Who’s Who in RBSC: Our Summer Student Employees

Summer is always an exciting time for the department. This is when we take advantage of hiring students who have more time in their schedules to work on some of our larger projects and to assist with other departmental needs.

When RBSC hires students, our intent is not just to have them do work for us. We also introduce them to our world—manuscripts, rare books, maps, broadsides, prints, posters, ephemera—teaching them skills that often complement their studies and that, in some instances, provide the foundation for better understanding the materials they are using in their own research. Sometimes we are even delighted to hear that spending the summer working in RSBC inspired them to consider either doing research based on special collections or pursuing a career in our profession.

Our students’ work, though, often goes unnoticed because it is hidden in the processed collection, the online finding aid, the reorganized collections. To highlight our students’ efforts to make these materials accessible to students, faculty, and visiting researchers, we’d like to feature them in this week’s post.

Thomson Guster, MFA in Creative Writing
I assisted George Rugg with creating finding aids for two collections of letters. The first is for letters received by Jack Pfefer, a Russian emigre to the U.S. who, from the 1930s to the 1960s worked as “New York’s foremost wrestling impressario,” managing and promoting professional wrestlers. He helped transition wrestling from something regarded as a sport (like boxing) to the more theatrical entertainment it has become today. The second finding aid is for a collection of American Civil War letters written by two brothers from North Carolina, William Lafayette Barrier and Rufus A. Barrier, to their father, Mathias Barrier, while they served in the Confederate Army. William Lafayette served in the 1st North Carolina Cavalry and Rufus served in the 8th North Carolina Infantry. Only Rufus survived the war.

This summer gave me an appreciation for the laborious process of organizing and making available special collections like these—how all this hard work, done incrementally and by many people over many years, ends up producing a quality database that will, hopefully, be used by researchers to come.

Arnaud Zimmern, Ph.D. English
I worked with Julie Tanaka to process two collections; one of French manuscripts and printed documents related to funerary practices and laws, the other of telegrams from the Havas French Press. For both, I organized and described the materials in the collections and then drafted EADs for them.

When I started this summer, I had never worked on archival collections, so I had to learn the basics of organizing and describing a collection. After ten weeks or so, I learned quite a bit about thinking like an archivist and about inhumation practices in Napoleonic-era France.

Halfway through the summer’s work, I could already tell that few things get me as excited as making sense of old documents and seeing a story unfold from otherwise inert tree pulp. I guess that confirms to me that I am an aspirant researcher, although I know I still have long strides to make in terms of developing stamina (sitting for long hours is not my favorite) and in terms of sharpening my curiosity and intuitions. For one, I have yet to really build up the habit of taking nothing in a document for granted. But conversely, I now know experientially what it means to let primary sources enter into your imagination and breathe for themselves, tell their story. To illustrate what I mean, the turning point in my work this summer was when it finally struck me that the burial practices that Napoleon established in 1805-1806, of which I was holding some of the foundational documents, were effectively identical to those in place at my grandmother’s burial a year and a half ago in Paris. Research is me-search, as the saying goes, but I never expected archiving to be me-archiving.

Kelly Koerwer, Senior, Program of Liberal Studies and Medieval Studies
I worked on the Patrick McCabe papers. McCabe is a contemporary Irish author who is best known for his novels, The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto, both of which were made into films. Under the guidance of Aedin Clements, the Irish Librarian, I sorted through the many boxes of papers McCabe sent the University. Among others, there were drafts and fragments of plays, poems, short stories, novels, and screen plays of his many works, both published and unpublished, as well as financial information and business and personal correspondences.

My summer in RBSC has provided valuable insight into the world of archiving. I began interning in RBSC because I am writing my thesis on the relationship between archiving and the creation and destruction of memory. By working in an archive, I learned that just as human memory can be selective, so can an archive’s memory. It is the duty of the archivist to provide as complete a picture as possible with the materials available. I loved working in RBSC, and I know that because of this experience, I am better equipped to understand the art of archiving.

Eve Wolynes, Ph.D. History
I assisted Dave Gura with reorganizing the collection of rare book vendors’ sales catalogs. This collection provides important documentation about book sales such as prices, provenance, vendors, and when a copy of a particular book was last on the market. In many cases, the catalogs provide the only documentation of the locations rare manuscripts are held in private collections and that would otherwise be untraceable. I helped assess the collection. I then organized the remaining sales catalogs. In addition, I assisted Dave with copyediting the incipit indices (index of the beginning words or line of Latin texts) for his forthcoming descriptive catalog of medieval manuscripts held at Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College.

The behind-the-scenes work was only a part of my summer in Special Collections. I also staffed the front desk where I was the first point of contact for visitors. I answered numerous questions about the department and its collections, registered researchers, and set them up to use materials in the reading room.

