About Amy Atticks

Communications and Stewardship Specialist, Brown University Library

Brown University Celebrates the Return of Rush Hawkins’ Sword

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University]—On Thursday, November 7, 2013 at 3pm Brown University Library will host a celebration to welcome back Rush Hawkins’ Civil War-era silver Tiffany presentation sword to the Annmary Brown Memorial. The sword was stolen from the University’s collections in 1977, and is returning to the Memorial following a case in The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia which identified Brown University as the lawful owner. Curators, attorneys, and historians will discuss the social history of Hawkins’ sword, and its remarkable journey back to campus. The Higher Keys, Brown’s esteemed co-ed a cappella group, will perform. The Annmary Brown Memorial is located at 21 Brown Street in Providence, RI. This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

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: Courtney Coelho | 401-863-7287 | [email protected]

Fall 2013 Events and Exhibits at Brown University Library

Screen shot 2013-08-23 at 2.22.23 PMPROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] —Brown University Library is pleased to announce that our new schedule of events and exhibits for Fall 2013 is now ready! You can pick up a copy at any Library location starting next week. In the meantime, PDFs are available for download (Fall 2013 Events and Exhibits). Events and exhibits are also listed below.

Check back on the Library blog for updates and more information. You can also check the exhibitions page for updates on past, current, and upcoming exhibits, or sign up to subscribe to our new monthly e-newsletter.

* Members of the general public wishing to view exhibits at the Rockefeller Library
should first check in at the service desk.

The Shadow Over College Street: H. P. Lovecraft in Providence
August 19 – September 22, 2013
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library &
Philbrick Rare Book Room, Providence Athenaeum
Mounted in conjunction with NecronomiCon Providence, this collaborative exhibition explores Lovecraft’s youth in Providence and its role in shaping his career as a master craftsman of weird fiction.

Reading Love Medicine: Beads, Bark, and Books from Ojibwe Country
September 27 – October 24, 2013
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Join us in reading Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine for the 2013–2014 Big Read in Rhode Island, hosted by the Tomaquag Museum with support from Brown University. This exhibit draws on the collections of Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology to explore the stories that can be told about objects from Ojibwe country. The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

Performing in the Spirit:Strings, Drums, Feuges and Pans
Through September 30, 2013
Orwig Music Library
This exhibit explores the instruments and life of the Music Department’s ethnomusicological ensembles including Ghanaian Drumming, Brazilian Choro, Old-time American string, Sacred Harp singing, and Javanese gamelan. At Brown, students learn about performance orally from faculty, guest faculty, and peers while studying cultural origins of musical traditions.

“Made Not Born” Screening with Don Wilmeth and Professor Josiah S. Carberry
Friday, September 13, 2013 • 5:30 pm
Digital Scholarship Lab,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Who is Professor Josiah S. Carberry?! Who is he not?! Find out when the Professor and Friends of the Library Board member Don Wilmeth present the biographical documentary “Made Not Born: The Wife and Dimes of Professor Josiah S. Carberry,” in the Rock’s new Digital Scholarship Lab. Snacks from The Carberry Cookbook: From Nuts to Soup and discussion will follow. This event is free and open to the public. #josiahcarberry

Student Life at Brown
Through October 11, 2013
Lobby, Maddock Alumni Center
In a continuing effort to showcase student life at Brown University, the University Archives has created an exhibit of photographs and museum objects in the lobby of the Maddock Alumni Center. Since Brown University was founded in 1764, student life has undergone dramatic social, academic, cultural, and political changes. The exhibit provides a glimpse of student life through a variety of photographs, a fan and dance card from 1914, a mug from 1942, a freshman beanie from 1958, and a commemorative Faunce House mailbox.

Visually Inspiring Biology
October 17, 2013 • 7:00 pm
Digital Scholarship Lab,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Brown STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) is a student initiative focused on integrating artistic and scientific thought to nurture interdisciplinary and creative project-based education. For this second part of the Visually Inspiring Biology mini-series, Hay staff will present medical and botanical art-folios from the Library’s Special collections. A creativity workshop will follow. This event is free and open to the public.

