hasn’t he suffered enough 💔💔💔

Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan, Delores “Dee” Dixon, and Pete Seeger at Gil Turner’s wedding - August 26, 1962

Also can be seen is John Herald, Gordon Friesen, Agnes Sis Cunningham, Mark Spoelstra, and Rev. Gary Davis

Photos by Joe Alper

boys from the bay(verse)

it’s nap time, you little shit

Phil Ochs Interview in 3 parts (1968) Broadside Magazine, New York Courtesy of Northwestern University Libraries

Broadsides & Boarding Parties, 1984, was the first of Milton Bradley’s line of big boxed “Gamemaster Series” games, which included the better known Axis & Allies, Conquest of the Empire, Fortress America, and Shogun/Samurai Swords/Ikusa. While B&B, A&A and Conquest share the same designer, Larry Harris Jr, the big plastic galleons, individual crew models, and more random mechanics make this tactical game seem a bit out of place in this lineup of grand strategic games. (Ad in Dragon magazine 91, November 1984; Milton Bradley box art originally by “Sezierski”)

Adriano Spatola, Little Exhortation, Translation by Paul Vangelisti, n.p., n.d. [re: «Temblor» – Contemporary Poets, Issue Number 10, Edited by Leland Hickman, North Hollywood, CA, 1989, p. 3] [Granary Books, New York, NY]

The fiery end of HMS Boyne

HMS Boyne was a second rate, ship of the line with 98 guns and a crew of 720 men that was launched in 1790 and was as flagship of Vice Admiral John Jervis in the Caribbean for some years. After five years, however, she returned to England and was at Spithead on 1 May 1795. The ship was at anchor while the ship's Royal Marines conducted gunnery exercises at various positions. And since it was just very early in the morning breakfast was being prepared for the officers and therefore it is believed that the chimney of the officers' mess stove, which ran through the decks, set fire to the papers in the admiral's cabin. It is quite possible that the Marines accidentally caused the fire.

Engraved commemorative coin - Obverse: Engraved on a smooth surface starboard broadside view of a battleship. Inscribed below: 'BOYNE'. Reverse: A foul anchor. Legend: 'CHARITY, NEWLYN. ROBT DALE'. (HMS 'Boyne' was Sir J. Jervis' flagship in the West Indies in 1794.) (x)

The fire was not discovered until the flames were ripping through the quarterdeck and it was too late to do anything, because the guns were all loaded and the fire ignited them, causing the fire to spread rapidly, and within half an hour the ship was in flames from one end to the other.

The loss of HMS Boyne, by Thomas Elliot ( active 1790-1810) (x)

The other ships in the Spithead, realizing what was happening, cut off their anchors and headed for the Isle of Wight for safety. Fortunately, all but 11 of the 720 men were saved. But the fright had no end, as the heat of the fire set off the loaded guns, one of the shots managed to hit HMS Queen Charlotte at some distance, killing two sailors. And worse came to worse as the flames pierced Boyne's anchor cables and the helpless ship drifted toward Portsmouth until she was intercepted by the sandbar opposite Southsea Castle and finally torn apart by an explosion triggered by the fire that had reached the powder magazine.

The Blowing up of the Boyne, a 98 Gun Ship, at Spithead, May 1st 1795, by George Thompson, 1800 (x)

The explosion, however, had not completely torn her apart and the wreck posed a danger to shipping and was therefore blown up on August 30, 1838 in an attempt to clear it and again in a final attempt on June 24, 1840.

Today, the Boyne buoy marks the spot where the ship was blown up. Some metal objects from the ship are located on a gravel mound.

Preservation Technician cleans a record while wearing a battery powered air-purifying respirator for protection. Decontamination Lab, National Archives at St. Louis, MO.

Conservators: Magicians of the Archives! November 4 is #AskAConservator Day! Our conservators will take over Twitter Nov. 4 to answer your burning questions about how we deal with mold, water and insect damage in order to preserve these records for generations to come! Ask questions & follow the hashtag to see who else is participating worldwide. 

See related National Archives News story: Fulbright Scholar Joins Heritage Science Lab and Tumblr post: We Welcome Cancy Chu - Our 1st Heritage Science Fulbright Scholar!

