Special Collections & Archives Blog

Joseph Franz von Goez’s 1783 adaptation of Lenardo und Blandine “in 160 impassioned designs” may be the world’s first graphic novel.

Based on a ballad by German poet Gottfried August Bürger , Goez’s book tells the story of doomed lovers Lenardo and Blandine in a series of captioned copper etchings.

Bürger’s poem is itself based on Boccacio’s tale of Ghismonda and Guiscardo. In both versions a young woman is promised in marriage to a nobleman. However, her betrothed soon discovers that she already has a lover. The girl’s father kills the lover, after which the distraught daughter goes mad and dies.

Bürger’s poem was popular in 18th century Germany, inspiring works of art and theatrical adaptations. A musical melodrama based on the poem was staged in Munich in 1779, with a score by Peter Winter. The director and librettist was Joseph Franz von Goez.

Goez’s illustrations were based on the theatrical version of Lenardo und Blandine. The melodrama makes a few adjustments to Bürger’s poem , mostly to make the title characters more sympathetic. In Goez’s version the lovers are secretly married and Lenardo is a faithful courtier to Blandine’s father the king.

Whether or not Goez’s book is the first graphic novel, it is a fascinating record of an 18th century theatrical performance.

As the story begins, Blandine’s fiance witnesses her tryst with Lenardo and vows revenge.

The lovers, meanwhile, are grieved to have to part as morning approaches.

Parallels with stories of other doomed lovers are abundant. Here Blandine insists that the bird Lenardo hears is a nightingale, not a swallow, herald of the morning.

Lenardo, as it turns out, was right to feel a sense of foreboding. After he leaves Blandine, he is killed by her father the king.

That evening Blandine wonders why Lenardo does not come to her as he had promised.

She is visited by three mysterious messengers, bearing in turn a bloody, broken ring…

…an urn containing the dead Lenardo’s heart…

…and a letter accusing her of infidelity.

Blandine goes mad…

…and soon dies of grief.

The king is left to mourn his dead daughter and repent of his rash actions.

Wake Forest’s copy of Lenardo und Blandine was purchased by the library in 1964.

We are so happy to have our students back for the semester and are eager to show the world what we are working on. Pictured is student assistant Palmer Holton holding pulp fiction from the Clarence Herbert New Collection (MS577). This collection contains a wide variety of materials including photographs, maps, manuscripts, and printed materials. Although it will be a while before this collection is processed and has a finding aid available, we are excited about the process. As you can see in the picture, sometimes working in Special Collections is dirty work. Palmer’s job is to scan these materials so that patrons can access the content without getting their hands too dirty! Included in the pulp fiction materials are “Blue Book Magazine”, “The Red Book Magazine”, “The Premier”, and “Adventure” from the 1900′s to the 1930′s. This is a visual and content rich collection and we can not wait to finish processing so that researchers can access these materials. Thanks to Palmer and all of the student assistants who work so hard to make the collections available to the public.

Z. Smith Reynolds Library has contributed its four collections related to the Civil War to the digital collections portal “Civil War in the American South.” The portal includes digital collections from the Civil War Era (1850-1865) held by members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL). The collections contributed by ZSR are:

• Confederate Broadsides Collection – Over 250 examples of poems written by Southerners and Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War, including some pamphlets and clippings, as well as broadsides
• Lipe Family Civil War Letters Collection – The Lipe (or Leib) family lived in Deep Well (now Mooresville), Iredell County, North Carolina. The collection consists of letters and poems from different Confederate soldiers
• George L. Bright Civil War Diary – George L. Bright was a band member of the 46th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War
• Herbert E. Valentine Civil War Diary – Valentine’s manuscript memoirs relate various anecdotes about his army experiences, mostly in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina

These collections have been ingested and will be harvested regularly to keep up with any metadata changes. A link to these collections as well as to our page on the Civil War in the American South website have been added to the ZSR Digital Collections page. Thanks to everyone who helped make this project a success!

Cross posted to ZSR Gazette blog.

The Special Collections and Archives Department has four new finding aids available online!

• The Germaine Bree papers finding aid
• Maya Angelou Film and Theater Collection finding aid
• Gertrude and Max Hoffman papers finding aid
• Inventory of the Thomas F. and Louise Gossett Papers.

Many thanks to student assistants Kathleen Hill, Rachel Ernst, and Carolyn Jones for the tremendous amount of time and effort they put into making these finding aids complete. We anticipate having the digital collection of Max Hoffman’s music scores online soon to complement the Gertrude and Max Hoffman papers.

Big news from the partially processed collection of Allen Mandelbaum‘s papers. A MLIS graduate student and WFU Latin professor, Brian Warren, has been interning this summer in Special Collections and Archives, working specifically on processing the collection of Allen Mandelbaum’s papers, translations, and the large book collection that came with these materials. He made an interesting discovery in the papers relating to drafts of the book Ungaretti and Palinurus. After much investigation Brian found that there is only one record of WorldCat holdings for this title in Switzerland. He then began searching the hundreds of Allen Madelbaum books and found a copy, hand numbered #63 of 99. What a great find and an exciting addition to the unique and valuable collection of books that are housed on the sixth floor. We all look forward to Brian completing the finding aid for the Allen Mandelbaum papers and having these hidden treasures available for researchers and scholars. Great work, Brian!

