Graduating library student workers and their supervisors gather outside the Gothic Reading Room.

Every year, about 50 library student workers graduate from Duke. Many of them have worked for the Libraries their entire four years at Duke, and have made indispensable contributions to our mission. So this past Monday, April 22, University Librarian Deborah Jakubs thanked them by hosting a reception in their honor outside the Gothic Reading Room on the second floor of Rubenstein Library.

The Duke University Libraries employ more than 200 student workers. (That’s nearly as many people as our full-time staff!) Alumni who return for Reunion and Homecoming Weekends often tell us they worked in the Libraries as undergraduates and remember the experience fondly. Many even show their gratitude by contributing to the Libraries Annual Fund. As a token of her appreciation for their contributions to the Libraries’ success, Jakubs gave each student at the reception a lapel pin and writing pen, both featuring the Reading Blue Devil (the official Duke University Libraries mascot), and a complimentary one-year membership in the Friends of the Duke University Libraries. As Friends of the Libraries, they’ll receive our magazine twice a year, so they can keep up with our activities and achievements and the Rubenstein Library renovation project.

The students were invited to write on the wall outside the Gothic Reading Room and bid farewell to the Libraries.

Because the Rubenstein Library will soon undergo a complete renovation, students were encouraged to write farewell messages on the wall outside the Gothic Reading Room. Many of them bid farewell to their department. Some wrote notes of appreciation for their supervisors. Throughout the end of the academic year, all interested students are welcome to contribute to this homage to their time at Duke by adding a comment on the wall outside the Gothic Reading Room. If the Libraries have left a mark on you during your time here at Duke, let us know by leaving your mark on the library!

The post Student Workers Leave Their Mark on the Library appeared first on Duke University Libraries Blogs.

April 9-11: Please excuse our scaffolding here, and use the other staircase!

On April 9-11, the staircase on the right side of the 1928 tower entrance of Rubenstein Library will be closed while workers remove a tapestry above the steps. This will require some temporary scaffolding to be installed for a few days, during which time the staircase will be inaccessible.

The staircase on the left side of the entrance will remain open for use.

The tapestry is being removed in preparation for the upcoming Rubenstein Library renovation. For more information about the renovation, including architectural renderings and an estimated timeline, please visit our Rubenstein Library renovation website.

Say goodbye to the old tapestry! We’re removing it as part of the upcoming Rubenstein Library renovation. It has been on loan to us since 1986 from the Nasher Museum and will return to its proper home.

The post Scaffolding Installation in Library Stairway: April 9-11 appeared first on Duke University Libraries Blogs.

Construction work will begin in earnest in 2013 and continue through summer 2015. In the meantime, the Libraries are working to relocate special collection materials, services, and personnel to the 3rd floor of Perkins Library, which will become the temporary headquarters of the Rubenstein Library throughout the renovation. The move will be implemented in phases so that library operations and services can be maintained throughout the project, and so that classes and researchers can continue to work with special collections materials without interruption.

Books and library materials on the 3rd floor of Perkins Library are being relocated to Lower Level 2 in preparation for the Rubenstein Library renovation.

Books Move Out, Rubenstein Moves In

The first of those implementation phases starts next week. On Monday, June 11, movers will begin shifting books from the 3rd floor of Perkins Library to Perkins Lower Level 2. That work is scheduled to be completed by July 1, and the 3rd floor of Perkins Library will close to the public on July 5, as construction workers begin upfitting the space for the Rubenstein Library’s staff and collections.

One important caveat: Access to the study carrels on the 3rd floor of Perkins will continue and should not be affected. If you have a study carrel on that floor, you will still be able to get to it.

Collections on the Move

Because of space limitations, some special collections materials and general circulating collections that were previously housed on-site in the library are being moved to the off-site Library Service Center. However, these materials will still be available to faculty, students, and researchers throughout the course of the renovation. Nothing will be out of your reach.

Books and materials in the general collection can be easily retrieved from the Library Service Center by requesting them through the online catalog. If you have never requested something from the LSC, here’s a quick video that shows you how. (It typically takes less than 24 hours, and you can have materials delivered to the Duke library of your choice.)