Nelia Martsinkiv, Ph.D. History
I worked with Ken Kinslow and Natasha Lyandres in Special Collections since November of 2015. This summer, I was able to continue some projects that I had started earlier. During the academic year I was able to work only for a couple of hours a week while this summer gave me the opportunity to concentrate on more comprehensive projects that will prove useful for my dissertation. In particular, I organized and described the papers of a notable Soviet dissident, Boris Tsukerman. These papers are of a great importance for scholars working within the field of human rights in modern Europe and Russia as they help to reveal the legalist dimension of the dissident movement at the time. Also I plan to work on the Tsukerman collection this fall, but this time for the purposes of my research paper. Outside of working on the Tsukerman Papers, I assisted with other minor projects. Specifically, I assisted in the cataloging efforts for the Natalia A. and Irina V. Roskina, the Eleonora P. Gomberg-Verzhbinskaia, and the Iiuliia Markovna Zhivova and Ivan Dmitrievich Rozhanskii papers.

Work at the Special Collections this summer gave me a broader perspective of what I can do after completing my dissertation. Specifically, sorting and cataloguing Tsukerman Papers revealed how some very important dissidents are understudied and therefore generally unknown in the academic world. This persuades me that outside of working with already catalogued collections, I have to pursue opportunities to acquire new and unsorted papers and make them known to scholars of human rights and political dissidence.

Elizabeth Kramer, JuniorAnimation major, University of Saint Francis, Fort Wayne, IN
Elizabeth, home for the summer from the University of Saint Francis, in Fort Wayne, IN, worked with Sara Weber on a number of digital imaging projects. For a project that was begun during the school year, she finished organizing and foldering materials in a collection of baseball sheet music and locating records in WorldCat for the materials that had them.  She entered this information into a Google doc so that this metadata could be imported when the digital collection is created in the fall, then scanned the pieces not in copyright. She also took digital photographs for other projects including the fall exhibit, Ingenious Exercises: Sports and the Printed Book in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800, the forthcoming digital exhibits on basketball and the Durand collection, and also a project underway pertaining to a collection of medieval manuscript fragments.

When asked about her experience working Notre Dame’s Special Collections, Elizabeth had this to say:

I enjoyed being able to work hands on with the rare books. I especially enjoyed the more decorative books and the ones with an abundance of old illustrations and prints. Hopefully I can incorporate what I’ve seen and worked with into my future work.

Recent Acquisition: An Irish Priest in 19th Century Rome

by Marsha Stevenson, Visual Arts Librarian

The Very Rev. Jeremiah Donovan, D.D., professor of Rhetoric at Maynooth College, travelled to Rome in the 1830s and resided there for nine years. He documented his observations and recounted his impressions in his four-volume Rome, Ancient and Modern and Its Environs, printed privately by Crispino Puccinelli in 1842-44. Enhancing the text are 62 copperplate engravings by Roman artist, Gaetano Cottafavi.

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The preface delineates the text’s arrangement as a “rapid historical sketch . . . with notices geological, statistical, political and religious,” followed by an admirably detailed description of the modern city’s “churches, palaces, museums, galleries, charitable institutions, hospitals, prisons, schools, colleges, universities, and other public establishments.” The work continues with “the antiquities ranged for the most part in chronological order” and “conducts the stranger through the environs of Rome” before concluding with a “copious and accurate index.”

Donovan emphasized his “personal observation and methodical description” and does not spare his subjects “unflinching but impartial criticism” even in light of Rome’s “transcendent and peculiar charms.”

 


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Summer Adventure: A Curator Attends the Western Archives Institute

WAI2016_GroupPhotoIn July, with support from Hesburgh Libraries, one of our curators attended the 30th annual Western Archives Institute (WAI) held at Santa Clara University (SCU) in Santa Clara, CA. Julie Tanaka was one of 26 participants who came from locations across the United States. Though many were from California, others flew in from Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, and Maine. The group spent over 80 hours in the classroom during the two-week institute learning the fundamentals of archives from Tom Wilsted, former Director of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut and principal faculty member for the 2016 WAI, and 10 other professional archivists from corporations, public libraries, universities, and government agencies.

Background

WAI is an intensive, two-week, residential institute co-sponsored by the California State Archives and the Society of California Archivists. The institute was founded in 1986 to fill an existing gap in archival training on the West Coast. Modeled on the National Archives and Records Administration’s Modern Archives Institute founded in 1945 and the Georgia Archives Institute founded in 1967, WAI distinguished itself by becoming the only program that trains both people who already have appointments as archivists and those who do not consider themselves to be archivists but who manage archival materials as part of their job.

Scope

The institute provides participants with intensive instruction in archival theory and practices. Sessions cover more than thirteen major topics including an introduction to the archival profession, managing an archives program, grant funding, and professional ethics. Some of the topics related to practice include records management, arrangement and description, preservation, photographs, and electronic records.

