Maury A. Bromsen (1919–2005) was a buyer and seller of antiquarian books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, prints, and manuscripts relating to the Americas. When he died, Bromsen left the John Carter Brown Library more than four million dollars and approximately 10,000 books and several thousand manuscripts, one of the largest gifts the Library has ever received. In August 2010, the Library staff completed a 169 page compilation of all the books accessioned into the collection from Bromsen's bequest. Please contact, JCBL Information for more information about this book.

The John Carter Brown Library was featured in a PBS History Detectives show on July 19. In it a sketchbook is attributed to an artist associated with the Mexican Boundary commission. Many papers and sketches of the commission are at the JCB by virute of the leader of the expedition, John Russell Bartlett, having become a librarian of the library and the experts examined many of them on screen.

Stephen Houston, professor at Brown University and friend of the JCB, has discovered a well-preserved burial site of an ancient Maya king. The tomb, dating from about about 350 to 400 A.D., is a once-in-a-lifetime find. Read the Press Release here, complete with video.

Ted Widmer wrote an op-ed in the July 20th International Herald Tribune on how the example of Thomas Jefferson's appreciation of the people and cultures of Arabia, combined with his belief in democracy, can inform American foreign policy in the Middle East today.

On July Fourth, Toby Lester discussed in the Boston Globe the randomness of the naming of this American part of the world.

The John Carter Brown Library's Remember Haiti site is the American Library Association's "Digital Library of the Week !".

Duke University sponsored a conference on April 23, 2010, called “Haiti’s History: Foundations for the Future.” Organized by Duke professors Laurent Dubois, a specialist in the history and culture of France and the Caribbean, Deborah Jenson of Romance Studies and Jean Casimir, the former Haitian ambassador to the United States and a visiting scholar at Duke. Ted Widmer spoke on the John Carter Brown Library's efforts to help to preserve Haitian archives. See the article in Duke Today.

The third annual Women in the Archives: a conference on the role of archival materials in the study and teaching of early women's writing will take place on April 24, 2010, at Brown University, Providence, RI. The keynote lecture will be by Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, a former JCB fellow. This year's conference theme is "England/New England" and will focus on women's writing during the colonial period. Registration is free and open to all: please register here.

Women in the Archives is co-sponsored by the Women Writers Project and the Sarah Doyle Women's Center at Brown University, with generous support from the Brown University Library, the Brown University, President's Office, the John Carter Brown library, the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, and the Brown University English Department.

Madison Smartt Bell, a friend and former speaker at the John Carter Brown Library, wrote in the Huffington Press of Haiti’s cultural heritage in the wake of the earthquake. Bell particularly mentions the Bibliothèque Haïtienne des Pères du Saint-Esprit and its librarian, Patrick Tardieu.

A dear friend of the John Carter Brown Library died on February 28, 2010. José Mindlin owned the largest private library in Latin America. An article written about him appeared in the Jewish Journal

Patrick Tardieu, the chief conservator at Haiti’s oldest library—the Bibliothèque Haïtienne des Pères du Saint-Esprit in Port-au-Prince—is the John Carter Brown Library’s newest visiting scholar. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Providence Journal, the Miami Herald, as well as the Brown Daily Herald have written articles about the Haitian scholar.

John Bockstoce, member of the John Carter Brown Library's Board of Governors, had an article on the five best books on the Arctic in the Wall Street Journal on December 26, 2009. As the article reports, Santa is SO yesterday. These five arctic explorers (and their books) are the real north-polar stars.

On October 21, 2009, the John Carter Brown Library dedicated its Scholars' Residence as Fiering House, in honor of Norman Fiering, Director and Librarian Emeritus of the JCB. During his tenure from 1983 to 2006, he transformed what began as a small fellowship program into a dynamic and growing community of scholars from all over the world and his idea for fellows' housing led to 79 Charlesfield Street being retained, renovated, and established as a residence for scholars of the JCB.

Toby Lester, a JCB Invited Research Fellow, is the author of the book, The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name that has been receiving a lot of attention. His book has been noticed at the BBC. See the BBC's news magazine take on the map that changed the world. Lester wrote an article titled, "The World Redrawn," published in the Boston Globe, October 11, 2009.

