A Tribute to a Jazz Legend

August 2, 2011 Amy McDonald 1 Comment

Last Tuesday, legendary jazz saxophonist, arranger, and composer Frank Foster died at the age of 82. The RBMSCL’s Jazz Archive holds Dr. Foster’s papers, which include handwritten scores of many of his compositions (including “Shiny Stockings,” written for the Count Basie Orchestra) and audio recordings of concerts. Several of our staff members had the good fortune to work closely with both Dr. Foster and his papers, and they have offered their thoughts on his passing and his legacy:

“When the Jazz Archive at Duke was first getting started, we were trying to build Duke’s holdings of manuscript big band arrangements—compositions that otherwise wouldn’t be widely available for study or performance. Frank Foster was an obvious person to reach out to, as he was one of the most significant composers and arrangers in the entire history of jazz. Through John Brown, I was able to reach out to Dr. Foster, and he generously donated the vast collection of materials that now comprise the Frank Foster Papers. Manuscript arrangements, audio and moving image recordings, photographs, and a large collection of personal papers—including drafts of his autobiography and other of Dr. Foster’s many prose writings—are now available for study and research. Although jazz has lost a phenomenal musician and a genuinely kind human being, I’m proud to know that the Frank Foster Papers at Duke University will help to ensure that his music and his legacy live on into the future.”

—Jeremy Smith, former Jazz Archivist for the RBMSCL

“My experience with the Frank Foster Papers involved listening to and digitizing cassette and open reel tapes of live concerts, interviews and lessons. These audio documents paint a picture of a man deeply committed to furthering America’s unique art form through performance, composition, and education. His legacy will be felt through his teaching of jazz improvisation and arrangement, and will be carried on by those he has touched.”

—Zeke Graves, Perkins Library Research Services Assistant

“The Duke community was enriched by its relationship with Frank Foster. The collection of his papers in the Jazz Archive will ensure that his presence continues to be felt here in the Triangle and that scholars and students in future generations will be able to study and learn from his work.”

—Naomi Nelson, Director of the RBMSCL

Additional Resources:

Obituaries for Frank Foster:
- Associated Press (from the Washington Post)
- National Public Radio
The Durham Herald-Sun‘s article about the Frank Foster Papers and the Duke Jazz Ensemble’s October 2010 concert featuring pieces arranged by Dr. Foster for the ensemble.

Just for Fun, RL Photos

A Well-Traveled Padlock

July 27, 2011 Amy McDonald

Here at the RBMSCL, we ask our researchers to put everything they won’t need for their research in lockers, and we present them with their very own padlock to use during their visit. (Other special collections libraries do this, too, as it helps to keep our unique materials safe and secure.)

Occasionally, a padlock doesn’t make it back to us at the end of a research visit—and we have extras, so we don’t fret. But a very kind and conscientious patron discovered one of our padlocks at the bottom of her bag upon her return to the United Kingdom and sent it all the way back to us here in Durham. Thanks, lovely patron, and come visit us again soon!

Thanks to Josh Larkin-Rowley, Research Services Assistant, and Rachel Ingold, Curator for the History of Medicine Collections, for suggesting this post and to Beth Doyle, Head of Conservation Services and editor of Preservation Underground, for taking the photograph!

From Our Collections, History of Medicine, News and Features

Medical Move Mondays: Home, Sweet Home

July 25, 2011 Amy McDonald 1 Comment

It’s the fifth and final week of our series on the History of Medicine Collections‘ move from the Medical Center Library on Duke’s medical campus to the RBMSCL on West Campus.

And the move, we are pleased to announce, is complete. Through a true team effort, including staff from the Medical Center Library & Archives, RBMSCL, and Perkins Library, the move happened smoothly. Professional movers handled most of the items from the collections, and transferred them with extreme care from the Medical Center Library to their new location.

With this relocation come expanded hours as RBMSCL has weekend and evening hours. Researchers will find opportunities to discover overlapping collections within RBMSCL as well. There are many collections that complement the History of Medicine’s holdings from 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, and Marketing History. Topics such as women’s health, minority health, medical advertising, and innovations in health care are represented in the collections held at RBMSCL.

No appointment is necessary and all are welcome, so please be sure to visit the History of Medicine Collections in its new home.

Post contributed by Rachel Ingold, Curator for the History of Medicine Collections.

From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library, Rare Books

10 Days, 10 New Acquisitions: Day Ten

July 22, 2011 Amy McDonald

Today, we’re wrapping up our celebration of the beginning of a new fiscal year with our last feature on one of the notable items that arrived here at the RBMSCL in the past year. Get ready for announcements of many more exciting acquisitions in 2011-2012! We’d like to thank Mark Zupan, the Libraries’ graphic designer, and everyone in the Digital Production Center for their help with the images for these posts.

Le Premier [Second] Volume des Plus Excellents Bastiments de France by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, 1576 and 1579.

A major document of Renaissance Europe, Androuet du Cerceau’s survey of French buildings includes nearly 150 engraved plates. In two volumes, 36 palaces, castles, and other major buildings are beautifully illustrated by detailed plans and views. In some cases, the buildings no longer stand or are now vastly different than they appeared in 16th-century France.

For more photos of our new acquisitions (and other materials from the RBMSCL’s collections), check out the “From the RBMSCL’s Collections” set on the Duke University Libraries’ Flickr photostream.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

Previous posts:

Bingham Center, From Our Collections, Instruction

Today is Zine Library Day!