Material Encounters in the Archive Symposium
Friday, October 25, 2013 • 2:00–5:30 pm
room 305, Pembroke Hall
Three interdisciplinary humanities scholars, Anjali Arondekar (Feminist Studies, University of California at Santa Cruz), Ariella Azoulay (Modern Culture and Media, Brown University), and Kate Eichhorn (Culture and Media Studies, The New School), will discuss how their engagement with archival objects has shaped their understanding of the potential, as well as the limits, of the archive as a site of knowledge production. An open discussion moderated by Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian, will follow. This symposium is hosted by the Feminist Theory Archives, a collaboration between the Brown University Library and the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women.

Paul Grant-Costa and Tobias Glaza,
Yale Indian Papers Project
Tuesday, October 29, 2013 • 5:30 pm
Digital Scholarship Lab,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Paul Grant-Costa and Tobias Glaza will discuss the Yale Indian Papers Project, which collates materials from partner institutions into a scholarly critical edition of New England Native American primary source materials. By providing annotated transcriptions, the project offers students, educators, researchers, Native American tribal members, and the general public, visual and intellectual access to significant historical knowledge for the purposes of teaching, scholarly analysis, and research. This event is free and open to the public.

Witnesses to a Remote Past
October 31 – November 22, 2013
Annmary Brown Memorial
In celebration of two conferences, Late Literature in the Sixth Century: East and West and the annual New England Medieval Conference, and in memory David A. Warner, a beloved colleague and professor of history at RISD, the Library will present an exhibition of materials from the University’s Medieval manuscript collections. The Memorial is open to the public Monday through Friday from 1:00–5:00 pm during the academic year.

Flatland and Abbott
November 1 – November 29, 2013
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library*
Professor Tom Bancroft will curate this exhibit in celebration of the 175th anniversary of the birth of Edwin Abbott, the author of Flatland, the classic introduction to Exploring the Fourth Dimension. Pre-publication first and second editions signed by the author, as well as translations into seventeen languages, will be on display from the John Hay Library’s Special Collections.

The Return of Rush Hawkins’ Sword!
November 7, 2013 • 3:00 pm
Annmary Brown Memorial
Join the University Library as we celebrate the return of Rush Hawkins’ Civil War-era silver Tiffany presentation sword to the Annmary Brown Memorial, the resting place of Rush Hawkins and his wife, Annmary Brown. Curators, attorneys, and historians will talk about Rush Hawkins, the social history of his sword, and its remarkable journey back to campus. The Higher Keys, Brown’s oldest co-ed a cappella group, will perform. This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Flatland and Abbott
Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2013 • 5:30 pm
Digital Scholarship Lab,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Tom Banchoff, Brown Professor of Mathematics, will discuss his research on the fourth dimension, including his biography of Edwin Abbott Abbott, The Man Who Wrote ‘Flatland.’ Banchoff’s research includes the geometry and topology of smooth and polyhedral surfaces as well as development and dissemination of internet-based courseware for communication and visualization in undergraduate mathematics. This event
is free and open to the public.

Digital Public Library of America Talk
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 • 6:00 pm
John Nicholas Brown Center for Public
Humanities and Cultural Heritage
Lecture Room, Nightingale Brown House,
357 Benefit Street, rear entrance
For this program, co-sponsored by the Center for Public Humanities, the John Carter Brown Library, and the Brown University Library, Dan Cohen, Director, DPLA, will speak about the Digital Public Library of America.

The Art of Illusion: Selections from the H. Adrian Smith Collection of Conjuring and Magicana
December 5, 2013 – March 26, 2014
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library*
H. Adrian Smith, Brown class of 1930, assembled during his lifetime one of the finest private collections of magic books, manuscripts, and ephemera. The exhibit will feature Smith’s rich collections on conjuring, bequeathed to the University upon his death in 1992.

Dresden and Nymphenburg
Porcelains from the
Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection
December 5, 2013 – March 26, 2014
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library*
While John Nicholas Brown was working with the allied forces in Germany in 1945 reporting on stolen art works, he visited the factory at Nymphenburg in Bavaria and ordered 21 porcelain figures for his wife, Anne S. K. Brown. Subsequent additions to this set came from the Dresden porcelain factory. Today these porcelains form a unique segment of the foremost American collection devoted to the history and iconography of
soldiers and soldiering.