Circulating books and materials held at the Library Service Center can be requested through the online catalog and are typically delivered in less than 24 hours.

Researchers interested in using special collection materials are encouraged to contact the Rubenstein Library in advance of their visit, so that materials can be retrieved for them. (See the Rubenstein Library Renovation FAQ for more information on requesting special collection materials during the renovation.)

At this time, the Rubenstein Library’s reading room and current space is scheduled to close on December 17, 2012, and reopen after winter break on the 3rd floor of Perkins Library on January 6, 2013.

Stay Tuned for More Renovation Updates

If you want keep up with the progress of the Rubenstein Library renovation, we have plenty of ways to keep you informed.

You can check back here for regular updates, or follow the Rubenstein Library’s blog, The Devil’s Tale.

You can like the Duke University Libraries and the Rubenstein Library on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

And you can check out photos of the renovation on our Flickr photostream.

The post Library Renovation Update: Third Floor of Perkins to Close July 5 appeared first on Duke University Libraries Blogs.

Student work, finished and in-process.

Student Workflows

Our students start out learning how to bind pamphlets, make simple enclosures, create CoLibri book jackets, make pockets and do simple repairs such as tip ins, cut pages, and binding musical scores. They also help with the tracking and physical moving of materials.

If the students have the abilities and interest they can  learn more complicated repairs and enclosures. These might include recasing or rebacking books, or making four-flap or corrugated clamshell boxes for fragile materials. We have had a couple students who stayed for several semesters and because they had the skills and interest, they were able to learn multiple conservation rebinding techniques and cloth-covered clamshell boxes.

Newspapers ready for boxing.

We currently have students helping specifically with renovation projects. These students are primarily getting the newspapers ready to go to the Library Service Center. This involves jogging brittle paper into place, fitting the bindings into pre-made boxes, and making spacers in the boxes so the brittle papers don’t shift around during transit. This is a very labor intensive, dirty and repetitive project but all of our students are working hard to meet our fast approaching deadline.

What We Look When Hiring Student Technicians

Most of our students are undergraduates, but every now and then we hire a graduate student. We of course like it if they have state or federal work study, but that isn’t a requirement. We prefer to get the right student with the right skills regardless of their funding. Occasionally we will get a UNC-SILS student who wants to intern with the department and we will work with them to develop a project that fulfills their school requirements but also helps us move our department forward.

There are basic job requirements that are listed in all of our positions including being able to use sharp instruments and large binding equipment safely, lifting heavy boxes and moving full book trucks, and being able to work in a potentially dusty or moldy environment.

Beyond that, what I look for when I interview students is the ability to learn quickly and be productive, to work independently but to know when to ask questions, and to have a good attitude and work well with a diverse staff. It is rare that we find students who have bookbinding experience, so I look for interests or past work history that involve eye-hand coordination and attention to detail. It might surprise you that gamers have very good eye-hand coordination, students with musical backgrounds are excellent at following instructions, and research science students are amazingly skilled at detail-oriented work. If you are a student, you don’t need to be a crafty person or an art major to work here. We can teach you the skills you need to be successful if you have the ability to learn the craft.

Let’s head over to Parks Library Preservation to read about their students.

Parks Library and Preservation Underground will be back next month with another riveting 1091 post. Thanks as always for reading, and be sure to click over to Parks Library Preservation to see what is happening in their lab today.

Clockwise from upper left: large phase boxes drying under bricks, ledger bindings being rehoused, the lab (everyone’s at lunch!), making four-flap boxes, Lilly Current Lit books getting CoLibri covers.

Bonus pic: Look what showed up in my mailbox! A wonderful, home-made pop-up note to thank me for some consultation I did for someone whose cat damaged some of their papers.

Can I use the word “squeeeee!” in a professional post?

Some of my favorite bindings in the ledger collection are the mechanical bindings. These bindings are feats of engineering, with metal components and moving parts! They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and styles.

This item from the Erwin Mills collection is notable for its size and mechanics. The text is laced through the side and then the yellow straps serve to hold the covers on. A tensioning system, built into the covers, allows the distance between the boards to expand or contract as additional text paper is added or removed. So neat!

