News and Features > Previous News Stories
New Storage Area Completed, Archival
Work Underway
New Web Address, New "Holdings" Category, New Options
for Visitors
Two Rare Magazines Donated To The Springsteen Special Collection
A Support Group for the Collection
New Storage Space Needed
Donor Thanks [Various Dates]
Springsteen Fans Keep Giving To Asbury Collection
Work is now underway at the Asbury Park Public Library to completely archive the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection in a newly-constructed secure storage area, with a deadline of late December 2005. The archival project will provide protective housing for all the Collection's holdings, while improved organization of the materials will significantly reduce the amount of time needed to retrieve them for users.
The work is a joint project of the New Jersey State Historical Commission, the Trustees and staff of the Asbury Park Public Library, and the Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection. Directing the project is curator Carla Tobias of the Monmouth County Historical Association, whose participation was made possible by the sponsorship of the New Jersey Historical Commission. Through a grant awarded to the Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection, the Commission also enabled the purchase of essential archival materials. And the project would not have been possible without a decision by the Library's Board of Trustees to provide a new and larger storage area for the Collection in its Asbury Park home.
During this significant transformation of the Collection, some items may be temporarily unavailable; users of the Collection should call ahead to confirm the availability of desired publications. We are doing everything possible to minimize inconvenience. Once our work is completed, the entire Collection (including the presently "unavailable" items) will be accessible for public use. Please see our Frequently Asked Questions section for details on using the Collection.
To improve your enjoyment of the Collection, we've made a series of changes recently that are designed to give you easier and quicker access.
First: update your bookmarks! The Asbury Park Library has relocated its website to a new server, so The Bruce Springsteen Special Collection has a new homepage address: http://www.asburyparklibrary.org/Bruce.htm. The URLs for all our old pages will redirect you to the new ones, but we recommend linking directly to the new addresses.
Second: we've observed that many fine Springsteen articles are being published exclusively on the Internet, where they might or might not remain. So we have started to print out the best of those articles so they can be preserved in the Collection. You'll find them listed on our Holdings page in the new category, "Internet Article Printouts" (but note that at this time, like all our recent acquisitions, they are unavailable and awaiting the new storage area).
Finally: while appointments are still strongly requested for retrieving items from the Collection (see our FAQ), you can now view copies of over 150 of our best-and-rarest articles simply by requesting one or more of "the Springsteen binders" at the main counter. We've filled four binders with copies of exceptional articles from the Collection; each binder organized around a common theme, each with a full list of contents and a lively, informative introduction.
The printouts are of such high-quality color that some viewers mistake them for the original publications, and any must-have articles can be easily removed from the sleeves for photocopying.
We are currently making available the following binders (and there are more on the way!):
BEFORE THE TIDE: Highlights from the Collection
1966-1975
IN A WORLD GONE WILD: Highlights from the 34 countries
in the Collection
DEDICATION: Highlights from the fanzines and newsletters
BACK IN THE PARK: The Springsteen experience in Asbury
Park
Magazines containing Bruce Springsteen's first published writings and his first photograph as a member of a rock and roll band have entered The Bruce Springsteen Special Collection at the Asbury Park Public Library by way of two donations.
The January 1969 issue of Seascape, the literary magazine of Ocean County College, and the July 1966 issue of the New Jersey Shore music magazine Mod, gave readers their earliest glimpse of the talent that was to evolve into a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter career.
During Springsteen's brief enrollment at the two-year community college, he penned a metaphorical paragraph entitled "My Lady" and an untitled 16-line poem divided into four stanzas. Accepted for publication more than four years in advance of the recording of his first album, both poems were erroneously attributed in print to "Bruce Sprengsteen."
Two and a half years earlier, Springsteen's photo had appeared for the first time ever in a magazine, as a member of The Castiles. Springsteen joined The Castiles in late spring 1964 after a brief apprenticeship with The Rogues, and performed primarily as lead guitarist and vocalist until the band dissolved in early 1968.
 |
| Photo of Stacie Tobin displaying '"Seascape". |
Seascape was the donation of Stacie Tobin, a partner at the Piper Rudnick LLP law firm in Baltimore. Michael Gilfillan, president of the Newark-based Brick City Sports Capital, LLC, and co-chairman of YankeeNets LLC, a sports and entertainment holding company, donated Mod. Both are long-time Springsteen fans.
