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Brown University Library Retrieves A Long Lost Sword

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For courage and gallantry - Detail from the Tiffany silver sword presented to Col. Rush Hawkins of the 9th New York Volunteers in May 1863. The sword, part of the AnnMary Brown Memorial established at Brown by Hawkins, was stolen from the University’s collections in 1977 or earlier.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia entered a judgment Tuesday, June 4, 2013, confirming that Brown University is the lawful owner of a Civil War-era silver Tiffany presentation sword — the Rush Hawkins sword — reported stolen from the University’s collections in 1977.

Col. Rush Hawkins led the 9th New York Volunteers — “Hawkins’ Zouaves” — during the first two years of the Civil War. Fifty prominent New Yorkers, including the governor and the mayor, recognized his service with a Tiffany silver presentation sword. The sword includes a figure of a Zouave carved into the grip and a list of the 9th New York Volunteers’ battles inscribed along the blade. It was presented to Hawkins in May 1863.

Hawkins went on to great financial success as a lawyer in New York City and became one of the world’s leading collectors of incunabula, early printed books. He had long-planned to build a library to house his impressive collections. After the death of his wife, Annmary Brown, the grand-daughter of Nicholas Brown, after whom the University is named, Hawkins wrote, “No words at my command are equal to the expression of my desolation and loneliness. Existence now is tolerable only because linked with sweet memories of the past.” He then re-conceived of this library as “The Annmary Brown Memorial,” a repository and crypt noting, “It is first of all a memorial to a woman of noble character. It is secondarily a collection of art treasures.”  Hawkins endowed the Memorial with his collection of incunabula, paintings, and artifacts of his Civil War service, including the Tiffany sword.

Today, the Annmary Brown Memorial‘s collections are an invaluable resource for scholars of Renaissance learning and for art dating from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century. The sword will return to Rhode Island this summer after 36 years away, during which time it resided in at least four private collections. Its journey home to Brown follows legal proceedings that lasted nearly two years and recovery efforts of more than two decades.

The Brown University Library is home to more than 6.8 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research, and learning needs of Brown students and faculty, as well as scholars from around the country and the world. http://library.brown.edu/

Brown University Library Joins HathiTrust Partnership

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hathitrustProvidence, RI [Brown University] – Brown University Library has become the newest member of HathiTrust (www.hathitrust.org), a partnership of major academic and research libraries collaborating in an extraordinary digital library initiative to preserve and provide access to the published record in digital form. Brown University Library will join HathiTrust as a sustaining partner.

Launched in 2008, HathiTrust has a growing membership currently comprising more than sixty partners. Over the last four years, the partners have contributed more than 10 million volumes to the digital library, digitized from their library collections through a number of means including Google and Internet Archive digitization and in-house initiatives. More than 3 million of the contributed volumes are in the public domain and freely available on the Web.HathiTrust serves a dual role. First, as a trusted repository it guarantees the long-term preservation of the materials it holds, providing the expert curation and consistent access long associated with research libraries. Second, as a service for partners and a public good, HathiTrust offers persistent access to the digital collections. This includes viewing, downloading, and searching access to public domain volumes, and searching access to volumes still in copyright. Specialized features are also available which facilitate access by persons with print disabilities, and allow users to gather subsets of the digital library into “collections” that can be searched and browsed.

Brown University Library looks forward to membership in HathiTrust as a means to sustain access to print works in an increasingly comprehensive digital archive of library materials converted from print that is co-owned and managed by academic institutions, provide online access to many print-only books currently held at Brown, and provide access to a wide array of scholarly resources beyond Brown’s current holdings.

HathiTrust was named for the Hindi word for elephant, hathi, symbolic of the qualities of memory, wisdom, and strength evoked by elephants, as well as the huge undertaking of congregating the digital collections of libraries in the United States and beyond. HathiTrust is funded by the partner libraries and governed by members of the libraries through an Executive Committee and a Strategic Advisory Board. http://www.hathitrust.org/.

The Brown University Library is home to more than 6.8 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research, and learning needs of Brown students and faculty, as well as scholars from around the country and the world. http://library.brown.edu/

Contact: Andrew Ashton | Andrew_Ashton@brown.edu | (401) 863-2669

This Year’s First Readings Book Has Been Announced

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This year’s First Readings book is Beautiful Souls by Eyal Press. Here are a few things of note about Beautiful Souls and the First Readings program.

  • The library has created a website as a part of the First Readings Program.
  • Beautiful Souls explores situations where ordinary people have gone out their way to resist authority in order to do the right thing.
  • Eyal Press, author of Beautiful Souls, is a Brown Alum.
  • Eyal Press will visit the campus in the fall to speak to the first-year students.
  • This is the First Readings program’s seventh year.
  • The First Readings program provides first-year and transfer students with a common reading experience that introduces them to the pleasures and rigors of academic life at Brown University.
  • First Readings is sponsored by the Dean of the College and Brown Alumni Association.
  • Make sure to check out the @firstreadings twitter feed for updates.

For more information about the author, the book, or the First Readings program visit the website.

Renovating the John Hay Library: 2013-2014

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John Hay Reading Room in its original grandeur.

A new exhibit will be on view for the month of June in the lobby cases of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, opposite circulation: “Renovating the John Hay Library: 2013-2014.” A more extensive version of the exhibit is also available online.