July 21, 2011 Amy McDonald

And we’ve been celebrating by making zines!

Future rock stars at NC Girls Rock Camp made zine pages in a workshops led by Kelly Wooten, Tali Beesley, and Alex Krensky of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture; Erin Hammeke, conservator for Special Collections; and Rosemary Davis of the Duke University Archives. This is the fifth year our librarians have led zine workshops for NC Girls Rock Camp!

You can celebrate our anniversary and Zine Library Day by downloading the Bingham Center’s fun new mini-zine and making your own!

You’ll find more pictures from this year’s workshops—and past ones, too—at the Bingham Center’s Flickr photostream.

Learn more about Zine Library Day on this wiki.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.

Archive of Documentary Arts, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library, Rare Books

10 Days, 10 New Acquisitions: Day Nine

July 21, 2011 Amy McDonald

We’re celebrating the beginning of a new fiscal year by reviewing some notable items and collections that arrived here at the RBMSCL in the past year. Get ready for announcements of many more exciting acquisitions in 2011-2012!

Photographs of the Holy Land: Sinai and Palestine; Lower Egypt, Thebes, and the Pyramids; Upper Egypt and Ethiopia by Francis Frith, 1863.

In 1856-57, when the science and art of photography were still young and developing (pun intended), the Englishman Francis Frith traveled to the Middle East to photograph the great sites of antiquity. A work of monumental proportions and importance to the early history of documentary photography, Francis Frith’s Photographs of the Holy Land includes some of the earliest published photographic images of Jerusalem, as well as iconic views of Egypt’s monuments and ruins, some now lost or much more decayed. The 111 albumen photographs are mounted in three folio volumes, and the set acquired by Duke this year is notable for the fine condition of the photographs.

From the Archive of Documentary Arts.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

Previous posts:

Bingham Center, From Our Collections, Manuscripts, New at the Rubenstein Library, New Finding Aids

10 Days, 10 New Acquisitions: Day Eight

July 20, 2011 Amy McDonald

Brigid Brophy Collection, 1937-1953

Brigid Antonia Brophy, Lady Levey (1929-1995), was an English writer of novels, biographies, essays, and other works, and a major feminist and pacifist voice of the 1960s and beyond. She was greatly influenced by Freudian psychoanalytic theory, and this collection shows her engaging with Sigmund Freud’s texts: marking passages of interest to return to, jotting notes to capture moments of inspiration. In one volume she laid in an untitled manuscript on telepathy.

From the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

Previous posts:

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

10 Days, 10 New Acquisitions: Day Seven

July 19, 2011 Amy McDonald

Carpet Bag Rule in Florida: The Inside Workings of the Reconstruction of Civil Government in Florida After the Close of the Civil War by John Wallace, 1888

John Wallace (1842-1908) was born a slave in North Carolina, served in the Union army during the Civil War, and settled in Florida at the end of the war. He served in the Florida state House of Representatives and Senate during the Reconstruction era as a Republican, the longest political tenure of any black man in Florida; however, his book, published in 1888, is very critical of his fellow Republicans and Reconstruction rule. Doubts about Wallace’s authorship emerged quickly, both because of his race and his stance against the Republicans, but proof that the book is not by him remains unfound.

From the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

Previous posts:

Archive of Documentary Arts, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library

10 Days, 10 New Acquisitions: Day Six

July 18, 2011 Amy McDonald

“My Siberian Trip,” 1919 May-1920 August by Mildred E. Hoover.

Mildred Hoover was an American Red Cross nurse. Her photo album records two trips that Hoover took with Red Cross commissions, to Russia in May 1919 and Europe in February 1920, in 440 black-and-white photographs. While in Siberia, the commission worked at various camps and hospitals for the American Expeditionary forces, but Hoover included photographs of local inhabitants, soldiers of various countries, and provided rare images of a Russian submarine. During their travels in Europe, the commission stopped in London, Antwerp, Warsaw, Krakow, Switzerland, and Paris. There are also photos of Warsaw’s celebration of Poland’s victory over the Bolsheviks at the Battle of Warsaw.

From the Archive of Documentary Arts.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

Previous posts:

From Our Collections, History of Medicine

Medical Move Mondays: Lots of Blue Trucks

July 18, 2011 Amy McDonald

It’s week four of our series on the History of Medicine Collections‘ move from the Medical Center Library on Duke’s medical campus to the RBMSCL on West Campus.

Moving a collection in the midst of a North Carolina summer is tough. Without our shipping and receiving department, a good chunk of this move would not have been possible. Shipping has moved over forty of these heavy, blue, bulky trucks from the Medical Center Library to Smith Warehouse or the Library Service Center in a small van, along with many other bins and items.

Shipping and Receiving staff, with the help of others from the LSC, have really made so much possible. On top of moving over 8,000 circulating monographs and serials to Smith Warehouse, they’ve also moved over 5,000 items to the LSC. The items sent to Smith Warehouse were processed by the wonderful Technical Services staff and added to the circulating collection at Perkins. The items sent to LSC are now part of the RBMSCL collection. These include a large collection of sexuality books, as well as historical journals. These can be accessed via the catalog and requested by contacting RBMSCL.

For photos of the move from start to finish, visit the “HOM Collections Move” set on the Duke University Libraries’ Flickr photostream.

Next week: (New) home, sweet home!

Post contributed by Rachel Ingold, Curator for the History of Medicine Collections.

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