Enable researchers to find, access, use and share Rice collections of research materials.
William Blake Printing Press Arrives at Woodson Research Center Special Collections & Archives
In late January 2023, a replica of William Blake's wooden rolling press arrived from Christ Church Library at Oxford, and now has a new home in the lobby area of the Woodson Research Center. More information is available from the February 2023 article in Rice News. The press can be used in conjunction with the library’s extensive holdings on Blake’s replica copper plates. The plates have intricate designs and excellent poetry. Researchers can recreate and experience how Blake printed them with the press and these materials.
New Collections in Woodson Research Center Special Collections and Archives
Dr. John E. Mack archive - Dr. John E. Mack archive was donated in Spring 2023 and will be a cornerstone collection for the Archives of the Impossible. It relates to Mack’s research as a psychiatrist at Harvard University working with people reporting alien abduction. This collection contains sensitive, private information and is being digitized and prepared for text anonymization for future research.
Jacques Vallee UFO and Paranormal Phenomenon Papers addendum - New materials have been added to this key collection, part of the Archives of the Impossible. Vallee has been a major writer and researcher in the UFO field since the 1960s.
TUTS Collection - Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS) records were donated in 2022 with additional materials in 2023. The records contain oversize production posters, City of Houston proclamations, TUTS bound programs 1978-1998, photographs, 45 Beta tapes, 10 reel-to-reel tapes, 20 cassette tapes, and documents for the professional, non-profit musical theatre production company in Houston.
Teapot Dome Scandal, Sinclair Oil, and Related Company Records - Donated in November 2022 the bulk of the collection consists of business records of Sinclair Oil Corporation and Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO). A large series of materials relates to the Teapot Dome Scandal, a bribery scandal involving the administration of President Warren G. Harding and leasing of the U.S. naval petroleum reserve at Wyoming's Teapot Dome to a private oil company without competitive bidding. (200 boxes - documents, photographs, film and audio recordings)
Comic Arts Teaching and Study Workshop (CATS) Collection Processed - This collection is part of the Comic Art Teaching and Study Workshop, or CATS, based in the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts at Rice University. It features original and printed comic art by American, Mexican, Chinese, German, and Japanese artists. (10 boxes - original and printed comics, artwork)
The Houston Blues Society records - Document the history of the organization through newsletters, audio, video, photographs, and much more. (9 boxes)
The Howard Porper Collection - highlights the early history of Houston's folk music scene in the 1950s and 1960s. It contains photographs, fliers, lyrics, and audio.
Fondren Acquires New Collections Supporting Art & Architecture
Noteworthy acquisitions:
- Primary Information back catalog through 2027 publications
- Set of 4 Christopher Wool artist books and donated monographs from the artist
- Collector Edition of La Divina Commedia - The New Manuscript by artist George Kochrane (Italian and English editions)
- Array of artist's editions of comic book art for Chris Sperandio - large-scale facsimiles of original artwork for a variety of popular comics, showing the pre-publication (and pre-censorship) artistic process
From facsimiles to real and rare, FY 2023 saw notable acquisitions made by art & architecture librarian K. Sarah Ostrach. Studying the materials and construction of ‘the real thing’ is an essential opportunity for those building a creative practice, but also for literature or history students looking to connect to methods and materials. Facsimiles, or highly accurate reproductions, are likewise essential where the object itself is unavailable, recreating as truthfully as possible the physical experience of interacting with a given object.
A priority for Brown Fine Arts FY23 collection development was artist’s books to inform existing programs in the Department of Art and a growing interest in book arts among students, faculty, and staff. Acquisitions came in a variety of shapes and sizes, from a small, handsewn volume of 20 letterpress-printed zines by artist Karen Switzer, Ker-bloom! Volume 5 issues 85-105, to four oversize books by painter and printer Christopher Wool. Along with the purchase of these four volumes, Wool also donated five other books to create a robust study collection for Rice’s impressive painting and printing programs. Switzer’s zines are a timely acquisition as the Woodson Research Center acquires a variety of printing presses and more programs are offered to explore printing history and techniques.
Connecting the past to the present in the lineage of artist’s books is nonprofit publisher Primary Information. Per the nonprofit’s About page, “Primary Information facilitates intergenerational dialogue through the simultaneous publication of new and archival books, providing a new audience for out-of-print works and historical context for contemporary artists.” Rice University is now one of a handful of North American institutions to have the complete back catalog of new and reprinted, archival artist’s books. As an academic library also serving the public, it is exciting that the Brown Fine Arts Library and Fondren can provide this important art research resource to our campus community and the public.
Example: Destroy All Monsters Magazine
Italian and English Collector Editions of La Divina Commedia: The New Manuscript by artist George Cochrane. After studying the history of illustration of The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century, Cochrane handwrote (in Italian) and illustrated a new manuscript with a variety of styles, from illuminated manuscripts to anime. His handwriting was then scanned and used to create a highly variable font to construct the English edition. These two books are phenomenal resources for students of literature, graphic and book design, and illustration.