This weekend, my wife, Kathie and I took a workshop at Asheville Bookworks. This is a center for bookmaking, paper making and letterpress printing located in West Asheville. Bookworks is a large open factory style building that has been converted into a workshop. There is a large paper-making room in the rear. The main work area is lined with letterpress printers, type cabinets and a number of bookbinding cutters and tools. Bookworks also has a small gallery and sales area. This workshop was called: Kakishibu (kah-kee-she-bu) and Coptic and was taught by artist , Heather Swarttouw. I’m writing about this workshop because I really wanted to learn the coptic binding style. This workshop was a way of expanding my binding knowledge and therefore, my understanding and ability to work with a variety of bindings and materials. The coptic style I learned used 2 needles-one at each end of a long piece of waxed linen thread. Before you actually start sewing, you punch holes at each sewing station of each signature of the book. The cover is also punched with holes in the same locations. Sewing progresses from the cover through each signature, to the opposite cover. I have to say: this was the most difficult sewing I’ve ever attempted.
We also learned to use a Japanese dye made from aged, unripe persimmons called Kakishibu. This liquid has a sepia-like color and is also light sensitive. It gains a richer color as it ages and darkens. We tried a few experiments using sunlight and placed objects on paper we had painted with the kakishibu. A piece of paper covered with pennies might create a polka dot pattern.
The workshop was fun and it was a great chance to learn a new stitch, meet new people and experience Asheville.

Monday, Steve and I drove to the LAUNC-CH Conference at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill for the 2011 Conference. We rode in style in the ZSR van because I had roped Steve into picking up the recently digitized Howlers from the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center after the conference. He is a real trooper.

The Keynote address by Lee Rainie, the Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, focused on the use of the internet, cell phones, and the changes in use with the growing popularity of social networking, geolocation apps, and other fast growing internet based “distractions”. Mr. Rainie made some very thought provoking points discussing the shift of people’s social and information accessing behavior from tight nit and smaller groups of people that may be similar in ethnicity, location, and beliefs to a broader audience. With the increase in connectivity through broadband internet, people are not “place bound”, creating more personal autonomy and a “DIY-style” management of personal information.

This idea of changing technology and information seeking behavior strikes a chord specifically (for me) in Special Collections and Archives. As researchers, patrons, and the general public shift their use of technology, special collections and archives struggles to keep up with the changing technology and varying expectations of patrons. Mr. Rainie’s keynote address only solidifies what is already apparent in the Special Collections Department: we need to provide more access through technology. The next question is, how?

Luckily, on the heels of Lee Rainie’s speech, I attended a session that I found particularly exciting and timely. “Putting It to Use: Repurposing Archival Description for Digitization” was presented by Brian Dietz and Jason Ronallo from NCSU. I was blown away by the work they are doing and I could not wait to come back to ZSR and tell my colleagues. They have created an open-source software program called “Library Mead” that takes the archival description and nesting aspects of the finding aid and container lists and automates file names for digital items that are part of each specific collection. Having this connection between digital items and collection name and location is something we have been struggling with on the sixth floor for a while now. Utilizing this automated system would provide consistent and accurate file names for our digital objects. In addition to this, the system can create stub records for Voyager which would allow additional information to be added to the catalog. Needless to say, this presentation left me both excited and full of questions.

“Staying Vital in a Time of Change” is certainly an appropriate tagline for this conference. I enjoyed all of the sessions I attended and appreciate the local librarians for thinking outside of the box. Thanks to Wanda, Lynn, and Katherine for the opportunity!

According to the May 7, 1927 Old Gold and Black, available in DSpace, the incoming Freshman class of 1927 was the largest class to date, with 118 men. They expected respect. What they got was the traditional treatment by the upperclassmen, including hazing and freshman rules. The “Freshman-Sophomore Smoker” was a men’s meeting group where ideas were exchanged in a civil way, resulting in the abolition of the freshman beanies and other class rules.

This ticket was located in a box in the University Archives and is a glimpse into the lives of student organizations of the past.

Just in case you are wondering I found Sophie Lanneau’s garlic press — collection number and recipe booklet included. Click to enlarge.

“And what added greatly to our distress, while the carpenters was [sic] cutting away the main mast, a sudden gust of wind came and carried it away, about ten feet above where they was [sic] cutting; and, as it was dark, we could not see to cut away the back stays therefore they brought the head of the mast under the counter of the ship which greatly alarmed us for the ship lay rolling up on it all night and we expected her bottom would have been staved in before the morning. At this time the tiller broke so that we were left destitute of all means of help and even being saved: our livestock all perished and washed overboard, our provisions all damaged, our strength quiet exhausted with extreme fatigue and want of refreshment, our flesh worn off from our bones, our eyes sunk into our heads for want of sleep. and the boisterous wind still adding to our distress.” — ZSR, Special Collections and Archives, PCMF 5, Memoir of John Stradley, 1777-1781.

OK. So, I tried a bit to expand my acquaintance with dSpace today. The immediate task was to add an article about the Memoir of John Stradley, which we have only on microfilm, to the “item” containing the file of the digitized microfilm. An item can contain more than one thing. This is handy when, for example, one wants to unite several views or versions a something in one place (as in the back and front of a photograph).

Once I had two digital objects associated as a single item, I then needed to describe the item as having two digital objects: a scan from a microfilm of an 18th century journal and an article about that journal.

I was not very satisfied by my efforts for two reasons. First, there are no formatting options in the description window (so formatting must be done in html, right?) Question: How has the metadata been formatted up to now?

Secondly there is only the tiniest space to describe (or label) each digital object or instance. Question: is it possible to have a larger space for entering information about individual bitstreams/objects/instances?

http://dspace.zsr.wfu.edu/jspui/handle/10339/28169