Backstreets.com: Special Collection

SPRINGSTEEN SPECIAL COLLECTION TRANSFERRED TO MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY
The Bruce Springsteen Special Collection, formerly housed at the Asbury Park Public Library, has moved to Monmouth University in the Jersey Shore community of West Long Branch, where it will reopen to the public on November 1.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the Collection has expanded from original donations of 1,000 books, magazines and fanzines in 2001 to over 14,800 documents today, thanks to donations by fans around the world. Cared for by the Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection and the library staff, the expanding Collection rapidly exceeded the library's storage capacity, precipitating the move.

The Collection grew out of a survey in 2001 by Backstreets showing that magazine and newspaper articles on Springsteen's early career were becoming increasingly scarce.

"The partnership between Monmouth University and the fan community offers a great opportunity to ensure the preservation of Springsteen-related history at one place," said Christopher Phillips, editor and publisher of Backstreets and president of The Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection. "At the University, the Collection will be publicly accessible to all who have a serious interest in Bruce Springsteen's life and career."

Relocation of the Collection to Monmouth University culminates a four-year search for a site in New Jersey that combines the right of public access with proper environmental controls, security, and an opportunity to expand.

University President Paul G. Gaffney II said the University "is the perfect location for this outstanding Collection. Students and faculty from Monmouth University, especially our music industry students, will benefit greatly from having access to these documents. I hope it will also serve as a valuable resource for members of the academic community from around the world."

The move to the University keeps the Collection in a Jersey Shore community with a deep connection to Springsteen history. Springsteen played at least 24 concerts in Long Branch communities between 1968 and 1974, with many others a stone's throw away. Long Branch, and its contiguous neighbor West Long Branch, hosted most of Springsteen's early bands, including The Castiles, Earth, Child, Steel Mill, and The Bruce Springsteen Band, at venues ranging from sandy beaches to gymnasiums. The newly formed E Street Band made an early appearance at Monmouth College on Feb. 16, 1973 for a "Save The Trees" concert featuring $1 ticket prices for anyone who brought paper recyclables.

Robert Santelli, a Monmouth alumnus, author, and executive director of the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles, helped facilitate the transfer to the University. "The Collection," he said, "not only offers Springsteen fans the chance to explore various aspects of his career, but students, scholars, and journalists will also benefit from the access that Monmouth University will now provide. The additional space at Monmouth allows for the Collection to grow and in the future include recordings, oral histories, film footage, and other documents."

Starting November 1, the Collection will be available for use by appointment, Monday to Friday.

Please see the Collection website at http://www.brucespringsteenspecialcollection.net for further details.

ONLINE, A NEW HOME FOR THE SPECIAL COLLECTION
Ladies and gentlemen, change your bookmarks! There's a new online home for the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection and you'll find it at www.brucespringsteenspecialcollection.net. The site contains the most up-to-date listing of the more than 11,100 documents in the Collection, including the results of the microfilming project made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission to The Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection. The new site is the first step in a long-anticipated reorganization of the Collection that will eventually allow The Friends to begin accepting historic Bruce items in formats other than books, magazines, fanzines and other printed documents.

GREETINGS FROM THE FRIENDS OF THE SPRINGSTEEN SPECIAL COLLECTION
With the Dream tour hitting full stride, The Friends are working to fully document the tour for the Springsteen Special Collection and we once again turn to you for help. We're specifically interested newspaper and magazine articles that preview, and review, Bruce as he and the E Street Band sweep across the U.S. and into Europe this summer. If you can help with articles from shows in your area, please contact us at pbjcrane@erols.com to make arrangements. Many thanks!

HELP PRESERVE THE HISTORY OF BRUCE AND HIS BANDS --
YOU MAY ALSO WIN A PRIZE AUTOGRAPHED BY BRUCE AND CLARENCE!
The Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection preserve and manage the indispensable collection of works which tell the written history of Bruce Springsteen and his bands. The Collection, at the Asbury Park Public Library, is also part of our way, as fans, to show our respect for Asbury Park, its history, and its potential.