An Evening with 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Ayad Akhtar ’91
Monday, December 9, 2013 • 7:00 pm
Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center
Join Brown University Library and Friends of the Library for the 10th Annual Don Wilmeth Endowed Lectureship in American Theatre featuring renowned American writer and actor, Ayad Akhtar. Akhtar, Brown class of 1991, majored in theater and earned his masters in directing from Columbia University. Akhtar published his first novel, American Dervish, in 2012, and is currently working on his second novel. In 2013, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Disgraced. This event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

Josiah Carberry Cooking Demonstration & Cookbook Signing
Friday, December 13, 2013 • 3:00 pm
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Perhaps there will be chocolate chicken! Perhaps fried dandelions or Oysters Rockefeller Library! Come see a cooking demonstration and try free snacks from the Carberry Cookbook. Cookbooks will be for sale and Carberry may or may not be around to sign them! This event is free and open to the public. #josiahcarberry

Announcing a Semester of Carberry Celebrations!

Josiah S. Carberry at the foot of the John Hay Library staircase.

Josiah S. Carberry at the foot of the John Hay Library staircase.

”Never before has anyone so well captured who Josiah S. Carberry is and who he is not” – Truman Grayson on Made Not Born: The Wife and Dimes of Professor Josiah S. Carberry

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Brown University Library is excited to announce that this semester the University’s best known, least seen Professor, Josiah S. Carberry, will be researching in New England and that he might or might not visit campus every Carberry Day!

Professor Josiah S. Carberry, called by the New York Times “The World’s Greatest Traveler,” has been a member of the Brown Faculty since 1929, specializing in the field of psycho-ceramics (translated as “cracked pots”).  Since 1955, at the request of an anonymous donor, the University Library has collected gifts toward the Josiah S. Carberry Fund in memory of Josiah’s future late wife, to purchase “such books as Professor Carberry might or might not approve of.” Every Friday the 13th (Carberry Day) friends of the University deposit their loose change in cracked pots to augment the fund

We hope that you can attend the below Carberry events, and that Carberry can too:

Josiah Carberry Society Luncheon
On Friday the Thirteenth of September, the Josiah Carberry Society will host a luncheon in the Professor’s honor at the Brown University Faculty Club. The buffet will include foods from the Carberry Cookbook: From Nuts to Soup and a short program about the making of Made Not Born: The Wife and Dimes of Professor Josiah S. Carberry. The cost will be $26.62; checks made out to Brown University, and sent to Box A, Providence, RI  02912, will reserve your place. 

Screening of Made Not Born & Reception
And later that evening (Friday the Thirteenth of September) at 5:30pm, find out who Professor Josiah S. Carberry is and who he is not, when Friends of the Library Board member Don Wilmeth presents the biographical documentary “Made Not Born: The Wife and Dimes of Professor Josiah S. Carberry,” in the Rock’s new Digital Scholarship Lab. Snacks from The Carberry Cookbook: From Nuts to Soup and discussion will follow.  This event is free and open to the public.

Carberry Cookbook Sale, Signing, and Demonstration
On Friday the Thirteenth of December, at 3pm, Connie Worthington, Carberry Cookbook editor and member of the Carberry Fund Half-Cohort will host a Carberry Cookbook sale, signing, and cooking demonstration (with free food!) in the Laura and David Finn Reading Room at the Rock. Perhaps there will be chocolate chicken! Perhaps fried dandelions or Oysters Rockefeller Library! Perhaps there will not! Come see staff from Brown Faculty Club to find out!

Carberry Society Dinner
And later that evening (Friday the Thirteenth of December), a dinner in the professor’s honor, hosted by the Carberry Society and the Friends of the Library, will be held at the Brown University Faculty Club (cost $40).  To reserve a seat or a table, contact [email protected]  Cash bar at 6; dinner at 7; a talk “The philately of Ionian Revetments” may or may not follow.

#JosiahCarberry
As part of this momentous semester of events, every Friday this fall the Library will share materials from the Carberry Archive and Carberry Cookbook recipes. Check the Library’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for Carberry treasures. And, if you spot the Professor in his travels, or find traces of what might or might not show he’s been somewhere, please share on Instagram using #JosiahCarberry with an explanation! A repository will be viewable at Library.brown.edu/josiahcarberry.