Check out our state-of-the-art labs! Lab at the National Archives, St. Louis, MO See this lab’s continuing work to save and reconstruct the records damaged in the 1973 fire. 

Magna Carta Conservation Treatment See NARA conservators use UV photography to reveal previously illegible writing on a 1297 Magna Carta (on loan from David M. Rubenstein).

Ultraviolet fluorescence photo of the 1297 Magna Carta parchment (before treatment) revealed obliterated text in damaged areas. Photo by Sarah Raithel. Related press release: National Archives Conservators Reveal Previously Illegible Text in Magna Carta

Saving the Iraqi Jewish Archive Days after the Coalition forces took over Baghdad in 2003, American soldiers entered Saddam Hussein’s flooded intelligence building and found, under four feet of water, books and documents relating to the Jewish community of Iraq. Learn how these records were vacuum freeze-dried, preserved and digitized under the direction of the National Archives. View these records here.

Peek “behind the scenes” to see treatment of these records in the National Archives state-of-the-art Conservation Lab.

Due to mold, conservation staff wore gloves and masks, and worked under ventilation hoods whole working with records from the Iraqi Jewish Archive. 

Preserving Family Histories Paper conservator Annie Wilker repairs an 18th-century fraktur and demonstrates techniques used to preserve damaged documents.

More secrets revealed online!

What's a Conservator?

NARA Conservators Meet the Challenge Every Day, Prologue Magazine

Repairing Existing Damage to Family Papers and Photographs

Declaration of Independence - learn about the conservation treatment and re-encasement of the document.

Preserving the Dunlap Broadside 

(Broadside #63, October 15, 1965)

Rita Dove #VoicesFromTheStacks

For #NationalPoetryMonth, this post will highlight UIowa alumnus Rita Dove. Dove is an American poet, essayist, and novelist from Akron, Ohio. Dove was the first Black U.S. Poet Laureate in the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995. 

From PoetryFoundation.org, "photo courtesy of the poet"

Dove received her undergraduate degree from Miami State University. She was also a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tübingen, Germany in 1974-75. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop in 1977. In addition, Dove has received 29 honorary doctorates, including from Yale University, Emory University, and the University of Iowa.

Dove received a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for Thomas and Beulah, her semi-fictionalized poetry collection about her grandparents. She is the only poet that has received the National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton (1996) and the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama (2011), along with many other awards.

Dove has written and curated poetry columns for New York Times Magazine and the Washington Post. Her current position is as the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at Virginia University. She has held a position in their English Department since 1993. 

Dove’s influences are often varied, over her 40 year career she has published 11 volumes of poetry, a play, a collection of essays, a collection of short stories, and a novel. Her early works especially focus on the lives of individual people with backdrops in wider historic moments. She has also curated projects during her career, including a collection of writings about the African diaspora during her time as Poet Laureate, and The Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry in 2011. Her most recent work is a 2021 poetry collection titled Playlist for the Apocalypse. 

Included above is a broadside of Dove's poem "Evening Primrose" from Atalia Press. Printed on handmade Barcham Green paper and one of only 120 ever printed, this poem is signed by its poet. It is one of the items that Special Collections & Archives holds in our collections; call number BROADSIDE PS3554.087 E94 1998. For more of Dove's work in our collection, view here.

phil ochs on gordon lightfoot for broadside magazine, 15 july 1965

music review #2 - blowin' in the wind

rating: 10/10 song: blowin' in the wind album: the freewheelin' bob dylan (1963) artist: bob dylan