The John Hay Library, located at the crest of College Street opposite the Van Wickle gates, is one of Brown University’s historic landmarks. The Library was built in 1910 and served as Brown University’s main library from 1910 until 1964, when the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library opened. Today it houses the University’s Archives and Special Collections.

The current renovation of this historic landmark will include a refurbishment of the magnificent first floor reading room into an open, welcoming study space for students and restoring the size and grandeur of the original design. The area which formerly housed University Archives will be converted into a new state-of-the-art special collections reading room. In addition the first floor of the Hay will host a new exhibition gallery, student lounge, and consultation room. Plans include the development of handicapped access to the front of the building through the north side lawn.

This exhibit explores the evolution of the Library over the past one hundred years through a selection of materials ranging from archival photographs and drawings, to floor plans of the future Hay, scheduled for completion in Fall 2014.

For more information about the current renovation visit: Library.brown.edu/hayrenovation.

Models from “Introduction to Architectural Design” with Dietrich Neumann

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Instagrammed model from "Introduction to Architecture" exhibit on view at the Rock. The Library is now on instagram. You can follow us @brownuniversitylibrary.

A new exhibit is on view for summer 2013 in the tall cases of the Laura and David Finn Reading Room featuring student projects from Dietrich Neumann’s Spring 2013 course ”Introduction to Architectural Design.”

Over the semester, students learned basic concepts of space, materials, functions, structure, and light. After a number of initial exercises, each student designed a small house for an open space on East Street in Fox Point. Students responded to the plot’s geographic location and neighborhood.

Stop by if you’re on campus this summer to see more of these models.

The New Library Exhibits Page

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A new page has been created to help visitors learn about ongoing exhibits at the library.

Every semester the University Library is home to a variety of interesting exhibits. These exhibits are a great opportunity for visitors to see aspects of the library’s collection that might not otherwise be accessible.

The new exhibits page also has information about past exhibits in the rare situation that someone didn’t get a chance to view the exhibit while it was displayed.

 

Commencement Forum: James W. Head III, “Postcards from Other Planets”

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Providence, RI [Brown University] – Brown University Library will host a Commencement Forum in the new Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, on Saturday, May 25 at 9am. Professor James W. Head III will present “Postcards from Other Planets.”  Utilizing the Lab’s 7X16 foot high definition video wall, Professor Head will lead guests to the mountains of the Moon with Apollo 15, allowing them to see the invisible lunar interior with GRAIL spacecraft gravity data, cross the floor of Gale Crater on Mars with the Curiosity rover, and join Brown planetary geoscientists as they explore the Mars-like Antarctic Dry Valleys for months at a time.

Professor Head is the Louis and Elizabeth Scherck Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences. He came to Brown University in 1973, following his work with the NASA Apollo program. His current research centers on the processes that form and modify the surfaces, crusts and lithospheres of planets, how these processes vary with time, and how such processes interact to produce the historical record preserved on the planets. Since 1984, Dr. Head convenes the Vernadsky Institute/Brown University microsymposia, held twice yearly in Moscow and Houston. He is a co-investigator for the NASA MESSENGER mission to Mercury and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), as well as the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Mission. He has previously served as an investigator with NASA and Russian Space Missions, such as the Soviet Venera 15/16 and Phobos missions, and the US Magellan (Venus), Galileo (Jupiter), Mars Surveyor, Russian Mars 1996, and Space Shuttle missions.

This talk is free, open to the public, and morning refreshments will be provided. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis. The Digital Scholarship Lab is located on the first floor of the Rock.  Enter through the circulation gates, take your first right, and pass through the two glass doors into the Periodicals Reading Room.

The Brown University Library is home to more than 6.8 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research, and learning needs of Brown students and faculty, as well as scholars from around the country and the world.

Contact: Amy Atticks | Amy_Atticks@brown.edu | (401) 863-6913

 

“Digital Stories / Analog Brownies”: A Digital Storytelling Diversion

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – On Monday, May 13, from 4-6pm, join students from Tyler Denmead’s Digital Storytelling course in the Digital Scholarship Lab of the Rock for ”Digital Stories / Analog Brownies.” This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis.

What exactly is digital storytelling? Over the course of the Spring semester, students in Digital Storytelling have tried to answer this question while exploring the narrative possibilities of new media.  Because some things just can’t be digitized, this event will also feature brownies.

New digital tools have made it easy to create and share information with a wide audience. But these media – websites, digital shorts, even PowerPoint presentations – also have narrative potential that can reinforce or alter traditional storytelling formats. Students have explored these digital tools through a range of story structures, including place-based and non-linear stories. Works range from personal family history to an interpretive album of astronomical images.

To learn more, please check out the exhibit website http://digibrownies.weebly.com/ and look for #digistory on Twitter. And join us on May 13th! For a preview, check out this personal story from Public Humanities superstar Elon Cook: http://youtu.be/sknWXF-e4IE

Center for Public Humanities at Brown University fosters education, research, and public engagement initiatives to connect individuals and communities to art, history, and culture.

The Brown University Library is home to more than 6.8 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research, and learning needs of Brown students and faculty, as well as scholars from around the country and the world.

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Pizza Night

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Pizza Night is a very special night. It takes place twice a semester. People that enjoy books and eating pizza are encouraged to attend.

Schedule for Pizza Night
Tuesday, May 7: Pizza Night at the Friedman Center (SciLi) 9 p.m.
Wednesday, May 8: Pizza Night at the Rockefeller Library (1st Floor Lobby) 9 p.m.

P.S. As always, please eat responsibly. There will always be more pizza next year.