The Doris Duke Collection Reimagined

Since August of 2009, when the Doris Duke Collection first opened for research, patrons using the collection have regularly shared with me two pieces of feedback. First is that there is no historical timeline capturing the major events in Doris Duke’s life that could provide context for the collection. The second is the challenge of navigating such a large and complex collection. Because the Doris Duke Collection is divided into smaller collections and the Rubenstein Library holds other collections that contain materials related to or about Doris Duke, discovering all the various parts can beguile even the most seasoned of researchers.

Acknowledging the merit of this feedback, staff from the Rubenstein Library, including me and Noah Huffman, the Archivist for Metadata and Encoding, teamed up with Application Developer, Will Sexton, Web Developer, Derrek Croney, and Digital Projects Developer, Sean Aery from the Duke University Libraries Digital Experience Services to create a “people portal” to the Doris Duke Collection.  The expectation is that this portal will both introduce you to Doris Duke and some of the wonderful materials within the collection, and assist you in effectively navigating the collection and therefore having greater success in finding the materials you’re looking for.

Screen-capture of the Interactive Timeline

The portal has four major features. The first is the interactive timeline, highlighting key events in Doris Duke’s life. By visually representing her life we hope to offer a quick glance to facts and information about Doris Duke. There are several really snazzy features to this timeline. You can scroll from event to event by clicking on the arrow to the right or the left, or if you’re interested in jumping around in the timeline, let’s say to see what Doris was up to in the 1940s, you can scroll the timeline bar below and select a specific year and associated event(s).

Screen-capture of the portal's Biographical History
Screen-capture of the portal's Doris-related collections list

The second feature is the Biographical History. This presents the events in a more linear fashion and not only offers an enticing sample of the material or materials in the collection related to that particular event, but guides you to the collections within the Doris Duke Collection that contain additional information about that event. The idea is to connect the physical materials in the collection to a more abstract event. So for example, if you want to see a selection of materials related to Doris Duke’s wedding to James Cromwell and their honeymoon, you can locate the event and then click through some materials related to that event. You can then select the “Sources” hyperlink. This shows the three collections that contain material(s) related to this event.

The third feature of this portal is perhaps the most exciting. To help you have a fuller research experience, we have included all the collections within the Rubenstein Library associated with Doris Duke, with a direct link to each of the finding aids. By scrolling down this list, you’ll not only see the various smaller Doris Duke collections, such as the papers associated with the Shangri La residence, but other collections within the library that contain materials about Doris Duke. These collections include the James B. Duke papers, since he was her father, and the Duke Endowment Archives, since she was a board member. This list will expand as we not only open additional materials in the Doris Duke Collection but also as we continue to find collections and resources in the library related to Doris Duke.

The final feature is a quiz to test your knowledge of Doris Duke. We wanted to provide an entertaining way to introduce newbies to Doris Duke and also test those who think they know everything about her. We think you’re in for some surprising revelations!

Screen-capture of the Doris Duke trivia quiz. (Answer: True.)

Since this people portal is the first of its kind, we welcome your feedback and any suggestions for improvement. Visit the live people portal here. If you want to learn more about the technology behind this portal, including the use of Encoded Archival Context (EAC), a newly adopted XML standard for encoding information about the creators of archival materials and the circumstances of record creation and use, see Will Sexton’s blog (with the most awesome title ever!) Engineering the Killer Rabbit: How We Represented a Timeline of Doris Duke’s Life in XML.

Post contributed by Mary Samouelian, Doris Duke Collection Archivist.

Tools for the Rubenstein Move: An Ode to Post-It Notes

Preparing the Rubenstein Library holdings for the move requires the coordination of different departments completing different sets of tasks, sometimes in a specific sequence.  For example, first our conservation team will go through a range of books and check their condition to see if they need any extra attention before moving. Next, our holdings management team comes through and looks for missing barcodes and checks the records of our titles.  Lastly, students and staff come through and load volumes into trays that are moving offsite. So, how do we coordinate and communicate the efforts of all these different groups?

