May 3rd, 2018
This post continues the series, “Behind the Scenes at Houghton”, giving a glimpse into the inner workings of the library’s mission to support teaching and research. Thanks to Magdaline Lawhorn, Administrative Fellow & Project Archivist, for contributing this post.
A functional workstation is pivotal to every archivist’s work, especially when dealing with the born-digital environment that always appears to be in flux. Initially Houghton’s digital forensic workstation (DFW) was based on preliminary findings that reflected a small set of materials from a select number of collections. Presently the DFW toolkit is comprised of basic hardware and software with a few more advanced elements.
The first things every DFW needs are fundamental tools: computer, keyboard, mouse, and a suitable desk. Our workstation is outfitted with two tools that allow us to capture, store, and process our born-digital materials, the Mac Mini 2.3 and the G-Raid Mini. The Mac Mini 2.3 is an asset because it is a portable computer that has the capacity to run a virtual machine (an operating system or application environment that is installed with software, which imitates dedicated hardware). Likewise the G Raid mini is a portable device with a dual-drive storage system that acts as immediate but temporary storage.
Digital Forensics Workstation (DFW)
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April 30th, 2018
Langdon Warner, 1908, during his first trip to Japan as a Harvard Sheldon Travelling Fellow.
In 2016, I stumbled across a surprising body of materials at Houghton Library while conducting research for my dissertation project on the establishment of East Asian art history as a discipline in the United States, circa 1900-1960. I had been aware for some time of the life and legacy of Langdon Warner (1881-1955)—the first curator of Asian art at the Harvard Fogg Museum. Like many others, I was cognizant of Warner’s involvement with two expeditions taken on behalf of the Fogg Museum in the 1920s to western China. Warner’s actions on these trips have long overshadowed a lifetime of study, teaching, and travel. However, my research concerned his role as an early American educator in the field of East Asian art history. Having already examined the Warner materials at other repositories across campus, I expected to find only a small body of letters and journals related to Warner’s expeditions in the Houghton collections.
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April 23rd, 2018
Each year, Houghton Library awards visiting fellowships to support scholars whose research requires extensive use of the library’s collections. We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2018-2019 awards, including two inaugural fellowships: the Maryette Charlton Fellowship for the Performing Arts, and Donald and Mary Hyde Fellowship for Research in Early Modern Black Lives, including Africa and the African Diaspora, 1500-1800. For an insight into the projects and experiences of former Houghton fellows, please read blog posts here.
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April 17th, 2018
We received an enthusiastic response to our first post on uncaptioned film stills in our Ludlow-Santo Domingo Collection, including a very nice writeup in the Boston Globe. Thanks to all who posted comments to help us identify those mystery movies. It seemed like readers had fun with the process, so we’ve asked the cataloger of the collection, Elise Ramsey, to provide us with another batch. As last time, please post a comment if you know what movie or performer is shown, and be sure to include the number of the photo.
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April 11th, 2018
UPDATE: The response to this post was so great we’ve posted 25 new unidentified movie stills–let us know if you can help!
We recently cataloged a collection of several hundred film stills as part of the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library. Many identify the film or actor depicted, but to make this collection as useful as possible to researchers, we’d love your help identifying those with no caption. If you recognize the film or stars in these images, please leave a comment below, and be sure to give the number of the photo you’re referring to.
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April 11th, 2018
‘Never was there a luckier piece of work!’, remarked Philip Hofer when recalling W. B. O. Field’s gift of over 3,500 of Lear’s pictures to Houghton in 1942. In recent years a comprehensive online finding aid has been created, which includes high-resolution images of the drawings and detailed transcriptions of the annotations Lear made on them. Not intended for sale, these pictures were his aide mémoires, references, trials for future work. Yet their unfinished state often lends them an understated, beguiling beauty, and it also allows us to catch the artist in the act of creation, to eavesdrop on his thoughts as he talks to himself while composing. As Hofer observed in his illuminating study, Edward Lear as a Landscape Draughtsman, the year in which Lear began adding nonsense words to his drawings (‘rox’ to denote ‘rocks’, say, or ‘raven’ to signify ‘ravine’) was the same year in which he was preparing his first Book of Nonsense for press. ‘O path!’, he writes on one sketch. Such whimsical hailings might stand as invitations to viewers to take their own unusual paths through the images—and to read them with nonsense in mind.
Granted, many of the pictures are distinctly non-nonsensical:
Near Tivoli: Ponte Nomentano, 1842? Houghton Library, MS Typ 55.26 (229)
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April 5th, 2018
This post continues the series, “Behind the Scenes at Houghton”, giving a glimpse into the inner workings of the library’s mission to support teaching and research. Thanks to Magdaline Lawhorn, Administrative Fellow & Project Archivist, for contributing this post.
