On Monday, October 11, 2021 — Indigenous Peoples Day — the Brown University Library will be open during the following hours:
Questions? Email rock@brown.edu. Feedback welcome!
In order to make the Orwig Music building more accessible, the door at the accessible entrance is being replaced. The work will occur from Tuesday, October 5 – Wednesday, October 6, necessitating the closure of the entrance. We apologize for any inconvenience caused and look forward to welcoming you through a more accessible door on Thursday, October 7.
The front door will remain open as usual. If you have any questions or concerns, please email orwig@brown.edu.
Welcome back to your Brown University Library!
Operations are founded on the most up-to-date, reliable safety protocols to ensure a healthy environment for our patrons and staff. Please follow all Healthy Brown steps to keep yourself and our community well. If you aren’t feeling well, please make use of the Library’s robust slate of digital resources.
When you come to the Library, please:
Help keep Brown healthy: Get tested for COVID-19 every week if you are fully vaccinated, twice a week if you are not yet fully vaccinated or have received an exemption. Wear a mask indoors when on campus, regardless of your vaccination status, and outside if you are not vaccinated and social distancing is not possible. Learn more.
Visitors who anticipate using the Rockefeller, Sciences, or Orwig Libraries on an ongoing basis must obtain a Brown University Library card. Cards will not be issued until visitors have completed the Brown University Library Visitors: Fall 2021 request form. The Library must approve requests for all visitors except those with IDs sponsored by a department or program at Brown, or Brown alumni. More information
In accordance with University policy, all visitors — regardless of vaccination status — must wear masks indoors, unless in a private, non-shared space (e.g., office or dorm room). Visitors must abide by the policies on the Healthy Brown website and should review the Visitor and Guest Vaccination Requirement.
Patrons can schedule in-person and online consultation appointments with a Library expert by contacting the relevant subject specialist directly. Not sure whom to contact? Email rock@brown.edu for general inquiries and hay@brown.edu for Special Collections inquiries.
The stacks at the Rock and SciLi are open, and circulation staff are on-site to check out materials.
Please continue to request materials online through BruKnow. Requested materials will be held at the service desks. Patrons will be notified when the item is available and where it should be picked up. The Library is providing document delivery through the ILLiad system.
You can also ask questions via chat, book online consultations, and make use of the many resources available on our website.
During regular hours, current Brown and RISD ID holders can swipe through the inside gate. Extended building hours are available to current Brown ID holders only by swipe access at the front door.
For research in the Special Collections Reading Room, please email hay@brown.edu to request a seat reservation. We are currently limiting use of the Special Collections Reading Room to a maximum of nine (9) researchers at a time. You must also request materials through Aeon one week (5 full business days) in advance of your reservation.
Following an extensive infrastructure renovation, the Orwig Music Library will be open for limited weekday hours starting September 7. Please contact orwig@brown.edu or call 401-863-3759 for more information.
Beginning September 8, current Brown students, staff, and faculty, and RISD students will be able to reserve group study rooms at the Rock and SciLi through libcal.brown.edu.
Study carrels are available to graduate and medical students. Interested persons should inquire at the Rockefeller Library service desk.
Graduate TAs may also access a limited number of small study/collaboration rooms to conduct online sections. Registration is required through 25Live.
Guides and videos with information about how to use the Library, conduct various aspects of research, and more are always available online.
Your Brown University Library is committed to providing all patrons with the best possible academic library experience. Throughout your engagement with Library collections, physical spaces, patron services, instruction, and web-based tools and content, you should be welcomed, valued, and respected, and be provided with equal opportunities to pursue scholarship in a spirit of free and open inquiry.
We encourage your feedback about any aspect of Library services, resources, and facilities. Feedback can be made through this anonymous form, which has an option for inputting your contact information, or you can email WelcomeToYourLibrary@brown.edu.
BruKnow — the Library’s updated search and catalog system named by Brown students — went live on August 18, 2021, delivering enhanced searching capabilities.
Learn more about using BruKnow!
Have questions or comments about BruKnow? Email us at libfaq@brown.libanswers.com or submit anonymous feedback.
Interested in helping the Library refine BruKnow? Sign up for user testing! All Library patrons with current access to the catalog are invited to participate.
The software company ExLibris acquired the company that provides the Library’s current system (including Josiah), which dates back to the 1990s. The Library decided to proactively migrate to the integrated library system offered by ExLibris, known as “Alma,” and its search counterpart, “Primo.” BruKnow is the Library’s Primo. ExLibris has been working with Library staff to customize the system for our unique catalog and users.