Three words:  color-coded post-it notes.

Conservation has tended to flag their efforts with yellow notes, holdings management uses blue, and everyone uses hot pink as signal that something is 100% “ready to move.” In some parts of the stacks, yellow post-its are also used to signal a manuscript box that needs to be reviewed for padding. Also, book-traying teams use post-it notes to signal where they have left off on sealing Tyvek envelopes or duplicating barcodes in preparation for loading books into trays.

We have other tools for tracking more preparation efforts, such as spreadsheets and access databases. The post-it note system is just as effective as these more sophisticated tools. Post-it notes are easy to understand, easy to update, do not require the use of technology, and are easy to access by people in different departments. Although we really rely on technology to make this move happen, it is nice to know that we can also rely on good old-fashioned paper tools.

Plus our stacks are now very colorful, which makes for some lovely photos. Check out lots of pictures of the renovation on Flickr!

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

Fascinating Finds in the Stacks: Social Rules for Proper Ladies

While working on preparing print materials for the Rubenstein Library’s upcoming move, I came across a few books on American women’s etiquette. I glanced inside and found rules, rules, and more rules! Although the publication dates range from 1873-1924, the authors seemed to agree on specific social laws of conduct. For instance, one must never shout hello to an acquaintance across the street (“a certain sign of vulgarity”), and a lady should never have a man on each arm or vice versa (apparently, this is only done in Ireland). One of the books decreed never to join in a dance unless you skillfully know the steps. Otherwise, one will “bring disorder into the midst of pleasure!”

Books on etiquette for American women
Books on etiquette for American women
Decorum : a practical treatise on etiquette and dress of the best American society
Decorum: a practical treatise on etiquette and dress of the best American society, written in 1881 by John Ruth.
"A lady should never take the arms of two men, one being upon either side, nor should a man carry a woman upon each arm. The latter of these iniquities is practiced only in Ireland; the former perhaps in Kamtskatcha.
"A lady should never take the arms of two men, one being upon either side, nor should a man carry a woman upon each arm. The latter of these iniquities is practiced only in Ireland; the former perhaps in Kamtskatcha."
"Never hazard taking part in a quadrille, unless you know how to dance tolerably; for if you are a novice, or but little skilled, you would bring disorder into the midst of pleasure."
"Never hazard taking part in a quadrille, unless you know how to dance tolerably; for if you are a novice, or but little skilled, you would bring disorder into the midst of pleasure."

These social rules were listed under headings describing every instance of everyday life imaginable- dressing, eating, visiting relatives or friends, attending church, weddings, traveling, even how to not hurt a person’s feelings. It was very interesting to see how vastly different American society and culture were 100 years ago. We have our rules as well (whether followed or not), but nothing like these prim guidelines.

Cullen Cornett is a Holdings Management Assistant in Rubenstein Technical Services.

From the Rubenstein Wire

Doris Duke at Shangri-La, ca. 1960-65. From the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Historical Archives.

As we cruise into summer after another busy semester, here’s a rundown of some notable recent news stories about the Rubenstein Library:

New York’s Museum of Arts and Design is preparing an exhibition entitled “Doris Duke’s Shangri La: Architecture, Landscape, and Islamic Art,” according to GalleristNY.  The story features a beautiful photo from the Doris Duke Papers on the Shangri La Residence here in the Rubenstein. The exhibition is scheduled to open on September 7, 2012.

Two stories in the Durham Herald-Sun document the Rubenstein Library’s May 15 event to celebrate the publication of Reynolds Price’s final memoir, Midstream, and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of his first book, A Long and Happy Life.

The Raleigh News and Observer reported on Durham County Library’s Comics Fest.  Rubenstein Assistant Curator Will Hansen spoke about the Library’s comic book collections on a panel entitled “Comics Go to College” with colleagues from Duke and UNC.

