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Brown Daily Herald: Orwig boasts rich musical collection
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By Matthew Lawrence
Posted: 11/12/07
If you ask Brown students where they find great music, most will probably direct you to the iTunes online store or LimeWire. Few students realize, however, how expansive and accessible the Orwig Music Library is.
Located at 1 Young Orchard Ave., the library opened in 1988 and contains approximately 100,000 music items, including Western classical music, jazz and popular music recordings and materials. The library houses 24,000 scores, 1,100 videos, 25,000 CDs, 21,000 books, 250 journals and around 15,000 LPs as well as manuscripts and music periodicals.
“We have a very rich collection of music from all over the world,” said Music Librarian Edwin Quist.
The Orwig library was not always as prestigious as it is today. According to David Josephson, associate professor of music, the University’s music library began as a small collection of books, scores and LPs at the Rockefeller Library, and a smaller one at the former Pembroke Library. It was overseen by a librarian who specialized in Russian studies and during the 1970s its budget never exceeded $4,000.
With the arrival of Merrily Taylor as University librarian in 1981, the budget began to expand. Josephson arrived at Brown in 1979 and raised $2.5 million in the early 1980s to expand the holdings and make it today “the best music library in New England, after Harvard and Yale” universities, Josephson said. -
Friedman Study Center a Winner! – “Rhode Island Monthly” awards space for innovative design
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Rhode Island Monthly’s thirteenth annual Design Awards has given “High Marks” to the Brown University Library’s recently opened Friedman Study Center. Judges awarded gold rankings to the recently opened study center in two categories “Commercial Interior Design” and “Commercial Construction/Renovation,” citing the imaginative layout, use of vibrant colors, and sleek furnishing.
“A look at the other fabulous design projects cited by Rhode Island Monthly show what a tremendous honor it is to capture not one, but two gold medals,” said Harriette Hemmasi, Joukowsky Family University Librarian. “It is a tribute to the generosity of Susan and Richard Friedman and the vision of the project team at Architecture Research Office. Anyone who saw this neglected space just a few short years ago could scarcely have imagined that it would one day be recognized for its architectural excellence. Today, the Friedman Study Center is a model for what libraries can be, boasting a warm, inviting, and user-friendly design. Open all hours of the day and night, it is frequently full to overflowing, with students drawn to its comfortable layout, soft-furniture, and spaces for group or individual study.”
New York based Architecture Research Office LLC was the project’s architectural firm, Providence firm Shawmut Design and Construction served as the construction manager, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates oversaw the Landscape Architecture, and Tillotson Design Associates of New York created lighting design for the space. The November issue of Rhode Island Monthly featuring commentary from the selection committee is now available on newsstands. -
Works by Jacobus Laurentianus on display at John Hay
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In his monumental work on the royal library of the Aragonese Kings of Naples, Tammaro de Marinis describes three manuscripts copied in the 1470’s by the Italian scribe, Jacobus Laurentianus. Jacobus copied least one of these manuscripts from an early printed edition of the same works. Brown University Library has a fourth manuscript by Jacobus Laurentianus, and we have determined that it, too, was copied from the earliest printed edition of the works it contains.
The John Hay Library is currently exhibiting the manuscript itself (Koopman 1400? D4) as well as the 1470 Roman edition from which it was copied, the De viris illustribus of Sextus Aurelius Victor, and the Rerum Gestarum a Romanis of Sextus Rufinus (AmB 323).
What would have been an elaborately illuminated title page is missing from our manuscript, but we have included, here, the title page from another of Jacobus’ manuscripts (Escorial h-II-2), as well as images of the colophons from the Escorial manuscript and our own, which indicate the name of the scribe.
Text by William S. Monroe, Senior Scholarly Resources Librarian. (with thanks to Professor Elizabeth J. Bryan, English Dept., and the Real Biblioteca el Escorial, for the images of Escorial h-II-2). The John Hay Library is open 9 to 6, Monday through Friday and 1 to 5PM on Sundays.