Originally published in the late May 1962 publication of Broadside Magazine, it is considered one of Dylan’s best compositions in his over 60-year career. Its iconic introductory line, “How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?”, has been sung by countless artists such as Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, and Mary Travers. This line can be interpreted in many different ways and contexts, but one way it can be interpreted is simply, how many experiences and how much life should a man have lived before he is considered an “adult”? Before he has the privileges that men have in our society? This can also be linked back to the Civil Rights Movement and how people of color, specifically Black people were not considered human and still are dehumanized to this day. The fact the tune is based off of an old slave protest song called “No More Auction Block for Me” emphasizes this idea even more. The next line I’d like to focus on is “Yes, and how many years can some people exist / Before they’re allowed to be free?”. Again, Dylan tackles slavery, and calls for the freedom of all oppressed individuals and groups. Dylan is clearly tired of white Americans and Europeans “deciding” when certain peoples are “allowed” to be free, and instead wishes that people who have existed for so long should finally just exist without prejudice. The next line of the song is also significant here; Dylan sings, “Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head / And pretend that he just doesn’t see?” -- and just a few lines later -- “Yes, and how many ears must one man have / Before he can hear people cry? [See Joan Baez’s “To Bobby”] / Yes, and how many deaths will it take ‘till he knows / That too many people have died?”. Here, he is actively calling out those who choose to ignore the oppressions that plague society. Within the context, it was likely written about the Vietnam war as Dylan was outwardly and adamantly anti-war in the early '60s, but can be interpreted to just about any atrocity in history. And finally, the refrain of the song; “The answer is blowin’ in the wind”. Dylan has said in reference to this song that people who choose to ignore the wars are the biggest criminals, and I believe here, he is saying that the answer is obvious, yet so many people actively ignore it. Obviously, from the very second one hears human suffering, their response should be to help, but so many stay neutral and act like they don’t have basic human decency or common sense. Neutrality is one of the biggest crimes in the eyes of 21-year-old Bob Dylan.

UC San Diego Library Receives Grant to Digitize Archive for New Poetry Collection

Mellon Foundation awards Library $250,000 to preserve audiovisual items in heavily-used research collection

Audiovisual items within the UC San Diego Library’s Archive for New Poetry (ANP) collection will be digitized and preserved thanks to a $250,000 grant awarded to the organization by the Mellon Foundation. 

Through this project, the team plans to digitize approximately 2,500 sound recordings and 200 films and videos in the ANP. Digitized materials will be added to the Library's Digital Asset Management System for discovery and long-term preservation via its Digital Collections website and online catalog, UC Library Search.

“We are incredibly grateful the Mellon Foundation encouraged us to apply for this grant and ultimately awarded us the funds to get this project underway,” said Erik Mitchell, Audrey Geisel University Librarian at UC San Diego. “This will enhance our ability to provide researchers with the information they need to gain a greater understanding of the world of modern poetry.” 

In addition to the digitization effort, the Library plans to launch "Future Files," a curriculum-based initiative that will provide contemporary poets and creators with instructions on how to build and sustain their born-digital material and physical manuscript collections to ensure their work can be accessible to future generations of literature enthusiasts and scholars. 

This culturally- and academically-significant collection, housed within the Library’s Special Collections & Archives (SC&A), was established in 1968 and is currently one of the largest and most active poetry collections in the United States. It is a comprehensive research collection of post-1945 American poetry with an emphasis on experimental and avant-garde poetics. 

The collection includes more than 35,000 volumes, 1,800 serial titles, 700 broadsides, little magazines, ephemeral printings, artists' books along with extensive holdings of literary manuscripts, correspondence and original sound and video recordings.

The goals for this project are twofold: (1) to preserve and enhance accessibility for audiovisual content in the ANP; and (2) to teach and provide tools for working poets and creators today to practice mindful preservation of their records. Coincidentally, the grant period coincides with the 50th anniversary of the New Writing Series, a reading series run by the UC San Diego Department of Literature and supported, digitized and archived by the Library.

“The Archive for New Poetry is one of our earliest collections of emphasis and highly used,” said Lynda Claassen, longtime director of Special Collections & Archives at UC San Diego. “We take great pride in our ability to provide our community with a comprehensive collection of poetry-related materials and are pleased we’re able to make these items even more accessible through this grant-funded project.”

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, SC&A staff fielded approximately 2,000 ANP reference requests annually. During the pandemic, when the Library did not permit on-site use, SC&A filled research requests for ANP materials by providing more than 21,000 digital scans from the collection. 

“This collection documents not only the published output of poets and writers, but also the records of their creative processes, collaborations, lived experiences and relationships with other poets and artists,” said Archive for New Poetry Curator Nina Mamikunian. “I am excited to get this project underway, with the assistance of my colleagues in Special Collections & Archives, and be able to readily share the digitized materials with both our campus community and the public.”

The newly digitized ANP materials will be accessible online in late 2024. The “Future Files” curriculum will be rolled out in tandem. For additional information on the ANP, visit http://lib.ucsd.edu/anp.