The May/June issue of Duke Magazine features a piece on advertising pioneer David Ogilvy, whose career is documented in the Kenneth Roman Papers; an article about Princess Irene’s 1967 visit to Duke by University Archivist Valerie Gillispie; and a column on the American Family Robinson radio serial, rare acetate discs of which are preserved in the Randy Riddle Collection of Race Records and Radio Programs.

Look for more exciting news about the Rubenstein Library in the coming months!

In the Lab: Housing Papyri and Early Manuscripts

Two big rehousing projects have been underway in the conservation lab for several months now.  One, the papyrus project, has been mentioned in the conservation department’s own blog, Preservation Underground.

Duke’s papyri collection is one of the largest in the country with approximately 1400 items, each housed between sheets of glass.  Until now, those glass “sandwiches” have been loosely stored in boxes.  The conservation team is now making individual folders for them, made of mat board and padded with Volara (polyethylene foam), each clearly labeled for safer, easier access.

Once a month, everyone in the department joins in to make hundreds of these customized folders which will go into storage boxes to return to the stacks.  Such a big project is a logistical challenge, necessitating lists, spreadsheets, careful documentation, and also cooperation.  As a department, we are becoming a well-oiled papyrus-housing machine.

Papyri housings, before and after
Papyri housings, before and after
Papyrus item in its new folder
Papyrus item in its new folder

A similar logistical challenge has been the early manuscript housing project, of which the papyrus collection is a subset.  As well as books, the collection includes a wide variety of loose materials, from ancient Roman metal tablets, Ethiopic scrolls, pages from Greek Bibles, papal bulls, and oversized sheets from choral books.

Like the papyri, many of these flat items can go in our own customized mat board folders with either a paper pocket or a clear polyester sleeve.  But items that are oversized, three-dimensional, or particularly fragile have required special solutions.  Some examples can be seen below!

Group of Early Manuscripts
1. Breviary, French 15th century 2. Gospel of Mark, Greek 14th century 3. Roman diploma on bronze, A.D. 209 4. Persian illuminated manuscript page 5. Coptic homily, Egypt 6. Catherine de Medici letter
Housings for Early Manuscripts
Examples of housings for early manuscripts

Post contributed by Grace White, Conservator for Special Collections, as part of our ongoing “In the Conservation Lab” series.

 

Digitizing the LCRM: Update #1

Rencher Nicholas Harris was Durham’s first African-American city councilman as well as a member of the Board of Education and the Secretary for the Board of Directors of Lincoln Hospital. His papers, collected at the Rubenstein Library and now digitized, cover the scope of his civic efforts from public health to transit planning. For example, the document shown below is a budgetary analysis of Durham school cafeterias in 1959—and a prime example of how civic documents demonstrate racial realities.

Rencher Nicholas Harris Document
Click to enlarge.

At first glance, the document lists the budgets of all of the public school cafeterias in Durham, separated into white and “negro” categories. Examine the figures more closely and the depth of racism in the school segregation policy becomes clear. Compare, for example, the operation expenses of white Durham High and African-American Hillside High ($68,475.27 to $39,346.22, respectively). In addition, the white schools show a net income of $6,205.02 versus the net monetary loss of the African-American schools of $4,638.23. It is up to researchers to determine the full explanation and significance of these figures.

Fortunately, this document, along with a host of other records containing information on historic impetuses and efforts for civil equality in North Carolina, will soon become available online. Duke University Libraries’ Digital Production Center is currently participating in the Content, Context, and Capacity Project led by the Triangle Research Libraries Network (Duke, NC State, UNC, and NC Central).

This grant-funded initiative is designed to digitize selected manuscripts and photographs relating to the long civil rights movement. For more information on this project, including updates on the progress of digitization, please check out the CCC website. As part of the outreach efforts of the CCC Project, monthly blog posts to The Devil’s Tale will provide updates on the latest Rubenstein Library collections to be digitized for the project. Stay tuned!

Post contributed by Josh Hager, CCC Graduate Assistant.

