Among THE NEWSLETTER OF THEFriends FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY VOLUME 22 NUMBER 1 • SPRING/SUMMER 2009 Supporting Digital Scholarship ½ The Digital Collections at Brown ½ Brown History Goes Live ½ The Bopp Seminar Room Opens Jeffrey Schreck ’73 Chair From the University Librarian’s Office Linda Aro ’81, MA ’83 Vice-Chair Harriette Hemmasi Joukowsky Family University Librarian Honorary Directors Maurice Glicksman ScD ’97, P ’78 Redefining Libraries Martha S. Joukowsky ’58, P ’87 Chair Emerita and Learning Fraser Lang ’67, P ’04 Chair Emeritus cademic libraries are in a remain responsive to the changing John F. Mastroianni, Jr. ’71 state of transition –– needs of the campus’s teaching, Barbara Mosbacher ’45 A a transition that reflects learning, and research environment. Henry D. Sharpe, Jr. ’45, LLD ’70 Hon., changes in higher education and With the recent incorporation P ’77, P ’88, P ’MAT ’86 society at large. The primary catalyst of Brown’s Scholarly Technology Chair Emeritus for these changes is technology. Group and the Women Writer’s President Ruth Simmons Advances in technology have altered Project into the Library, our ability the face and ultimately the to support and explore new forms of Directors Board Board of Directors fundamentals of teaching, learning, scholarship has grown exponentially. Prof. Thomas Banchoff, P ’91 and research. How scholarship is Integral to the University’s academic Phoebe Simpson Bean ’94 generated, communicated, collected, mission, the Library has both the Alice H. R. H. Beckwith ’69 preserved, disseminated, interpreted, opportunity and responsibility to John Berylson ’75 manipulated and re-used are critical promote new scholarship and new Sophie Blistein ’41 concerns for both the academy and literacies without discarding the most Thomas Bryson ’72 the library. Technology has blurred fundamental –– reading and writing. Seth Dorsky ’03 the lines of responsibility and Literacy in the 21st century must be Jean Edwards ’45, P ’76 enabled the emergence of a global, multi-modal –– reflective of the Mary Ann Ehrlich P ’85 information-based society that relies complex fluidity between analog Jacqueline Friedman ’08 on a strong knowledge economy and digital knowledge resources, Prof. Abbott (Tom) Gleason ADE ’74 Hon. and a ubiquitous and sustainable traditional and non-traditional Herbert Iselin ’42, P ’79, P ’81 infrastructure. Rather than academic discourse, linear learning S.T. (Sunand Tryambak) Joshi ’80, MA ’82 diminishing or threatening the and interactive media, the data- Jon Land ’79 existence of libraries, technology has driven human mind and our limitless Brent Lang ’04 thus positioned us as key partners in imaginations. By embracing these Christy Law-Blanchard addressing the issues facing higher new literacies and becoming a place Bernicestine McLeod ’68, P ’99, P ’03 education. for production and processing as Ryan Roth ’05 The Brown University Library well as a place for distribution and Daniel Siegel ’57 seeks to strategically align its consumption of knowledge, the Fredi Solod ’50, P ’78 scholarly resources and services with Library enables members of the Dennis Stark the Plan for Academic Enrichment Brown community to learn in the Andrew Wendel ’85 and redesign its facilities into vibrant, language and dialect of their own Allison Whiting AM ’90 inviting learning spaces to meet the choice and expand their ability to Robert Wigod ’54, P ’84, P ’88 needs of students and faculty. As question, produce and reproduce Hon. Frank Williams the University’s trusted curator, knowledge in new and deeper ways, Richard Williamson ’65, P ’03 organizer, disseminator, preserver ultimately transforming the everyday Prof. Emeritus Don Wilmeth and mediator of carefully selected academic experiences and future of Constance Worthington ’68 scholarly resources, the Library will our students and faculty. Member Ex-Officio Edward Widmer Director and Librarian, John Carter Brown Library Harriette Hemmasi Staff Joukowsky Family University Librarian Jane Cabral Friends of the Library and Events Coordinator Cover: Select images from the digital collections at Brown University. 2 Among Friends Spring/Summer 2009 View from the Chair t came as a recent surprise to me Facebook? Among the reasons are as they do on personal profile pages. that Facebook has an increasingly that it is the best way to reach a These changes will make it easier for I grown-up side to it. In addition younger audience that is more likely nonprofits to have timely, responsive to Facebook’s role as a social to use such websites. Facebook also two-way exchanges with the people networking tool for teens and young allows nonprofits such as libraries they are trying to reach without adults, it has a growing role as a and museums to present digitized technical support or an undue networking site for nonprofits and information (recent additions to commitment of time. their supporters. Although there are collections or information about a many social networking sites, particular exhibit, for example), and Facebook