This ledger from the Cannon Mill collection has a metal spine piece, as well as corduroy sides – an endearing and favorite covering in 19-20^th century ledgers. Many of the mechanical and account book bindings were trademarked and have manufacturing information pasted to the front pastedown, as shown in this item.

This will be one of a series of blog posts on some of the neat bindings we’ve discovered in the bound manuscripts. Our Conservation team has been going through the collection of over 6,000 ledgers, item by item, in an effort to prepare them for move to the Library Service Center as a part of the Enabling Project. As we wrap them up, we felt it would be nice to share some of the gems that we come across along the way.

The bound manuscripts derive from a number of different collections. Many of them have personal content, such as scrapbooks, daybooks and diaries. Most of them appear to be business records, account books, and ledgers. Even though this collection as a whole is in poor condition, it has been interesting to see how many bindings have been carefully preserved and repaired by their previous owners during their working life. A number of bindings with deteriorated leather covers have been covered in canvas wrappers, oftentimes with hand-stitching at the turn-ins.

Shown here are two bindings from a batch of about 30 items from the William Clark Grasty Papers(1788-1906). This collection of records documents “three generations of general merchants of Pittsylvania Co., Va. Business interests included a general store, a tavern, a blacksmith shop, a simplified type of banking, and the keeping of a post office.”

These early 19^th century bindings are notable because of their simple and beautiful handmade canvas covers. The text pages were sewn in by hand through the covers with a long-stitch sewing style. These items were likely considered essential to this business’s daily workings 200 years ago. Sadly, it is difficult to imagine a business keeping their records in a binding such as this today.

Stock ledger on the shelf.

As part of the enabling project we are working in our ledger collection to prepare these materials for the move. The Mooresville Mill manufactured cotton, wool, and synthetic fabrics in Mooresville, North Carolina, from the late 19th century to the mid-20th. When the company’s stocks were sold back, they were cancelled and glued onto the stubs bound into a ledger book. The stock certificates were also glued in, leaving the book with a fore edge 2-3 times the thickness of the spine. We started calling these ‘swirl books’ because of their exceptional shape. These items really seem more akin to sculpture than book bindings.

We consulted with the head of collection development in the Rubenstein Library and we agreed that treatment would be too time-consuming of an option before the move. We decided to house the swirl books as they were. Needless to say, these items posed unique shelving and housing challenges to us.

Our technician, Tedd Anderson, bravely met the challenge. For each ledger, Tedd created a wedge to accommodate the shape of the original so that they would fit  inside a custom phase box. They can now be shelved safely and are protected from further damage. These will go in our conservation treatment request database for future treatment.

A wedge compensates for the shape of the ledger.

Finished boxes on the shelf.

Erin is the project leader on these (pictured here with some of the ledgers). We are reviewing the condition of each ledger to determine whether it needs an enclosure to keep it safe during the move. Our options for enclosures include a Tyvek envelope, customizing a pre-made box, or making a custom enclosure or wrapper.

One of our favorite collections so far is the Sir Thomas Wardle Papers (fyi, William Morris collaborated with Sir Thomas!). These ledgers contain ink and pigment recipes as well as testing observations. One page in particular caught my attention for its cochineal information. You might recall that cochineal has been in the news lately.

This ledger is number F-6862, “Absorption Spectra of Indian Dyes, 1886, Leek, Staffordshire, England.” The binding was made by William Clemesha, Printer, Stationer, and Account Book Manufacturer.

This ledger is a prime example of what we mean when we say that in addition to the contents, the bindings themselves may contain valuable information. Not only do the binder’s tickets tell us something (who made it, where and when), but the way these are put together and the materials the binder used also tells us something about the manufacturing norms of the stationer, textile, leather and paper industries at a particular time and place.

I could go on and on about the treasures we are finding in our ledgers!  There are more images on Flickr, please take a look. You might also be interested in the Rubenstein Library’s images  and their blog posts about the renovation project. We are engaged on all fronts in preparing our collections for the upcoming move.

Our student assistants are reviewing each book to find broken or loose sewing, loose or detached boards or spines, detached pages, etc. If it has any of these things they put in an envelope or set it aside if it needs a custom enclosure because it is too heavy or big to fit in an envelope.