Student Photographs Duke Construction

Charles Wesley Clay at Commencement, 1929One of the best parts about being the University Archivist is the unexpected treasure that sometimes arrives in the mail.

Recently, I received a small packet of photographs from the family of Charles Wesley Clay, a Methodist minister and alumnus from the classes of 1929 and 1932. Clay earned bachelor’s degrees from Trinity and Divinity, and he happened to be on campus from 1925 to 1932, during the heyday of construction on East and West campus.

This small collection of 42 snapshots includes Clay posing next to Duke buildings—some completed, some under construction—as well as shots of equipment, scaffolding, and snowfall on the as-yet unmanicured quads.

We have other construction photos taken by Duke’s construction company, but it is revealing to see the “student’s eye view” of what it was like to be at Duke in these early, exciting days.

Charles Wesley Clay at East Campus Union, 1927
Charles Wesley Clay in front of the East Campus Union in the spring of 1927.
Construction of Duke Stadium, 1929
Duke's football stadium (now known as Wallace Wade Stadium) under construction in 1929.
View of West Campus Construction, 1929
A view of West Campus from the Medical School in the fall of 1929. Note the railroad spur that brought Duke stone from Hillsborough directly to campus.

Check out the whole collection on Flickr!

The University Archives is interested in documenting student life through materials like photographs, diaries, and scrapbooks. Please contact us if you have items you would like to donate.

Post contributed by Val Gillispie, Duke University Archivist.

Reading and Celebrating the Works of Reynolds Price

Date: Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Gothic Reading Room, Rubenstein Library, Duke West Campus (map)
Contact: Will Hansen, (919) 660-5958 or william.hansen@duke.edu

To celebrate the publication of Reynolds Price’s final book, Midstream, as well as the fiftieth anniversary of his first book, A Long and Happy Life, the Libraries welcome a distinguished group of Price’s friends, family, and colleagues to discuss his life, work, and legacy.

Speakers include:

Rachel Davies WC’72 AM ’89, student and friend of Reynolds Price
Allan Gurganus, acclaimed author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and White People
Susan Moldow, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Scribner, and editor of many of Reynolds Price’s books
William Price T’63, former Director of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, and Reynolds Price’s brother

The event will include a display of materials from the Reynolds Price Papers in the Rubenstein Library, including early handwritten manuscripts of A Long and Happy Life, rare photographs and letters, and more.

Free and open to the public. A reception with refreshments will follow the program.

Co-sponsored by the Department of English.

A Home for our Dragons (and Ghosts, and Bunnies…)

One of my ongoing processing projects for the past year was to arrange and describe the Edwin and Terry Murray Collection of Role-Playing Games, a vast collection with thousands of books, boxed games, miniature pieces, card sets, magazines — all relating to the world of RPGs. Most of these items received individual attention. For example, each volume in the collection has been described at an item level, including its title, publisher, and year, to better help our patrons browse across the various game worlds and decades of RPG publishing. Users can download a spreadsheet from the finding aid and search and sort the materials to their heart’s content. Since these materials are all stored offsite, I also included each box or volume’s barcode to speed the recall of these materials to the reading room.

Cart of RPG books, ready to go offsite
Cart of RPG books, ready to go offsite

One of the best parts of working with RPGs was the fact that they contain such colorful and imaginative artwork. Even if I didn’t have any interest in playing the game, the covers of the many volumes or boxes easily grabbed my attention. Some of the highlights? For me, the movie-based games were always fun to find.

Who You Gonna Call? Ghostbusters!
Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters, of course.

I also enjoyed learning more about the many, many variants and knock-offs of Dungeons and Dragons — why reinvent the wheel when you can just change the words around a bit? But the funniest, in my opinion, were the games that clearly tried to reach new audiences — like these two games aimed at people who liked bunnies.

Wabbit Wampage RPG
Wabbit Wampage and Bunnies and Burrows: 2 different RPGs featuring scary smart rabbits.