The updated system will yield more extensive catalog resource results, offer more refined search tools, and provide many user-friendly features like saved searches, notifications for new items relevant to saved searches, smart spelling correction, virtual browsing of physical items, and “best bets.”
Undergraduate students Isabel Kim ’22 and Michal Loren ’23 each individually submitted “BruKnow” as a name suggestion during the students-only naming contest hosted by the Library during Spring and Summer 2021. 93 students submitted 125 name suggestions. A group of ten students composed of members of the Library Advisory Board, the Graduate Library Advisory Council, and identified through the Undergraduate Council of Students narrowed the submissions down to five finalists. 223 students voted for their favorite name among the finalists, and BruKnow was the most popular choice.
The students who suggested the names that made the short list in addition to BruKnow:
Providence, R.I. [Brown University] Brown University Library has received a $169,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to create a training institute on digital publishing. Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing: Resources and Road Maps will support scholars who wish to develop innovative born-digital scholarship intended for publication by a university press but lack the necessary resources and capacity at their home institutions.
Born-digital, multimodal monographs allow authors to articulate and advance scholarly ideas through the innovative use of digital tools and/or data as well as interactive, media-rich enhancements in ways that are not possible in a conventional book. While there is growing support for this path breaking approach to scholarship on the part of academic institutions, disciplinary organizations, grantmaking organizations, and university presses, there is currently no “how to” manual or comprehensive training opportunity for what is a complex, rapidly evolving endeavor.
Designed to demystify and streamline the path to digital publication, Brown Library’s three-week hybrid institute, to take place in July 2022, will equip a cohort of fifteen humanities scholars with in-depth knowledge of the digital publishing process, familiarity with open-source tools and platforms, advanced project management skills, concrete and individualized plans for project advancement, and top-level publishing industry contacts. The institute will be open to a variety of scholars, including unaffiliated scholars, adjunct professors, and part-time faculty, from different disciplines, career stages, institution types, and geographical locations.
Moreover, through the purposeful training and mentoring of under-resourced scholars, the institute will help bridge a digital divide that, without intervention, puts digital publishing, as a future of scholarship, at risk of becoming the preserve of the most elite and affluent institutions. By making the born-digital publication process more accessible and inclusive, the institute will foster the elevation of underrepresented voices and subject matter, thereby diversifying the output of teaching and learning resources as well as expanding the readership for digital scholarship. In recognition of its recently extended membership in the HBCU Library Alliance (the first non-HBCU addition to the historically Black colleges and universities alliance), Brown University Library will prioritize some of the cohort slots for faculty from member institutions.
According to Allison Levy, the Library’s Digital Scholarship Editor and project director for the institute, “Perhaps the most intentional element of the institute’s design to have far-reaching implications for humanities research and teaching is Brown’s commitment to support under-resourced scholars. This crucial re-prioritization of how and for whom the practice and production of digital humanities scholarship is taught will have a profound impact on current and future generations of scholars.”
Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing: Resources and Road Maps builds upon the successes of Brown’s Digital Publications Initiative — a collaboration between the University Library and the Dean of the Faculty, generously launched with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2015. The Initiative has established a novel, transformative approach to the development of longform, multimodal works that make original and meaningful contributions across the humanities. The Initiative also collaborates with publishers to help shape new systems of evaluation, peer review, and scholarly validation for born-digital scholarship. Brown saw its first project published in 2020 by the University of Virginia Press; two others are forthcoming with Stanford University Press and MIT Press, respectively; and eight projects are in various stages of development.
“We feel incredibly fortunate to have this kind of opportunity to expand the reach and impact of our efforts to advance the possibilities of digital publication for first-rate scholarship,” said Brown’s University Librarian Joseph Meisel. “I am also eager to see all that we will learn from working with the institute’s fifteen scholars, and the ways they will help inform our approach and practices going forward.”
Questions about the institute or the Library’s Digital Publications Initiative generally can be addressed to Allison Levy, Digital Scholarship Editor (allison_levy@brown.edu).
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.
The National Endowment for the Humanities and Brown University together: Democracy demands wisdom.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this press release and in the Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing: Resources and Road Maps Institute do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Library is pleased to announce the appointment of Kenvi C. Phillips, PhD as the inaugural Director of Library Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Kenvi’s first day at Brown will be August 23, 2021. Consistent with Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion: An Action Plan for Brown University and the Library’s own strategic goals in this critical area, hiring an executive officer whose portfolio focuses exclusively on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion is part of an intentional move toward becoming a more just, inclusive, equitable academic library.