When you join the Friends, you support the preservation and growth of a treasure house of information – the largest collection of books and magazines anywhere covering Bruce Springsteen and his bands. You'll be in a partnership with fellow Springsteen fans to enhance the size and quality of the Collection, maintain high archival standards, and ensure that the Collection is publicly accessible for the use of scholars, critics, researchers, biographers, journalists and fans.

Now through September 30, 2008, everyone who joins the Friends as a Charter member will be automatically entered into a drawing to be held on October 1, 2008.

(1) GRAND PRIZE:
A NUMBERED, LIMITED EDITION COPY OF Born To Run, The Unseen Photos, autographed by both Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons!

This magnificent coffee table book contains more than 100 stunning black and white photos by Born to Run cover photographer Eric Meola. Only 1350 copies of this special numbered edition book are in existence. In addition to the boldly autographed dust jacket, this limited edition includes:

A 12" x 12" photographic print signed by Meola (titled "Elvis," a shot of Bruce showing off the Elvis button on his jacket)
A reproduction of the Born to Run script cover, which holds the above photo
A cloth clamshell case
A letter of authenticity signed by the Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection President and Backstreets Magazine editor, Christopher Phillips.

The Friends organization is deeply grateful to Bruce, Clarence, and Eric Meola for providing this rare and valuable item.

(6) SECOND PRIZES:
Our new Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection T-Shirt, featuring the Friends color logo on the front. Members can also purchase shirts at a discount through the Friends’ website.

Everyone who joins will receive:

Our 2008 limited edition Friends collectible bookmark, featuring an Asbury Park landmark known for "readings."
Our newly redesigned membership card.
A Friends bumper sticker.

For more information or to join the Friends, please visit us at www.friendsofthespringsteencollection.org/membership.htm

DARKNESS: "A MAP OF THE FUTURE"
On June 2, 1978, after 11 prolific months in the recording studio, Bruce Springsteen released Darkness on the Edge of Town. During the sessions, he had struggled with the paradoxes of rock 'n' roll – the joy and happiness that clashes with an inescapable sense of hardness and loneliness, until finally abandoning any attempt at reconciliation. As eventually released, Darkness portrays, in Springsteen’s words, a "community under siege" and a battered people holding on to the faith of a promised land.

Released two-and-a-half years after Born to Run salvaged his career, Darkness gave Springsteen both his adult voice and his political voice. In "A Map of the Future: Darkness on the Edge of Town at 30," critic and two-time Pulitizer Prize finalist Joyce Millman explores the many facets of the album, including Springsteen's "affirmations of democratic ideals," which are, she says, as "relevant today as commentaries on the darkness of cynicism and the dragons of endless war" as they were 30 years ago. Read Millman’s essay, written for the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection.

SPRINGSTEEN SPECIAL COLLECTION EXPANDS
Already an enormous Bruce archive, the collection at the Asbury Park Library moves on to fishwrap
If you'd like to be part of the largest expansion ever at the Springsteen Special Collection, here's your ticket. Devoted to preserving written Springsteen history, the Special Collection celebrates its sixth anniversary this year by adding newspaper articles to the huge number of magazines, fanzines, tourbooks, songbooks, and printouts of internet articles already available to the public at the Asbury Park Public Library. Considering how newsprint colors and degrades with age, this is a critical period for collecting, photocoping and archiving articles that help tell the Springsteen story.

Working with an international group of fans, managers of the Collection have compiled a starter list of donated articles on an unpublished page which you can review here. If you have album and concert reviews, interviews, personality profiles, and editorials along with other commentaries from newspapers sitting around in boxes or scrapbooks, and can share, please send a description of your materials to pbjcrane@erols.com.

And while you're at it, check out the group which manages the Collection at www.friendsofthespringsteencollection.org.