The Turkey Carberry!
In anticipation of the Carberry Celebrations – Josiah’s Dining Hall has also crafted a new menu item.  The Turkey Carberry is two 5.5 oz grilled turkey burgers on a bulkie roll.  Enjoy this with all the fixings including the new complimentary sauce, cranberry, honey, and sage. This yearlong celebration is only $6.70 and includes fries and a fountain drink.

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: Jennifer Braga |  401-863-6913

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Brown University, National Archives and Records Administration, and National Archive of Brazil Forge Partnership

The group meets with Professor James N. Green in Washington, D.C. at the National Archives to speak with Janaina Telles, whose parents were political activists and were tortured during the military dictatorship, and Peter Kornbluh, Director of the National Security Archive's Chile documentation project and Cuba documentation project.

The group meets with Professor James N. Green in Washington, D.C. at the National Archives to speak with Janaina Telles, whose parents were political activists and were tortured during the military dictatorship, and Peter Kornbluh, Director of the National Security Archive’s Chile documentation project and Cuba documentation project.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A unique, student-led project is the foundation for a partnership between Brown University, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the National Archive of Brazil, and the State University of Maringá (UEM). “Opening the Archives” is designed to provide online public access to the NARA-held State Department of Political Affairs and Relations declassified documents pertaining to U.S.-Brazilian relations from the turbulent 1960s, 70s and 80s.

To prepare to participate in “Opening the Archives,” Brown students studied Brazil’s history with renowned scholar, Professor James N. Green, and were trained by Brown University Library staff in the standardized modes of organization, indexing/description, and digitization.  Directly engaged with rarely seen historical documents at the NARA in DC, Brown students are now working alongside students from Brazil’s State University of Maringá to organize and provide indexing terms to these distinctive documents as they are digitized and made accessible through the Brown Digital Repository (BDR). Created by Brown University Library, the BDR is an online service for collecting, preserving, and disseminating intellectual output. Once in the repository, the NARA documents will be accessible via the internet to scholars around the world.

The “Opening the Archives” project reinforces President Rousseff’s promotion of public access to government information, her establishment of the National Truth Commission, and examination of the abuses of the former military dictatorship. And, the project has the potential to become a model for future collaborations between NARA and other universities, enabling NARA to make its historic records more widely available while also providing invaluable learning and research opportunities for students and faculty.

The mission of Brown University is to serve the community, the nation, and the world by discovering, communicating, and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry, and by educating and preparing students to discharge the offices of life with usefulness and reputation.

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: Jennifer Braga |  401-863-6913

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Important Electronic Resources Update!

On Tuesday, August 13, CIS and the University Library are planning a change in the way electronic resources are accessed for on-campus users.  Starting on that date, users who link to electronic resources through the database list (http://library.brown.edu/eresources/) or e-journal list (http://rl3tp7zf5x.search.serialssolutions.com/) on the Library’s homepage will sign in via Shibboleth, the same sign-in method used for Workday and Canvas access.  Shibboleth is a safer, more secure means of user authentication and will assist the Library in meeting its licensing obligations to content providers.

If a user has not logged into Shibboleth that day, he or she will be prompted for their University username and password.  After successful entry, redirection to the desired resource should proceed directly.

At this time, users who get to resources from sites other than the Library’s homepage will not need to log in if they are on campus.  Off-campus access via the VPN client will not change.  Off-campus access without the VPN client already uses a Shibboleth login.

Anyone encountering problems connecting to a resource may contact us at [email protected] or the CIS help desk at [email protected] or by phoning (401)-863-4357.

Brown University Library Joins the Fedora Futures Project as Platinum Sponsor

Fedora LogoPROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Brown University Library has become a Fedora Futures Project Sponsor and is one of several institutions working to help build and preserve the strengths of the Fedora architecture as a robust, full-featured set of repository services.