As the Director of Library Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Kenvi will direct critical organizational and programmatic initiatives, expand the Library’s outreach, and contribute her expert knowledge and skills to advance the Library’s and the University’s core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Kenvi’s work at the Library will include oversight for Library initiatives connected to Brown’s Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) Phase II and the Anti-Black Racism Task Force. She will oversee the Library’s Racial Justice Project, and play a key role in the Library’s expanding partnerships with campus programs including the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative. Working closely with the Library’s own representative DIAP committee, Kenvi will provide expertise for strengthening Library staff competency related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and promoting and advising on strategies for Library physical, digital, and educational accessibility.
Kenvi currently serves as the Johanna-Marie Fraenkel Curator for Race and Ethnicity at Harvard Radcliffe’s Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. While there, she has led the library’s efforts to diversify the collections to be more inclusive of racial and ethnic populations across the country. Since her arrival at Schlesinger in the fall of 2016, she has identified gaps in the collections and worked to develop relationships with financial and collection donors while leading the effort to engage community members in the greater Boston region in order to expand collections and programs. She consults with scholars within the Harvard community and other universities to advise the library as it expands its collecting scope and rewrites its collections development plan. She has worked with archivists and curators, both within Harvard Library and other repositories, to develop partnerships to increase access to collections about marginalized people, particularly women.
Before joining the Schlesinger Library, Kenvi served as Assistant Curator of Manuscripts at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. There she led an initiative to revise and increase access to the collections by merging the reference services of the library and manuscript divisions. By combining the two departments, staff was able to increase both research access to collections and manuscript processing. In addition to her work with the Harvard Library and the Howard University Library System, Kenvi has worked with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, a non-profit bi-county agency established more than eighty years ago in the Washington, DC area.
An historian, Kenvi holds a master’s in public history and a doctorate in US history from Howard University.
Demonstrating a serious and impactful commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and associated issues of racial justice is a major guiding principle at Brown. These commitments are also integral to the Library’s mission on campus as well as its growth and development as an organization. As Brown’s focus on these issues has increased, the Library’s specialized skills, resources, and services are being called upon in new ways. At the same time, the Library is also identifying new opportunities through its own work to make important contributions to the University’s goals in this area. Every member of the Library’s administration and staff is responsible for contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Library. We look forward to bringing the Library’s commitment and contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion to the next level with Kenvi’s expertise, leadership, and guidance.
Providence, R.I. [Brown University] Over the course of the 2020-21 academic year, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown, in partnership with the Office of the Provost, undertook a systematic investigation of the foundational and enduring contemporary effects of anti-Black racism in America. Drawing on the expertise of Brown scholars from a range of fields and scholarly perspectives as well as the University’s historic strength and leadership in scholarship on race, the pioneering “Race &” in America panel series generated critical engagements with society’s most fundamental and urgent questions. Investigating the role that racism plays in American public health, democracy, punishment, and more, the informed and illuminating discussions deepened knowledge and awareness in the service of promoting a more just and inclusive community and world. The “Race &” in America digital publication series amplifies the impact and extends the reach of this important and timely panel series.
Developed by the Brown University Library’s Digital Publications Initiative and in close coordination with Tricia Rose, Chancellor’s Professor of Africana Studies, Associate Dean of the Faculty for Special Initiatives, and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, the “Race &” in America digital publication series re-presents the compelling original panel discussions with expanded content and resources in an innovative, interactive format, designed to heighten understanding and broaden these critical conversations. “The ‘Race &’ series and its creative digital presentation reflect two core elements of CSREA’s vision: to foster dynamic intellectual community on crucial issues and ensure long-lasting access to ideas,” said Rose. “By offering an array of Brown faculty reflecting on the importance and complexity of the way race defines American society from slavery to genetics to art, and making it available through this interactive, digital platform with enhanced content, we’re able to contribute to ongoing conversations on these critical issues.”
The “Race &” digital publication is a remarkable example of Brown’s dedication to its mission of creating and sharing knowledge in service of society. According to Richard M. Locke, Brown University provost:
Brown is committed to conducting and disseminating widely consequential research designed to elevate awareness of pressing societal issues and contribute to meaningful change. The “Race &” in America series is emblematic of this commitment. Over the course of a year, we have shared Brown’s faculty expertise in the interwoven areas that define and perpetuate anti-Black racism in the U.S., and through this engaging digital delivery, we’re able to amplify and extend the impact of these important contributions.