A huge–literally–boon to the collection are the array of artist’s editions of comic book art. These books are massive facsimiles reproducing comic illustrations at full size, documenting the pre-publication and pre-censorship artistic process. Prince Valiant, Batman, Judge Dredd, Watchmen, Peanuts, Alien, and more –all full-size. These volumes are exciting resources to complement and support recent acquisitions of original comic strips and comic books by the Woodson Research Center and the programming of the Comic Art Teaching and Study Workshop.
De Gruyter’s University Press Library Goes Digital
Fondren Library shifted from print to e-preferred book program via De Gruyter's University Press Library for the following core publishers: Columbia University Press, Cornell University Press, Fordham University Press, Harvard University Press, NYU Press, Penn State University Press, Princeton University Press, Rutgers University Press, Stanford University Press, University of California Press, University of Chicago Press, University of Hawai'i Press, University of Pennsylvania Press, University of Texas Press, University of Toronto Press, and Yale University Press. This program will allow Fondren Library to acquire these publishers' entire annual ebook frontlists at a significant discount to title-by-title purchasing of ebooks. For the near future, both print and ebook formats will be purchased for Harvard University Press, Princeton University Press, University of Chicago Press, and Yale University Press. Along with this switch, Fondren Library did a print holdings matching program with the aforementioned publishers to provide electronic back access to over 37,446 titles for books Fondren Library owns in print.
Submitted by Scott Vieira
Sage Impact Offer Supports Social Sciences
Fondren Library made a significant purchase from SAGE Publications (Impact Offer) to purchase Sage Data (formerly known as Data Planet), over 5,880 Sage books, over 1,000 journals including backfiles, Sage Campus, Sage Research Methods, Sage Business, Sage Skills, Sage Video, CQ Press, and more. This purchase provided a deep discount and ongoing discounts for new Sage Publications. The materials acquired will boost Fondren Library's resources supporting the social sciences and other disciplines. The library will also make these resources available to Rice alumni via the Rice Alumni Portal.
Submitted by Scott Vieira
Overleaf Support Grows
Overleaf is a collaborative cloud- based LaTeX tool which makes writing, editing and publishing scientific papers much easier than other editors available. It is also a great tool to use to collaborate with researchers at other institutions. Fondren Library started a subscription in June 2022. All Rice University students, faculty and staff are provided access to a free Overleaf Pro account. From July 2022 to June 30 2023. Classes are offered and a support research guide is available.
- Over FY23, the number of Rice subscribers grew from 1,126 to 1,990. As of May 2023, the departments with the most Overleaf subscribers were Computer Science (348) and Electrical & Computer Engineering (226), with the modal subscriber being a graduate student (740 total), plus a significant number of undergraduates in the Engineering Division without a declared major (91).
- Collaborations with users at other institutions averaged to around 4,270.
- The usage of the libguide shows good usage with 419 views during FY22 (July 1st to June 30, 2023).
Fondren Patent and Trademark Resource Center at the Ion
The Patent and Trademark Resource Center, Rice Center for Engineering Leadership, and the Ion worked to bring the Commissioner for Patents, Vaishali Udupa, to campus and the Ion. A half-day was dedicated to the Ion location, featuring a fireside chat with her and a panel with local innovators and support for entrepreneurs (South Texas College of Law patent clinic representative, SCORE representative). This workshop built on previous classes, when Ms. Udupa taught four class sessions in February and March 2023 on various intellectual property topics in their Open Accelerator program.
Fondren Fellows Program Sponsors Student Research
Typically people think of the library as a place where students go to access research materials, but the library is also the focus of student research. The Fondren Fellows program enables undergraduate and graduate students to work on inquiry-based projects that engage library-related skills, collections, and services. For example, Fondren Fellows have increased access to archival collections, created rich data visualizations, designed training programs, and more, all while being mentored by a Fondren staff member or a Rice faculty member or researcher. By participating in the program, students gain valuable technical, communication, and project management skills. Fondren Fellows have presented their work at local and national conferences and co-published articles and reports with their mentors. At the same time, the library advances its own projects and priorities by drawing upon Fellows’ expertise, creativity and energy.
The 2022-2023 cohort included thirty-three Fellows who represent a variety of majors and backgrounds. These Fellows worked on one of sixteen projects, some of which were team-based. In addition, they attended cohort meetings to learn from each other’s experiences and hone their skills in areas such as giving presentations.