Harriette Hemmasi, Joukowsky Family University Librarian, explained the decision to support Fedora Futures: “Brown has a critical interest in the evolution and maintenance of this software. We are increasingly aware of the many challenges and opportunities, both now and into the future, for digital repositories and we recognize the need for an extensible, flexible platform that supports our growth and changing expectations. It is rewarding to be part of an initiative that encourages closer coordination and results in enhanced services among libraries using this common open-source software tool.”

Fedora, first released in 2004, has hundreds of adopters worldwide, with deep roots in the research, scientific, intellectual and cultural heritage communities. It is supported by its community of users, and stewarded by DuraSpace, an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.

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: Jennifer Braga |  401-863-6913

Brown University Library Celebrates Lovecraft with an Exhibit and New Research Fellowship!

H.P. LovecraftPROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] —Brown University Library, home to the largest collection of H. P. Lovecraft materials in the world, is pleased to co-sponsor a two-part exhibit this summer in partnership with the Providence Athenaeum, and to announce a new annual fellowship for research relating to H. P. Lovecraft, his associates, and literary heirs.

“The Shadow Over College Street:  H. P. Lovecraft in Providence,” will be on exhibit August 19 through September 22 in the Philbrick Rare Book Room of the Providence Athenaeum, and a smaller satellite exhibit will be on view in the lobby of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library from August 19 through October 24. Mounted in conjunction with NecronomiCon Providence, this collaborative exhibition explores Lovecraft’s youth in Providence and the city’s role in shaping his career as a master craftsman of “weird fiction.” Both parts of the exhibit feature materials from the John Hay Library.

And, starting in summer 2015, the S. T. Joshi Endowed Research Fellowship will provide a stipend of $2,500 for six weeks of scholarly work with the world renowned resources on Lovecraft at the Hay. The S. T. Joshi Endowed Research Fellowship is sponsored by The Aeroflex Foundation and Hippocampus Press, and is named for S. T. Joshi, Brown alumnus (’80, MA ’82)  and prominent Lovecraft scholar. More information regarding application procedures will be announced in Fall 2014.

The Library will host a reception to celebrate the launching of the S. T. Joshi Endowed Research Fellowship on Thursday, August 22 from 4-5:30pm in the Lobby of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library. Refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Opened in 1911, the John Hay Library is part of the Brown University Library system, and is the largest and most diverse special collections library in Rhode Island, housing approximately 400,000 books, some three million manuscripts, as well as hundreds of thousands of broadsides, maps, prints, photographs, and pieces of sheet music. The Hay is especially strong in American poetry and plays, military history, Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, Rhode Island history, the history of science and medicine, the history of magic and the occult, the history of dance, gay and lesbian fiction, the literature of wit and humor, extremist and dissident literature, alcohol and addiction studies, and book arts.  The Brown University Archives, housed in the Hay, contain the records of Brown University since its founding in 1764. As a whole, 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: Christopher Geissler

 

Ecrivez-vous français?: Selections from the Mel B. Yoken Archive

Snapshot of Ecrivez-vous français?: Selections from the Mel B. Yoken Archive.PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — To welcome the American Association of Teachers of French who will be holding their annual conference in Providence this July, a new exhibit, Ecrivez-vous français?, is now on view in the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library lobby featuring selections from the Mel B. Yoken Archive. Highlights include letters from Matisse, Monet, and Marcel Marceau.

Mel B. Yoken MAT ’61 assembled the collection of invaluable letters and photographs over a period of forty years. The materials consist primarily of 20th-century pieces of correspondence by American, British, French and Québécois authors and artists, as well as letters written by significant political and literary figures of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Items featured in the exhibit provide insight into critical literary and artistic aspects of French and Francophone culture, and invite scholarly researchers to pursue a reflection on the significance of the relationship between literature and other art forms. Highlights include a letter from Victor Hugo written in Paris in 1851, a few months before he elected to live in exile in Guernsey, following Napoléon III’s ascent to power. In it Hugo refers to the political involvement of this son, Charles, who was in the Conciergerie prison at the time. And, another letter written by Claude Monet in Argenteuil (where he produced some of his most famous boat and poppy fields scenes), discusses the sale of paintings.

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/

See the following diagram for the location of the exhibit.

Contact: Jennifer Braga |  401-863-6913

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Brown University Library Retrieves A Long Lost Sword

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

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 | [email protected] | (401) 863-2669