Our born-digital journey continues to be filled with research, trial and error, and lots of excel spreadsheets. Besides all of the technical preparations and planning that make up Houghton’s born-digital project, there are physical requirements that have to be addressed as well. Location, location, location! Physical space is very important to the success of accessioning the backlog identified in the survey; it is one of the factors that determines how quickly we can gain access to the materials. Ironically, digital materials (all those ones and zeros) do take up physical space!
Two of the main concerns are where to house the materials throughout the survey and where to conduct the survey and actually accession the materials. At the beginning we knew right away that we could not house all of the born-digital materials (currently mixed in with manuscript material, so it takes up a ton of space) and accession in the same place due to the physical constraints of our office. So, we determined that if accessioning were to take place in our office, an alternative space needed to be created for staging the materials. In order to find temporary storage we talked to one of our colleagues Micah Hoggatt, Reference Librarian, whose familiarity negotiating space at Houghton came in handy. Micah was able to find temporary space, two bays in our stacks (in the sub-basement).
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April 5th, 2018
Houghton Library is pleased to announce that the following collections now have descriptive finding aids and are available for research in the library’s reading room.
Richard Baldridge Manuscripts and Letters, 1927-1964 (MS Thr 125) – processed by Irina Klyagin
Boris Bilinsky Costume Designs for Cinema, Theater and Ballet, 1924-1943 (MS Thr 317) – processed by Irina Klyagin
Martin Camacho Subject Files on Labor During the Allied Occupation of Japan, 1942-1953 (MS Am 3164) – processed by Ashley Nary
George Chaffee collection of dance prints and original drawings, circa 1613-1921, undated (MS Thr 861) – processed by Betts Coup
Doris Dickinson Dinsmore Papers Relating to Serge Soudeikine, circa 1940-1979 (MS Thr 640) – processed by Irina Klyagin
Monroe Engel Correspondence, circa 1947-1981 (MS Am 3163) – processed by Magdaline Lawhorn
Robert D. Graff Papers on the Production of Young Cassidy, 1960-1976 (MS Thr 318) – processed by Irina Klyagin
Lowell Family Papers, 1836-1928 (MS Am 3166) – processed by Elizabeth Amos and Adrien Hilton
Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library Pulp Fiction Collection, circa 1900-1970s (MS Am 3136) – processed by Adrien Hilton, Elise Ramsey, Ryan Wheeler, and a number of student assistants
Norman Mailer 1969 New York Mayoral Campaign Papers, circa 1968-1970 (MS Am 3168) – processed by Melanie Wisner
James Metcalf Collection of Correspondence and Photographs By and Related to Tennessee Williams (MS Thr 1774) – processed by Melanie Wisner
Costume Designs by William J. C. Pitcher for Ballet and Theater, 1889-1905 (MS Thr 1770) – processed by Melanie Wisner
Letters to Sarah and William Siddons, 1780-1795 (MS Thr 395) – processed by Irina Klyagin
Ernst Weil Catalog Cards, circa 1924-1965 (MS Eng 1822) – processed by Ashley Nary
March 6th, 2018
Houghton Library is pleased to announce that the following collections now have descriptive finding aids and are available for research in the library’s reading room.
Anne Barry correspondence with Norman Mailer and related papers, circa 1961-2009 (MS Am 3159) – processed by Melanie Wisner
Artcraft Lithograph & Printing Co. Window Cards, 1941-1979 (MS Thr 1752) – processed by Melanie Wisner
William Ernest Hocking Papers, 1860-1979 (MS Am 2375) – additions added by Adrien Hilton
Florence Milner Papers on Lewis Carroll, circa 1860s-1930s (MS Eng 1820) – processed by various staff as part of archival training
Alfonso de Orléans Papers, circa 1937-1975 (MS Span 1870) – processed by Ashley Nary
Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library Collection of Film Stills, circa 1894-2002 (MS Thr 1678) – processed by Elise Ramsey
Alfred K. Schroeder Photographs of the Boston Ballet, circa 1960-1970 (MS Thr 1731) – processed by Magee Lawhorn
Langdon Warner Papers, 1900-1959 (MS Am 3138) – processed by Fletcher Coleman
Charles H. Waterbury Correspondence and Scrapbooks on Chess Problems, 1858-1878 (MS Am 2483) – processed by various staff as part of archival training
Leo Van Witsen Designs and Photographs,1935-1973 (MS Thr 1740) – processed by Betts Coup