Several current projects focused on collecting and visualizing historical data. For example, “Where Is Texas on the SlaveVoyages Website? Reconstructing the Coastwise Traffic to the Lone Star State in the Nineteenth Century” built on previous research developed to reconstruct the nineteenth-century coastwise slave trade to Texas through a database made from manifests and newspaper sources. The project has resulted in poster exhibitions, paper presentations, and a series of posts providing contextual materials on its findings at Echoes: The SlaveVoyages Blog. According to project director Dr. Daniel Domingues, "The Fondren Fellows program was crucial for placing Texas on SlaveVoyages' map. Without the program and its fellows, much of our understanding of the size, evolution, and geographic distribution, to say nothing of the human dimension, of the maritime traffic to the Lone Star State would still remain unknown." Similarly, the “Houston Highways” project created an interactive open-access database and map of the structures and people displaced by early highway construction. Accompanying this database and map are narratives of the consequences of highway-building on Houstonians along race and class lines for both the general public and policy-makers. The Fellows presented their analysis of the impact of highways on Black neighborhoods in Houston at the first Black Houston(s) Symposium.
Houston Highways Team
Other projects engaged students in contextualizing archival collections. For example, “The President’s Scientists: Understanding the Evolving Role of White House Science Advisors”
Examined the history of White House scientific advisors through archival and textual research. Fellows Yufei Qi and Soumya Somani are employing recently digitized archival materials housed in Fondren Library’s White House Scientist and Science Policy Dynamic Digital Archive (DDA) to provide a deeper understanding of the role of scientists serving as policy advisors to the president. Soumya and Yufei each presented research posters at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in March 2023, taking home first and second prize, respectively, in the “Science & Society” category of the undergraduate poster competition.
Soumya Somani, The President’s Scientists
Two other projects promoted data literacy at Rice. “Fondren Library Data Repository for Data Science Education and Experiential Learning, Phase I” created an open repository of interesting, real-world government datasets that are easy to understand and access, beginner-friendly, and suitable for educational use. Fellows Tina Li, Alison Qiu, and Nik Sun expressed their appreciation about the opportunities through this project, ranging from gaining hands-on experience in working with complex data, enhancing technical skills such as using data software such as Python, data analysis and modeling for research, benefiting from their mentor’s network, and interacting with domain experts, to acquiring valuable communication skills and showcasing research to the public. Likewise, “Design, Development, and Delivery of Python Workshops” aimed to create and implement free workshops in Python programming for the Rice community while building the Fondren Fellow’s skills in learning design and teaching. Through this project, 70 Rice students and staff have been introduced to basic Python concepts. According to Fondren Fellow Sheena Bai, “The program has provided me an opportunity to hone my programming skills, practice my communication and presentation skills, and learn program planning under the supervision of a mentor.”
Woodson Acquires Grants to Support Researchers
Reginald Moore Travel Grant for Research in Activism and Social Justice - This annual grant supports travel costs for scholars outside the Houston area to engage with archival collections focused on social justice. Amani Ponnaganti, 2nd Year MS-PhD Student, Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the 2023 recipient. Her topic was “Submerged empire: Racial grammars of governance in Houston, 1900-1940,” the discourses and practices surrounding land reclamation and drainage projects in Houston during the early to mid-20th century to draw attention to the historical roots of environmental injustice in the city.
South Texas Jewish Archives grant awarded from the Samuels Foundation - The Joan and Stanford Alexander South Texas Jewish Archives at Rice University was awarded $16,000 from the Samuels Family Foundation to support continued efforts to digitize its most important collections and share them online with researchers, teachers, and the public. This work will begin in FY24, and will be available at the UNT Portal to Texas History, as well as locally at digitalcollections.rice.edu.
Open Access at Fondren
Digital Scholarship Services staff continued to facilitate deposits of faculty works into the Rice University Research Repository per the university's open access policy. During FY 22-23, copies of approximately 500 journal articles were deposited in the archive. A Fondren Library Open Access Working Group with members from DSS, Collection Development, and the UX Office, was tasked with determining criteria for investment in sustainable open access publishing, including development of a set of principles to be used to evaluate requests and invitations to support open initiatives. The final deliverables included an Open Access Values Statement and Open Access Decision-Making Framework.
DMC Creates Cover Art for American Chemical Society Publication
In Spring 2023, DMC collaborated with Sohini Bhattacharyya, Rice Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Ph.D. in Materials Sciences, on creating a cover art for a journal article. Sohini approached Mario Norton, DMC supervisor, to make an image for reclaiming precious minerals from batteries, bringing in this excellent collaborative opportunity for both parties. The main idea of the image is that “critical metals for energy, e.g., Li, Co, and Ni, can be recycled from Li-ion batteries using a green Deep Eutectic Solvent following a hydrogen bond mediated chloride coordination mechanism.” Mario modeled it in Blender, rendered an image, and made the final touches in Photoshop. The image is published as an alternate cover art of the May 8, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 18, American Chemical Society publication “ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering”.