appears to have gone the to interact with “friends” relatively furthest to reach mainstream easily and inexpensively. organizations and attract an Facebook has just introduced increasingly grown-up audience. new public profile pages that will Even the Friends of the Library have allow nonprofits to “share all types Jeffrey Schreck ’73 their own Facebook group. of content with an unlimited number Chair Why should the Brown Library of users” and allow all Facebook use a social networking site such as users to comment on posted material A Message from the Guest Editor first became involved with Lincoln’s writings and even Brown’s Center for Digital GoogleBooks, which has digitized I Initiatives in 2007, as a senior extensive material from the editor at the Brown Daily Herald. nineteenth century and earlier, I worked with CDI director Patrick enabled certain aspects of my research Yott on a project to digitize and that would have been otherwise make searchable the Herald’s entire impossible. It is hard to keep track archive, from 1891 forward. The of the variety of growing trends in project continues successfully to this digital scholarship, which makes the day, and I find myself poised at an navigation and oversight offered by exciting moment for libraries and our own Scholarly Technology scholarship as I look forward to my Group and the CDI so vital. Digital own future working in libraries. For scholarship opens up a new universe Anne Wootton ’08.5 my undergraduate thesis on Abraham of possibilities for libraries — one Guest Editor Lincoln, I worked extensively in the that I cannot wait to be a part of. archives of the John Hay Library. I am especially glad to have gotten Resources like an online archive of my start at the Brown Library. Spring/Summer 2009 Among Friends 3 Environmental History of Hispaniola John Hay Library, Lobby Gallery March 12 – April 30 Spring Events Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the land area of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Although both of these former colonies of France and Spain have faced socioeconomic hardships and political instability in their post-colonial period, they show a sharp contrast in the current state of their natural resources. This exhibition traces the environmental history of Hispaniola from pre-Columbian times to the present and explores the evolution of its natural resources by highlighting special collection materials from the John Hay and John Carter Brown Libraries, and museum objects from the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. Commemorating Aimé Césaire John Hay Library, Foyer and Reading Room Cases April 3 – April 30 Aimé Césaire was the foremost black French intellectual- statesman-writer of the 20th and 21st centuries. Co-founder of the négritude school of literature in the 1930s, parliamentarian to the National Assembly in Paris for nearly five decades, and author of 16 books, plays and poetry Exhibits Calendar collections, Césaire’s recent demise is understandably mourned by francophones throughout the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. But Aimé Césaire also inspired generations of American students, educators, and humanists who have read and pondered his inimitable poems and prose, whether in translation or the original. The exhibit is designed to offer the visitor a sense of the literary wealth and political possibilities that this extraordinary man created out of the culturally rich Samuel Bak but economically impoverished Martinique into which he was in Israel, 2008 born 95 years ago, and which he left, for the last time, on April 17, 2008. As lead-up to the Memorial Symposium hosted by the Watson An Evening with Samuel Bak Institute on April 17, a Commemorating Aimé Césaire exhibit will showcase the Brown Library’s collection of Césaire’s oeuvres Brown University Hillel, 80 Brown Street (corner of and works on the French Caribbean, along with other objets Angell and Brown Streets), Providence d’art and memorabilia (on loan from faculty) that are Monday, May 11, 2009, 7 p.m. reminiscent of Césaire and his native island. A display in the John Hay Library foyer will be dedicated to President Ruth Artist and Holocaust survivor Samuel Bak will be the Simmons, who explored The Poetic Language of Aimé Césaire speaker at the annual Mel and Cindy Yoken Cultural in her Ph. D. dissertation, completed at Harvard University Series lecture. Mr. Bak’s talk will focus on the story of in 1973. his life including his time in Paris and what it has The Origin of the Theory: Tracing Darwin’s brought to his existence, and the successive phases of his Evolutionary Thought development as an artist. He will show digital images John Hay Library, Lobby Gallery and speak about the nature and themes of his art. May 4 – June 30 In honor of the Darwin bicentennial, this exhibit at the Darwin, God and Design — John Hay Library will use the Library’s extensive holdings in the History of Science to place Darwin and his colleagues America’s Continuing Problems within the broader context of Victorian scientific endeavor.