Jennifer, the project manager for this section, then goes through each section after the students have finished and looks for any missed items. She is moving the books that need boxing to a holding area so we can bring them down in manageable batches. Jennifer is also our registrar and supply manager, so she is pulling double duty these days as the enabling project is bringing so much work into the lab (thanks Jennifer!!).

We chose Tyvek envelopes because they are inexpensive, flexible, and can be easily sealed. Each envelope will have the item’s bar code and a label that says “return to conservation after use.” It will then be sealed so that the contents (and any loose parts) stay safe for the move.

We commonly use envelopes for items that need a minimum amount of protection or for items that have loose or missing parts that need to be kept together until we can repair them. When a book in an envelope is called for by a patron, the envelope is opened and the item sent to conservation after the patron is done with it. At that point we will review it for repair or a new enclosure.

See our web sites for more on Mr. Rubenstein’s gift to the library, current renovation news, and more images on Flickr.

First we must move the entire special collections library (collections and people) to make way for construction. It is no small feat to move a library and it involves not only Rubenstein staff but many people from across the library including Conservation Services. The project to prepare and move the collections is called the “Enabling Project.” Over the next year we thought we would share a little bit about what we are doing as Enablers.

Last fall conservation staff conducted several surveys of key stack areas that helped determine the human and budgetary resources needed to prepare the physical collections for the move. We have developed a timeline for major projects, assigned conservation staff members as project managers, and hired four students and one new technician to help with the work (more on our new technician soon). I’m keeping a list of “known knowns” as items are found in the stacks that will need our help before they move. I also have a list of “known and unknown unknowns” because the stacks are sometimes a mysterious place and things are lurking in corners that we know we will have to deal with at some point.

There is much more happening behind the scenes that won’t make it to the blog. Conservation staff is working very closely with Rubenstein staff to help ensure our collections are safely moved to swing space, and eventually moved back into the new space. I’d like to express a very hearty thank you to all the staff, students and volunteers in Conservation for their hard work. This will be an extraordinary year for us as we juggle the Enabling Project on top of our normal repair workflows. Our flexibility and patience will surely be tested over the next several months, but I know we have a strong team and we will get the job done. I am so proud of each and every one of you!

This week marked the final chapter of the Rubenstein Library relocation project of 2013, when the Library’s portrait collection was relocated from the Gothic Reading Room to the Rubenstein Library’s temporary space on the third floor of Perkins.   It was a poignant and, at moments, spirited end to a process that began many months ago.

The portrait collection has been with the Gothic since the very beginning. Upon the library’s opening in 1930, the well-known artist Douglas Chandor was commissioned to paint portraits of The Duke Endowment trustees, Mary Duke Biddle and Nanaline Duke, and the architect and builder of the campus, Horace Trumbauer. These portraits were completed between 1930 and 1932 and hung in the Gothic, then functioning as the library’s general reference room.  Over the years, portraits of the University’s founders and presidents were added, along with those of other notable figures in the University’s history.  By the time of our move, 32 auspicious figures awaited the careful attention of the professional art handlers we brought in for this assignment.

Because of the scale of the room, scaffolding was needed to even reach the pictures.  After that came rebacking the canvases, vacuuming the gilded frames, and replacing the hanging hardware.  Finally, the portraits were ready for their voyage across the library and to their new spots, all purposefully selected to allow for their safe storage during the time of the Gothic’s renovation. 

While most of them are now in staff-only spaces, visitors who wish to see a particular portrait can do so by contacting the Rubenstein Library to make an appointment. Portraits of Washington, James B., and Benjamin N. Duke are hanging outside the Rubenstein classroom, and are viewable during regular Rubenstein hours without an appointment.

One painting, however, did not go so quietly to storage—a life-size, full-body portrait of President Few. It took scaffolding, ladders, and five people to remove him from his long-time rest, and once on the ground it became immediately clear that the portrait is nearly a half foot taller than the ceilings on the third floor of Perkins, where he was headed.  An alternative spot was needed and quick!  Thanks to the University Librarian, a suitable location was soon found.  President Few now greets guests on the main floor of the Library, immediately behind the Perkins reference desk.  It is perhaps fitting that the visage of the man who presided over the Gothic Room’s opening in 1930 was the last and most dramatic to take his leave from this room.