As an open access publication, the digital series provides enduring, barrier-free access to information, and has been developed with universal design principles for equitable use by all persons, including those with disabilities. In addition, the series features responsive design — readable on all digital devices, from smartphones to desktops — and robust highlighting, annotation, and sharing tools that encourage deep reader engagement and allow users to interact with one another.
Each of the eight volumes in the digital series includes:
“The ‘Race &’ in America series is an important step forward for Brown’s leadership in both scholarship on race and digital scholarly publications,” said University Librarian Joseph Meisel. “It ensures that the penetrating perspectives and fresh critical analyses advanced through this remarkable academic initiative are not simply preserved as a video link on some website, but rather rendered more fully in a format that sustains and broadens the impact of this essential work for education, further research, and public understanding.”
The digital series consists of eight volumes:
Brown’s Digital Publications Initiative — a collaboration between the University Library and the Dean of the Faculty, generously launched with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — creates exciting new conditions for the production and sharing of knowledge. Widely recognized as accessible, intentional, and inclusive, Brown’s path-breaking Initiative is helping to set the standards for the future of scholarship in the digital age.
Questions about the “Race &” in America digital publication series or the Library’s Digital Publications Initiative generally can be addressed to Allison Levy, Digital Scholarship Editor (allison_levy@brown.edu).
The Library has been contributing to a community-centered database project led by Professor Linford Fisher that seeks to document the many instances of Indigenous enslavement in the Americas between 1492 through 1900. Formerly entitled, Database of Indigenous Slavery Archive (DISA), the project is now named, Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas.
Since the summer of 2019, with guidance from Professor Rae Gould and Lydia Curliss, Physical Sciences Librarian and member of the Nipmuc Nation, the team has been working with Native partners from twelve different tribal nations in the southern New England area. Together, the collaborators decided to change the project name to one that reflects the efforts and goals to decolonize the project and become more community and Indigenous centered.
Rather than simply make accessible the records of Indigenous people who were enslaved, the project is designed to offer a decolonizing framework that explores the 21st century impact of enslavement that has ruptured the relations of Indigenous people, families, and nations. In short, stolen relations. The project recovers the stories of Indigenous enslavement in order to bring to light the stories and to contextualize them within the larger context of settler colonialism.
Because the team is largely collecting archival documents about indigenous enslavement that are written by the colonizer, it is essential to indigenize the presentation of the database so that there is a decolonizing context around the language from archival documents. For example, rather than simply list “tribe” affiliations, as is sometimes listed on the original document, the database will provide information on how archival documents often include terms that diminish the nationhood and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples (such as the word “tribe”). And in many cases, the tribal/national affiliation of enslaved Natives was completely erased. The project intends to reassert the nation-to-nation relationship that tribes have, and center that context alongside the data.
In this early phase of the project, the database is not yet public — though the project website is public. The team is working with tribal partners and a group of researchers to identify, enter, and interpret relevant historical and oral historical materials, and is currently looking to partner with individuals and institutions who are willing to send materials they have or join the research team to input materials directly. Please visit the project’s Contribute page or contact Linford D. Fisher to learn more.
Stolen Relations has been generously funded and supported by the following entities:
Library staff members working on the Stolen Relations project:
In conjunction with an ambitious strategic plan, Brown University Library is in a period of staff growth and renewal, seeking a diverse candidate pool for multiple positions:
See below for brief descriptions of each open position listed above, including links to the full job descriptions and application tool. All applicants must apply through the Careers at Brown application interface, through which you should submit your résumé/CV, cover letter, and contact information for three references in order to be considered.
You can also view a complete list of all Library job openings.
This is an exciting time to join the Brown University Library for professionals seeking an opportunity to advance scholarship at a top tier research institution while working to strengthen community ties within the Library, the University, and beyond, and to actively participate in a highly intentional, organization-wide effort to transform the Library into a site of racial justice. Applicants who span a wide range of viewpoints, life experiences, and intellectual pursuits are encouraged to apply.
Medical Education and Clinical Engagement Librarian
Brown University Library seeks an entrepreneurial and innovative Medical Education and Clinical Engagement Librarian with primary responsibility for supporting the students and teaching faculty of the Alpert Medical School, and for providing library services for research, education, and learning in support of the health and biomedical sciences at Brown. This new position reports to the Director of Health and Biomedical Library Services. The Alpert Medical School (part of Brown’s Division of Biology and Medicine) is in a period of dynamic growth and innovation, including investments in physician-scientists, new research initiatives, expanded medical education programs, and the formation of an integrated academic health system with affiliated teaching hospitals. Diversity, equity, inclusion, and a dedication to anti-racism are critically important to the Library, the Alpert Medical School, and the University; the successful candidate is committed to incorporating these values in all aspects of instruction, engagement, and professional practice. Experience and/or familiarity with research and/or concepts related to antiracism, anti-Black racism, intersectionality, health disparities, transgender health, LGBT health, critical race theory (and other overlapping themes) is especially favored.