Jennifer Anderson, a former fellow at the John Carter Brown Library, has recently received a coveted Emmy nomination for her research help on a documentary called Traces of the Trade. The film tells the true story of filmmaker Katrina Browne's unexpected discovery that her illustrious New England forefathers, the DeWolfs, were infamous as the largest slave traders in American history. For further information on the documentary and award, see the Stony Brook University Press Release.

The Brown Alumni Magazine wrote about Edmund Morgan, prominent historian, who returned to the John Carter Brown Library's Fellows Chat to launch his latest book. He launched his teaching career in early American history at Brown University and quickly joined the JCB Associates (he has been a member for 63 years!) More information may be found in the press release here.

The John Carter Brown Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of an important manuscript produced in the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. More information may be found in the press release here.

Rolena Adorno has recently been nominated to be a member of the National Council on the Humanities by President Barack Obama. She is the Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University, where she focuses her study and teachings on Colonial Spanish American literature and history.

Ted Widmer attended the opening on April 21, 2009, of the World Digital Library in Paris, along with representatives of the world's great libraries. The JCB was proud to be one of the WDL's original partner institutions. This project, an important step forward for global access to rare documents, draws on the treasures of libraries around the world. The online digital library, will provide unrestricted public access, free of charge, to this material. See the article published in the International Herald Tribune and New York Times on the World Digital Library. The Providence Journal also published an article in the Sunday paper.

History Now, an online publication of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, published Ted Widmer's "Navigating the Age of Exploration," in its June 2007 edition. This month it was announced that the article will be republished in the Winter 2007-2008 issue of American Educator.

The Providence Journal for August 16 carried a penetrating and very complimentary review of the JCB's current exhibition, "Jamestown Matters." Arts editor Bill Van Siclen gave due credit to Susan Danforth, who curated the exhibition.

Franna Low, a faithful employee in the office of the JCB Associates for nearly 40 years, passed away on August 12. She had retired just a year ago, but she continued to drop in occasionally to be sure we were still "on our toes." Her candor and feisty spirit will be greatly missed.

The New York Times Magazine for July 22 featured an article by Director Ted Widmer with the title "George Bush I: Downtown character, liberal mystic, Islamic scholar. Who knew?"

On July 15th, another op-ed piece by Ted Widmer titled "The Challenge of Imperialism" appeared in the Boston Globe. It describes a speech by Senator John F. Kennedy that rejected Cold War beliefs and foresaw some of today’s foreign policy problems. (This is a PDF version of the article. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view it.)

On June 30th, an op-ed piece by Ted Widmer titled "Little America" appeared in the New York Times. The article discusses the fluctuating practical significance of the tiny Caribbean island of Navassa since Columbus supposedly sighted it in 1493.

The long-awaited JCB residence for scholars opened for occupancy on Friday, June 1. The event was celebrated with tours of the elegantly decorated public rooms and a pizza party. Conveniently located near the library at 79 Charlesfield, the residence contains eleven private rooms. For more information, please call 401-863-2725.

Ken Ward, from the University of Texas at Austin, will take up the position of Curator of Latin American Books on August 1. Ken is a historian of the Mexican book and in the final stages of a Ph.D. dissertation. He is currently living in Mexico City, where he is finishing his research on the family of booksellers and printers descended from Bernardo Calderon. He also received an MLIS from Texas and is a veteran of the rare book trade, having worked for years at Powell's Used Books in Portland, Oregon.

The April 3, 2007, issue of the Brown Daily Herald featured an announcement that Ted Widmer had been appointed to a University committee to “design a major academic initiative related to slavery and justice.” Widmer was quoted calling the JCB “one of the best places on Earth to study the comparative history of slavery” and pointing out that “the original committee [the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice] did a good deal of its own research there.”

On March 29th, the Reuters web site ran a long article about the JCBL's current exhibit, “Slavery and Justice.”

On March 12th, “The House Of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.: A mentor’s wisdom with Martinis Van Buren,” a column by Director Ted Widmer about his recent experience writing a Presidential biography, appeared in The New York Observer.

This spring, the Charles H. Watts Professorship brings Robert Gross to the JCB to teach the annual in-house History of the Book course.

On January 14th, “His Hour Upon the Stage,” Director Ted Widmer's commentary on President Bush's January 10th speech on his new Iraq strategy, appeared in the Boston Globe.