Post contributed by Kat Stefko, Head of Technical Services, Rubenstein Library.

Well, it’s finally happened.  The 2,065 newspaper boxes and volumes and 8,526 pamphlets, books, and ledgers that could not move in January or February have finally been sent to the LSC. We also moved our framed art collection from the stacks to our swing space, where we have an ingenious new storage solution (stay tuned for further blog coverage on our art move). Now all of that work is complete, and with the exception of books and portraits in the Gothic Reading Room, our collections have officially moved out of the old stacks space.

Our last day in the 1928 stacks was Friday, April 26. We checked under the 1928 elevator and took one last look at every shelf on our 8 labyrinth-like levels to make sure we left nothing behind. And so now we say good-bye. While cleaning up the last of the collections I found this appropriate bit of graffiti on the stack walls. What a lovely way to bid our old stacks farewell. Goodnight 1928 stacks!

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

After a month of intensive activity, the largest and most complicated phase of the Rubenstein Library move wrapped up, and we bid farewell to William B. Meyer, our wonderful library movers, on Feb 12.  In the 24 days that these 15 movers were onsite they relocated more than 30,000 linear feet of rare books, manuscript collections, university archives, pamphlets, and other material to both our temporary library and the Library Service Center.

Our map cabinets in their new home

We are excited to report that we have a considerable amount of our collection up in our new home on the 3^rd floor of Perkins:

• 17,600 linear feet of books, manuscripts, university archives and other collections
• 39 map cabinets
• 4-volume, double-elephant edition of Audubon

The movers transported 836 large blue trucks of material to our offsite Library Service Center!

• The team at LSC has already ingested 148,727 items!  Thank you LSC team!!

Please note that due to the HUGE amount of material sent to LSC, some items are still being processed into their system.  As such, it may take longer than usual for some materials to be pulled..   Researchers are encouraged to contact the Rubenstein Library to confirm that their collections have arrived before coming to the reading room.  Please call the Rubenstein Library at 919.660.5822 or send us a message. Thank you to all our patrons, researchers, colleagues, friends and fans for their continued patience and support as we finalize the Rubenstein Library move!

But that’s not all!

Although one phase of the move is complete, there is still plenty of work and moving to be done between now and the start of the Rubenstein Library Renovation.  We are still prepping our newspaper collection for transport to LSC, and we still need to move the art collection, including the portraits in the Gothic Reading Room.  Stay tuned for more updates as we complete these projects.

Last but not least, you can always relive the exciting events from the last 6 weeks anytime on our blog:  http://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/tag/movediary/

Post contributed by Molly Bragg, Collection Move Coordinator.

The big game — UNC vs. Duke — may be tonight at Cameron, but we’ve been preparing for weeks with our school-colored Big Blues. Normally, we use these carts to transport library materials around the Triangle. Lately, these carts have been helping us get Rubenstein collections to the LSC as quickly as possible.

Rival library trucks battling it out during the move.

Although our move is wrapping up this week, we would like to remind researchers that materials may still be in transit and that delays in retrieving our collections may continue for the next few weeks as we ingest everything into the LSC. Please continue to contact Research Services as early as possible if you are planning a research visit to the Rubenstein Library so that we can be sure to have what you need on hand when you arrive.

One of the last (but not least!) collections to move during our Big Move was our set of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. The Rubenstein Library is fortunate to have a complete double elephant folio set, published between 1827 and 1838. Only 120 sets are known to exist. Our conservation staff was on hand yesterday as the movers carefully lifted and transported the very heavy Audubons to their temporary home. We’re looking forward to them being back on display after the renovation.

Birds of America folios in their cases in the Rare Book Room.

Safely storing the Birds of America until after the renovation.

Can’t wait until after the renovation to see these great books? The University of Pittsburgh has digitized them.

We have rounded the final turn and are in the homestretch of our collections move!  Consequently, we’re seeing a lot more of this:

Empty shelving in our former stacks.

And of this:

Folio volumes from the History of Medicine Collections, in their new shelf locations.

And a lot less of these!

Trays used to move and store our books. The need to put more and more of them together: almost gone!

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!

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 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.

(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.)