Week 4 is done!

We only have 2 weeks of moving left, thank goodness. We’re starting to see some results after all this hard work. We have been striving to send 3 full trucks to LSC everyday – that is 54-60 of these big blue carts per day!

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Big Blues on the way to the Library Service Center.

We are also almost totally done moving collections into swing space. This week, among other things, we moved the rest of our vault items. This was fun, since it meant we got to visit with our beloved Trent Collection of Whitmaniana as it traveled through the library to its new home.

Our Curator of Collections and some bound Walt Whitman manuscripts.
Our Curator of Collections and some bound Walt Whitman manuscripts.

The Lovers, the Dreamers, and the Rubenstein Movers

Hi Rubenstein Library move diary readers! We’re into Week 4 here at Rubenstein Library Move HQ. And one of the fun things about moving our collections out of our soon-to-be-renovated stacks has been marveling at the expanses of empty shelving. We have a lot of stuff!

Our stacks weren’t always, well, ours. A few decades ago, some of our floors were home to part of the Perkins Library’s circulating books collection and provided study space for lots and lots of undergraduates. As we’ve been preparing for the move, we’ve discovered many fine examples of library patron graffiti, some of which were pictured in a recent issue of Duke Magazine.

Now that our stacks are clearing out, it’s become easier to spot these pencilled masterpieces. Like the one shown below, which graces a second floor wall.

Kermit Graffiti from Rubenstein 2nd Floor Stacks

(And we will neither confirm nor deny that the voice in our head that squealed “KERMIEEEEEE!” was Miss Piggy’s. OK, we will confirm it.)

Week 3 is done!

We’re three weeks in to our move which means we’re halfway there! It does feel like we’ve reached a tipping point with the shelves in our new space feeling more full than our old space.  Here are some of our favorite that have made the move with us this week:

 

Sarah Dyer Zine Collection
Sarah Dyer Zine Collection

 

Portable ECG
The portable electrocardiograph from the History of Medicine Collections is indeed portable
Our collection of glass eyeballs, a perennial favorite from the History of Medicine Collections, has also made the move.
Our collection of glass eyeballs, a perennial favorite from the History of Medicine Collections, has also made the move.

 

Things We Will (Probably) Miss: Our Old Elevator

As the Rubenstein Library moves out of our space in original West Campus library building, it also means we won’t be using the 1928 elevator to carry us through all seven floors of the building anymore. Inside the Elevator While I could never decide if I found this elevator endearing or frightening, I think I’m going to miss its old school charms.   It has a heavy metal door and a brass gate that need to be opened and closed by hand, as well as instructions on how to use the button and the door and gate.

Instructions on how to operate elevator

If you want a chance to experience the thrills of Otis yourself, here’s a little video of a trip from the third floor up to the sixth floor in our former home.

Week 2 is done!

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Moving the bound-withs required a ladder. (Bound-withs are separately published pamphlets or titles, bound together into 1 book.)

We have made a lot of progress this week, moving everything from domestic advertisements from the Hartman Center to bound-withs to ledgers to more History of Medicine materials to our small manuscript collections. It’s time for another weekend. More updates next week!

Collections for a rainy day

The weather for the past week has been nothing but rain here in North Carolina. Just for fun, I looked up the January 17, 1862 entry in this diary from Philadelphia, and guess what I found?

January 17, 1862: Not very pleasant.
January 17, 1862: Not very pleasant.

January 17, 1862: Not very pleasant. (It was also “rainy and unpleasant” on January 18.) Perhaps this woman should have borrowed J. Walter Thompson’s umbrella, from the J. Walter Thompson Artifacts and Memorabilia collection.

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J. Walter Thompson’s umbrella.

Despite the rain, both of these collections safely made it to swing space today.

Carts galore

Things are rolling right along in Week 2 of the move. We’re working closely with the LSC as they ingest most of our books and manuscripts from the old stacks. At the same time, our fragile, oddly sized, and highly used collections are moving to swing space. This means we have lots of carts in motion.

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Folios waiting for shelving in swing space.
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Beautifully trayed books waiting to go to LSC.
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Well-padded carts getting loaded onto the movers’ truck.

Week 1 is done!

Rubenstein Library On the Move is off to a great start. Our new swing space is open for business and we’ve welcomed a dozen researchers to the new reading room.

We’ve also welcomed our movers, who have made excellent progress this week by packing up the Rare Book Room, moving almost all of our folios into swing space, and shipping over lots trays of books to LSC.

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Our new reading room has been busy this week.
New reading room desk (with our smiling happy faces!)
New reading room desk (with our smiling happy faces!)
The Biddle Rare Book Room is now empty of books.
The Biddle Rare Book Room is now empty of books.
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Our stacks in swing space are quickly filling up with folios!

We’re looking forward to a restful weekend before getting started with Week 2!

Firsts from the Collections Move

Welcome to the fourth installment of the photo diary of the Rubenstein Library’s move.  Like proud new parents, we present to you the firsts from this week of the collections move…

The first manuscript boxes moved into our new stacks.
The first manuscript boxes moved into our new stacks.
Holdings Assistant Carrie Mills, signing in for the first security shift of the collections move.
Holdings Assistant Carrie Mills, signing in for the first security shift of the collections move.

Helpful Links:

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