You may remember our blog posts about the Rubenstein Game Night, celebrating the opening of the collection last winter. Since then, we received another very large addition, and we needed to work closely with our Conservation Department to figure out how to house the hundreds of hand-painted figurines and miniatures that arrived with the collection. I think they had as much fun as I did down in the lab. Check out this post from Preservation Underground to learn more about stabilizing and housing the tiny dragons and other creatures that make up the Miniatures, Props, and Pieces Series. And, be sure to view the photo essay on Flickr for detailed shots of the pretty and gruesome monsters in the collection.

Post contributed by Meghan Lyon, Accessioning Associate in the Technical Services Dept.

Peeking at Paris in 1841: The Private Journal of Thomas R. Spencer

There’s something satisfying about reading a journal, and I don’t think it has much to do with the fact that a lot of journals try to discourage readers from exploring their contents, either. Instead, what I think appeals to me about journals is the familiar and candid tone of an author writing to him or herself. It’s thrilling to feel like the secret confidante of someone whom you’ve never met. There’s a lot of honesty in a journal, and that honesty transcends time to resonate with people totally outside of the context of the author’s life.

I’ve been privileged to work with the History of Medicine Collection in the Rubenstein Library this semester, and in the course of my project came across the journals of a young American medical student living in Paris, France in the early 1840s. Before I had really been able to familiarize myself with the contents of the journals – barriers mainly being Spencer’s handwriting – I imagined that the writing would be fraught with tales of the revolutions and political upheaval that characterized French politics in the 19th Century. What I found instead, though, was a window into the daily life of a bright, detail-oriented young medical student living in beautiful and romantic Paris, France even before the iconic Eiffel Tower was built.

The first entry in the journal is almost 30 pages long and describes a tour of Parisian monuments. Spencer starts with a jaunt around the grounds of the Palais des Tuileries and ends with a visit to the Arche de Triomphe on the Champs Elysées. When I said detail oriented, I was referring to things like the fact that Spencer recorded in yards the length and breadth of the Palais des Tuileries and described the arrangement and structure of the gardens there, too. The level of attention to detail, while surprising for a modern reader like yours truly, is likely because outside of recording the dimensions himself, Spencer would not easily be able to either recall or discover that information elsewhere. Another thing to remember is that photography hadn’t been really popularized yet, though it existed. 1840 is approximately contemporary with the birth of the Daguerrotype, an early photographic process. In 1840, if you wanted to remember something, you had to take down the facts yourself.

Even though it’s hard to imagine a Paris without the Eiffel Tower, some things in Spencer’s journals make him really accessible. For example, I was happy to find that he had an appreciation for puns; Spencer hearteningly described a fête happening down by the river as the “Seine of the action.” I totally LOL’d in the reading room at Perkins for that one, but then I do love a good pun.

The tidbits that make Spencer seems so contemporary exist right alongside descriptions of things that make his experiences totally foreign. He writes about doing rounds with a physician and watching amputations. As you might imagine, the practice of surgery has changed rather a lot since 1840. From Spencer’s descriptions, amputation was a considerable part of a surgeon’s practice at that time. Spencer also describes a side-show that he saw in Paris in terms of the various medical ailments that were afflicting the performers. Spencer recorded his ideas about what was wrong with the four-legged man and the level of approximate curvature of the spine of a man with dwarfism. I thought it was fascinating to see these people through the lens of his medical training. The journals also hold some botanical specimens that Spencer collected during his time in France. One of them makes an appearance in the image posted here.

The History of Medicine Collection has another later manuscript by Thomas Spencer, too. We learn from it that upon his return to the United States, he took up practice as a pathologist in Philadelphia, PA. The records from Spencer’s practice are taken with the same careful attention to detail and in the same beautiful script as his journals.

The journals tell what Spencer saw. They are his carefully collected memories from the two years he spent based in Paris. His experiences, which are so different from our own, lay out the scope of history, but his personality, humor, and opinions make him seem like a peer.

Nathalie Baudrand was the History of Medicine Collections Intern for Spring 2012 and is a graduate student at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science.

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