WAI gives participants the opportunity to observe a variety of archives in operation and to gain different perspectives from practicing archivists.

Site tours included the Computer History Museum Archives in Fremont, the Society of California Pioneers at the Presidio, and the Santa Clara University Archives.

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Computer History Museum Archives, Fremont, CA
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Society of California Pioneers, San Francisco, CA
A Typical Day

Each day began at 8:15 in the morning and ran to around 5:00 in the afternoon and was divided into two sessions. Because of the nature of the institute, many sessions devoted a significant portion to lectures in order to cover the required content. There were ample opportunities, however, to discuss particular questions people had, to seek advice from one another, and to share practices and ideas already in place at participants’ home institutions.

Some of the most memorable parts of the institute were sessions which featured a practicum. One practicum was devoted to arranging and describing a collection that contained correspondence, financial records, disciplinary records of a ship’s crew, and documents about individual crew members. Groups of five surveyed the collection and made decisions about how to arrange the collection before writing a preliminary description of its scope and contents.

Image of Treatment exampleAnother practicum was devoted to conservation. Participants had the opportunity to get hands-on experience doing some minor treatments such as flattening a crumpled document with a mist sprayer. Their finished treatments were then housed in polyester L-sleeves for storage.

After the second session concluded, the majority of participants who were staying on campus for the duration of the WAI had dinner together in the SCU’s dining commons. Conversations about the day’s sessions continued but often steered toward lighter topics and gave everyone the opportunity to decompress before heading back to the dorm to spend another 2-3 hours reading in preparation for the next day.

Take Aways

Two weeks of intensive archival training will not turn a newcomer into an archivist overnight, but this institute provides a solid foundation and the basic skills someone needs to work in and with archives. WAI provides participants first and foremost with an understanding of the profession, from the development of modern archives in France as a by-product of the French Revolution to the code of ethics that governs the profession.

WAI is an invaluable experience. The intensive, residential format encourages attendees to focus their attention on all things archival and to draw connections between policies, procedures, and practices. Participants all agreed that well-defined policies and procedures about the archives’ mission, collecting, access, use of materials, and preservation as well as for processing collections in a timely manner are critical to the professional integrity of an archives and help ensure equitable, high-quality, consistent services.

In addition to gaining knowledge of archival theory and practices, participants at WAI develop new friendships within the community of archivists. These connections form the beginning of a support network that will continue to grow and also serves as points of first contact to which the 2016 WAI participants may turn when questions arise and they need advice.

Recent Acquisition: Medieval Manuscript Facsimile

by Julia Schneider, Medieval Studies Librarian 

The Bamberg Apocalypse facsimile is an original-format copy of a manuscript commissioned by Otto III (980-1002 AD). After his untimely death, the manuscript was left unfinished in the scriptorium of the Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau in Southern Germany. His successor, Henry II (973-1024 AD) ordered it finished. Thus, the manuscript dates to 1000-1020.

Containing 106 leaves in total, the first fifty-seven leaves of the Bamberg Apocalypse (Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 140) contain the text and images of the Apocalypse of St. John from the Bible (a.k.a., Revelation). The remaining leaves of the manuscript include gospel pericopes (extracted readings) for specific feasts. There are a hundred decorated initials throughout the manuscript along with fifty-seven images, or miniatures, forty-nine of which provide striking visual interpretations of the prophecies contained in the Apocalypse concerning the end of the world and the final judgment, all with significant gold decoration.

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The image shown above, described in the facing text, depicts Apocalypse 12:1-5. The woman, who has brought forth a man child, is clothed with the sun and has the moon under her feet. The great dragon with its seven heads and ten horns looks on in the foreground. Though the text describes a red dragon, the image features a multi-colored dragon—red, gold, and purple. Standing in the background is the Church that houses the Ark of the Covenant.

There were many ornate apocalypses and apocalypse commentaries produced during the Middle Ages, and, while we do not own the manuscripts, Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections houses facsimiles of several in addition to this recently acquired version. Be sure to search “apocalypse” in our database of facsimiles for more information on these fascinating, illustrated manuscript facsimiles.

 

Upcoming Events: August and early September

Please join us for the following event being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:

Thursday, August 25 at 5:00pm | The Italian Research Seminar: “Sandro Botticelli on Facing in Dante’s Paradiso” – Heather Webb (Cambridge). Sponsored by Italian Studies at Notre Dame.

In other news, the July spotlight exhibit featuring a recently acquired Piranesi volume will soon be changed out for the August spotlight exhibit highlighting the Elisabeth Markstein Archive.

The spring and summer exhibit Vestigia Vaticana will remain on display through August 15. After that, the fall exhibit will be installed: Ingenious Exercises: Print and Physical Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800.

Watch for news about a new Fall semester spotlight exhibit soon!

