s East Campus.
While the siblings lived in New York after they graduated, they always maintained a connection to Durham and their alma mater. Angier served on the Trinity College Board of Trustees, was president of the Trinity Alumni Association, contributed to the construction of the first fraternity dwellings sanctioned by the college, and left a generous bequest in his will, which was executed after his untimely death in 1923. He and Mary both donated considerable sums to realize the completion of the Alumni Memorial Gymnasium, built in honor of the students and alumni who perished during World War I. Perhaps the greatest testaments to Mary Duke Biddle’s philanthropy are the Sarah P. Duke Gardens and her support of the arts through the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. Like their parents, uncle and grandfather, both Angier and Mary succeeded in leaving a mark on the institution that had truly become part of the family.
Post contributed by Mary Mellon, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Intern.
In April 2013, the Rubenstein Library acquired materials from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Intelligence Project. In its efforts to monitor hate and other extremist groups, the SPLC collected publications produced by these groups and individuals from about the 1940s to 2000s. Many of these groups can be described as aligning not just on the fringes, but outside of the political spectrum, including advocating white supremacy. However, some publications expressed views that just fell outside mainstream American politics.
When the collection arrived in 2013, Technical Services Archivist Meghan Lyon assessed the contents and concluded that various serial publications were housed across 90 record cartons of materials. Within these record cartons were also ephemeral and archival materials such as pamphlets, clippings, fliers, and correspondence. In considering the various formats present in the collection and the best possible descriptive outcomes, we decided to create two distinct workflows for processing the collection. The ephemeral material was processed as an archival collection. The serial publications were removed and cataloged separately by Serials Cataloger Mandy Hurt, allowing each title to be discoverable in the online catalog.
In planning for the cataloging of the serials publications, we had the opportunity to ensure the consistency of the metadata. Mandy included relevant political terms from the Rare Book and Manuscripts Section controlled vocabularies for genre terms and also applied standard geographical names from the Library of Congress geographical headings.
From the beginning we were interested in creating a visualization of the publications represented in the collection – mapping the type of literature and where it was published. After meeting with Angela Zoss from Data and Visualization Services at Duke University Libraries, we settled on using Tableau Public to map the collection. The resulting visualization can be viewed here.
Post contributed by Lauren Reno, Rare Materials Cataloger.
Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University
