News from the DeGolyer Library
March 2020
Southern Methodist University
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The Degolyer Library, along with the SMU Libraries, closed to visitors on Wednesday, March 17th, and staff began the transition to working from home.
While the physical building may be closed, the DeGolyer Library is still open to patrons and visitors, virtually.
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A look at how DeGolyer staff is adjusting to working from home
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Samantha Dodd–Curator, Archives of Women of the Southwest
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“Working from home has definitely been a transition. Turns out I have some very musically inclined neighbors in my apartment building. Each afternoon I am treated to a piano recital from the lovely music teacher next door to me.
In addition to learning more about my neighbors and what they do during the day, sheltering in place has given me time to read, write, and utilize new applications and technologies. Currently I am preparing for the upcoming Women’s suffrage exhibit by doing some fairly extensive research. Paige Wilson, our Archives of Women of the Southwest intern, is also currently assisting with the exhibition remotely.
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As March is Women’s History Month, I am continuing to author blog posts highlighting various women from our collections for the DeGolyer’s News and Notes blog, and am working on several entries of the Handbook of Texas Women:
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“Shelter in-place has created new dynamics in my house, where my family is engaged in some form of online activity most of the day.
I brought home several projects to work on: cataloging Italian translations of Sherlock Holmes books from the Donald J. Hobbs gift collection, coding and reviewing finding aids, brainstorming with my TARO colleagues about the features of the new TARO website, and catching up on professional literature. So far, being able to use remote desktop technology has made it all possible.
I’m also happy to report that Tulip, my cataloging intern (pictured right), is a promising student: he seems highly entertained by most of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, though he leaves the room whenever The Hound of the Baskervilles comes up on the screen.
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While not missing rush hour on Central Expressway, I miss seeing my coworkers and the smell of old books and manuscripts, and hope that things will get back to “normal” soon.
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Earlier this month we hosted art history professor Elizabeth Eager’s class ‘The Making of Modern Life: Art and Design in the Nineteenth Century’ in the Texana Room. The session focused on the growth of photography in the 19th century and how the evolving medium documented changing life across the century.
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Many of the images set out for the students came from the Jack and Beverly Wilgus History of Photography collection. The Wilgus’ were kind enough to visit the class and share some of their expert knowledge about the history of photography, as well as share images from their private collection, like the items pictured above.
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Professor Emma Wilson’s digital humanities course, ‘Literature as Data’ continued working in the DeGolyer this month. You may be wondering how a course based on researching special collections material could transfer to the new online classroom model. Fortunately, Wilson’s class is well equipped for the transition. While students spent the first weeks of the semester transcribing their texts in person, they’re now able to work off these transcriptions and OCR (optical character recognition) pdfs of the texts, provided by John Milazzo of the Norwick Center for Digital Solutions and Rebecca Howdeshell of Bridwell Library.
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In the first entry on her new blog series, ‘A Woman’s Work is Never Done,’ Samantha Dodd highlights the life and career of journalist, Dallas Times Herald editorial board member, and SMU alumni Vivian Castleberry. Click here to read more.
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Cynthia Franco marked Academy Award winner Horton Foote’s birthday by highlighting his archives. Click here to learn more about the collection, which includes drafts of scripts and correspondence with actors and fellow authors.
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Click here to read Samantha Dodd’s Women’s History Month tribute to the Girl Scouts of America, and the Tejas Girl Scouts Council, whose organization records are part of the Archives of Women of the Southwest.
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This gorgeous book cover features blind-tooling, where heated stamps make elevated and depressed patterns into the vellum, as well as still functioning hinge clasps. The book is Kurze und deutliche Vorstellung der edlen Probierkunst , a treatise on assaying metallic ores, written anonymously and published by Johann Friederich Růdiger in Nuremberg, 1718. C lick here to view the catalog record. If you’ve already watched all the cooking tutorials Youtube has to offer, spend some of your quarantine learning about historic book bindings by exploring Six Centuries of Master Bookbinding , a virtual exhibit presented by our colleagues at Bridwell Library Special Collections and Archives.
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Recent Accessions
If I was writing this newsletter in my office on campus, I could tell you more about this beautifully encased photograph of a group of women which we unboxed earlier this month. Instead, I’ll say that if you enjoy it, you can view similar images in the Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs Collection by clicking here , and other cased images in the Jones collection by clicking here .
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Newly Digitized Items
Take this time to virtually explore historical Texas. The NCDS digitized 83 photographs and pamphlets featuring images and materials from across Texas. Pictured here is Wiley College class of 1919. Wiley College is a four year HBCU founded in 1873 in Marshall, Texas, making one of the oldest predominantly black colleges west of the Mississippi.
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