Color Our Collections: Vatican and Piranesi exhibits

Today’s coloring sheets comes from items on display in two of our ongoing exhibits: Vestigia Vaticana and the July spotlight exhibit on a recent acquisition, three works of Piranesi. The Vatican exhibit is open through mid-August, while the Piranesi exhibit closes at the end of this week.

Enjoy, and if you have the time please come in and see the full exhibits!

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ColorOurCollections-Piranesi

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Summer Archives Workshop in RBSC

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Click for PDF.

This intensive workshop targets graduate students interested in conducting archival research. Participants will acquire a solid foundation in archival terminology, how to identify and use archives, and other fundamental skills.

The workshop will introduce best practices and some of the crucial cultural and practical differences between libraries and archives. It will also give attendees hands-on practice reading and transcribing different handwritings from various time periods, identifying important parts of manuscripts, and reading historical maps. We will also cover select participant-requested topics.

Monday-Friday, August 1-5, 2016
9 am-noon
Special Collections Seminar Room
(Hesburgh Library 103)

Register Online

Led by:
Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D.
U.S. History and American Studies Librarian

Julie Tanaka, Ph.D.
Curator, Special Collections and Western European History Librarian

Questions or requests? Please email either Rachel or Julie.

Recent Acquisition: Early Stalin era propaganda set

BOO_004394771-00aThe Hesburgh Libraries recently acquired a seven-volume illustrated set called Industriia Sotsializma (The Industry of Socialism). Designed by the famed El Lissitzky, this monumental work was published on the occasion of the Seventh Congress of Soviets, held in Moscow in February 1935. It represents one of the best examples of the early Stalin propaganda photo book.

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Lissitzky utilized contemporaneous state-of-the-art typographical and book design techniques to create and to glorify the official image of the new Soviet state by incorporating photomontage, overlays, peek-a-boo images, photo-collages, accordion foldouts, as well as colorful maps and graphs.

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One of a series of image sets in Volume 1 comparing the country before and after industrialization. This set of images highlights the transformation of small rural villages into industrial centers.
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An opening from Volume 3 showing the growth and progress of factories during the 1930s, highlighting the success of the five-year plan.

Lissitzky and his team were highly praised for the work, which underscored the triumph of the first five-year plan and the transformation of the old economy into the new industrial Soviet power led by Joseph Stalin.

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Three out of a series openings from Volume 6, using peek-a-boo cutouts to maintain images of Stalin and Lenin over many pages.

Reproducing Independence Day

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian

Vicksburg, Mississippi’s most famous Independence Day, July 4, 1863, marked the surrender of its Confederate forces to Union Major General U. S. Grant during the American Civil War. After a 47-day siege of the city, which sat atop a high bluff on the Mississippi River, Grant accepted a negotiated truce from Vicksburg’s Confederate Lt. General John C. Pemberton on July 3. He surrendered the next day. This victory marked a turning point in the war. The Confederacy lost control of the Mississippi River as well as access between the eastern Confederacy and the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy of Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. At nearly the same moment, Union forces defeated Confederates at Gettysburg, a loss for Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia that decisively checked Confederate encroachment northward.

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1863-07-02-VicksburgMS_Daily Citizen_bJ.M. Swords, publisher of the Vicksburg Daily Citizen, fled the city but left the July 2, 1863 edition partially finished on his press. Occupying Union soldiers completed it with an addendum dated July 4. Paper supplies in the besieged city, however, were long depleted so they printed the newspaper on what they had—wallpaper. Swords had earlier resorted to the same measure, creating so-called “wall-paper editions” on June 16, 18, 20, 27, 30, and July 2.

The last line of the July 4 note proved correct: the paper became a valuable curiosity. More than 30 reproductions have been identified, including this one. The Library of Congress holds two originals and two reproductions and offers guidance on identifying copies. Although of little monetary value, reproductions nevertheless are significant historical documents. They surfaced very soon after the war, probably as souvenirs at soldiers’ reunions.

Although many copies of its famous Fourth of July newspaper exist, after its defeat and surrender the city of Vicksburg did not officially celebrate Independence Day until 1945.

 


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Color Our Collections

Coloring books are everywhere these days it seems. Books stores. Craft stores. Museums and libraries. Libraries?

Yes, even libraries have been getting in on the current craze. Who are we to miss an opportunity to highlight some of the beautiful illustrations to be found in our collection?

Today’s coloring sheet comes from Jost Amman’s Kunnst- und Lehrbüchlein für die anfahenden Jungen (Book of Art and Instruction for Young People), published by Sigmund Feyerabend in German and Latin in 1578. If you’d like to see more of the illustrations from this book, it is featured in the “Society” showcase of the online exhibit After Gutenberg: Print, Books, and Knowledge in Germany through the Long Sixteenth Century. Or come visit us and ask to see the book in person — the call number is on the coloring page.

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