Engineering and Physical Sciences Librarian
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Librarian joins a vibrant and collaborative team committed to academic excellence and that is actively engaged with the research and teaching needs of Brown’s diverse community. Brown’s strategic plan has led to dynamic growth in engineering, physical sciences, mathematics, and the University’s interdisciplinary approach to innovation. The interplay between these areas and collaboration with centers of entrepreneurship, technology, biological sciences, social and humanistic exploration, and sustainability are strengths of the University, as is advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the sciences. Reporting to the Director of Academic Engagement, this position joins the dynamic team of colleagues in the Academic Engagement unit and other Library departments, including the transformative, newly announced Center for Library Exploration and Research, to provide coordinated and programmatically aligned services to Brown University and the extended community.
Director of Library Exploration and Research
The Director of Library Exploration and Research will provide overall leadership for the University Library’s new Center for Library Exploration and Research (CLEAR), with a mission to build and nurture an academic community for students, faculty, and library staff. Working collaboratively with library and University leadership, the Director of Library Exploration and Research will develop and lead a program that brings greater focus, coordination, and accessibility to library activities that advance students’ research capabilities in three domains: core tools and methods, data, and primary sources. CLEAR is an unprecedented new venture at the Library, and the inaugural director will contribute to refining the vision as well as implementing it. The director will report to the Deputy University Librarian and also work closely with the University Librarian and Associate University Librarian for Special Collections on CLEAR’s strategic development.
Brown University Library seeks a creative and forward-thinking library professional to lead the metadata services unit in the next phase of the evolution of object description for inclusive discovery. The Head of Metadata Services is responsible for the day-to-day supervision and professional development of the Library’s paraprofessional cataloging and metadata staff. This team produces the technical and descriptive metadata needed to provide intellectual and physical access to our information resources and collections in support of the University’s goals for academic excellence, integrative scholarship, and educational leadership. A collaborative leader, the Head of Metadata Services works with library staff in Scholarly Resources and other units across the Library to develop a roadmap for prioritizing the work of the unit’s many responsibilities, including metadata production, remediation, enhancement, and management — with the goal of inclusive discovery. Working closely with the Head of Technical Services, the Head of Metadata Services assesses, develops, and documents internal policies and procedures and initiates projects related to improving the discoverability of resources for a wide range of campus users, with focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
All members of the Brown University Library team are vital contributors to our mission to advance instruction, learning, and research at Brown University in an environment of creativity and inclusivity. A community of academic, professional, and organizational learning, the Library embraces people who span a wide range of viewpoints, life experiences, and intellectual pursuits. Together, we preserve the past and innovate for the future. The Library’s strategic objectives are responsive to and strengthened by Library-wide goals that act upon the University’s commitment to diversity and inclusion as reflected in the backgrounds and experiences of our people as well as our approaches to the materials, methods, and accessibility of scholarship. Similarly, we want to find new ways for scholarship and practice at the Library to have a positive impact on the wider community in Providence and beyond. As reflected in our strategic objectives, the Library should not only be responding to the legacies of historic inequity and injustice, but also taking action through its work and expertise to overcome them. We invite candidates with initiative, unique perspectives, inventive thinking, and a passion for collaboration to join the University’s global mission of leadership and academic excellence.
Beginning in June 2021, NCBI will no longer have a direct login option (username/password). This change is occurring to improve account security by using third-party logins. Your NCBI account is used to access MyBibliography, SciENcv, and MyNCBI.
If you currently log in to MyNCBI with a username and password, you will need to add an additional login path to your account. This will not change anything saved in your account — it will simply add different login credentials.
To update your account, first login to MyNCBI:
Then click your account name in the top right hand corner:
Click “Account settings”:
Under the “Linked Accounts” section on the following page, click “Change” to add an account. Note that the “Native NCBI” account option will no longer be available to be used as a login after the June cutover.
You can use your Brown shibboleth login, or an additional third party login such as Login.gov. If you anticipate changing organizations in the future, you may want to choose Login.gov or ORCiD. If you have NIH funding and an eRA Commons account, you should use the same login mechanism for both. Search for Brown or Login.gov, and click the result to continue configuring the login.
See NCBI’s Blog post, and FAQs for more information, or please contact your librarians at healthscilibrarians@brown.edu for help.
