It’s been a good week for the Rosenbach, what with coverage about the Sendak mural from the Philadelphia Inquirer and NPR as well as lots of other great press! If the stories got you intrigued, you should stop by on Wednesdays from 12-1 or from 6-7 to see the mural conservation in action. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Cassie Myers, the conservator on the project, and she’s really great–easy to talk to and down to earth, so you definitely should take this opportunity to come by and ask questions!
But the mural isn’t the only thing going on around here. We’ve also been gearing up for our annual Romance at the Rosenbach tours, just in time for Valentine’s Day. To support these great docent-led tours we’ve put out a new dining room installation, added some miniatures in the first floor hall, and filled the partner desk in the upstairs library with love letters, amorous offerings, and tales of scandal. But love is fleeting and the tours are only being offered for one week, so come by next week, Feb.8-13, to see for yourself–check the Program Page for daily times.
In addition to our romantic roses, I also wanted to announce Rosy, our newest online catalog. You’ve heard me talk about Phil, our object catalog, and Mo, our online manuscript viewer, but Rosy is our new online library catalog, named for Dr. R himself. To get Rosy up and running we’ve started out with the Rush-Biddle-Williams family papers and about 60% of the Marianne Moore Library, so go ahead, play around, and check it out. The next step will be to finish adding the records for the remainder of our manuscript materials, which will take a while, but we are really excited about the new system.
Getting Rosy up and running has been a huge project for our Librarian, Elizabeth Fuller, so kudos to her. Watching her slog through software upgrades, configuration issues, field mapping, nonsensical search results, user optimization and untold other issues has given me new respect for the complexity of the project and the prodigious organizational power of Elizabeth’s brain. She wanted me to note that she’s still working on the system, so the ways data is displayed may change a bit, and there may be some times when Rosy is unavailable (mostly at night).
I think that’s a wrap for this week. See you at the Rosenbach!