"Either of these rare publications would be a cornerstone for any Springsteen collection," said Christopher Phillips, president of The Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection. "To have them both not only further cements the comprehensive scope of the Springsteen Special Collection, but also furthers our goal of preserving those rare documents that trace Springsteen's life and career which might otherwise be scattered, damaged, or lost."
"We are absolutely thrilled that Tobin and Gilfillan feel that the Special Collection at the Asbury Park Public Library is the best home for these rarities, and their generosity is yet another example of the enthusiasm with which the Collection has been met by Springsteen fans around the globe," Phillips said.
Only a few issues of these publications are known to exist, said Phillips. Most fans have seen Springsteen's poems in Seascape only under glass at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland.
In "My Lady," Springsteen wrote: "I thought 'Surely she will come, she often comes on days as beautiful as this.' Just a year ago last week she had visited my mother and comforted her from the pain she had so long endured." The untitled poem opens:
Earth children turn their new eyes upward,
As the rain falls into outstretched arms.
The world moves with beauty beneath their bodies.
The frenzied sea crys upon the shore.
 |
 |
| Photo of "My Lady". | Photo of the untitled poem. |
"These two works show that Springsteen was not just a kid with a guitar who wanted to be a rock star," Tobin said. "They reveal a young writer trying to convey simple beauties and human dignity, the very themes that have come to define his work as a songwriter. There can be no doubt that time and maturity have improved his skill for expression, but this little magazine can stand on its own to show that even as a young man, he was devoted to expressing the beauty of the world around him and his sorrow at human cruelties. Anyone familiar with the lyrical style of Greetings from Asbury Park will see that these works are the early stages of Springsteen trying to find his voice as a poet for a later time."
The Castiles photo covers 4.5 inches by 6 inches at the top of page 16 of the teen-oriented magazine. "This issue provides valuable insight into the formative phase of Bruce Springsteen's music career," Gilfillan said. "You see Bruce and his Castiles bandmates -- five young dreamers, looking like latter-day mop tops ready to challenge the world. No definitive collection of Springsteen publications can be complete without it, and thankfully, this one, in excellent condition for a magazine published in 1966, is now in the Springsteen Special Collection."
 |
| Photo of The Castiles from Mod magazine |
The donations are the 3113th and 3114th items accepted into the three-year-old Collection which is devoted to preserving the writing history and cultural legacy of Bruce Springsteen and members of the E Street Band. The Collection is managed by The Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection in cooperation with staff at the Asbury Park Public Library. Recent donations will be available for public inspection once new storage space is provided to the Collection by the Library.
The Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection, founded in 2004, is a not-for-profit organization for people interested in the written history of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Our purpose is to preserve and make publicly accessible the books, magazines and other publications which document the history of one of America's greatest musical talents.
The Directors of the Friends have been involved with the Collection since its founding in 2001, under the leadership of Christopher Phillips, editor and publisher of Backstreets magazine. Mr. Phillips is president of the Friends, leading a board that includes Anne Noss, vice president; June Lisk, secretary and co-membership chair; Carl Beams, treasurer; Dan Toskaner, co-membership chair; and directors Maggie Powell, Sandy Wells, Midge Botten, and Mark Uzzo. The Executive Director of the Friends is Bob Crane.
Membership in the Friends is open to everyone who believes that the written history of Bruce and the band is an essential complement to their LPs, CDs, videos, DVDs, and live performances. When you become a member of the Friends, you help us guarantee that thousands of publications, from around the world, remain accessible to fans, researchers and historians at the Asbury Park Public Library. You also join us in demonstrating our conviction that a thriving library is vital to the cultural and economic well-being of Asbury Park.
You are invited to join us with a Charter or Annual membership, available from the Friends' website at www.friendsofthespringsteencollection.org.
If you look at the 'Current Holdings' section of the Springsteen Special Collection, you'll see hundreds of books and magazines highlighted in red.
That's because the Collection has completely outgrown its original storage area and will be going into a new space being planned and created especially for the Springsteen Special Collection. All those highlighted items represent donations which will join the permanent collection once the new space is ready. All other items in the Collection's "current holdings" remain available to the public, as described in Frequently Asked Questions.
Let's put it another way. With help from Springsteen fans around the world, we pushed out the walls, overflowed the shelves, and blew the roof right off the old storage area. That's a heck of an accomplishment.
We want to extend special thanks to our most recent donors:
Monmouth Medical Center and Carl
Beams for the March 2006 issue of Monmouth Health & Life,
and Carl for the May 2006 issue of Men’s
Fitness.
Melanie Paggioli for the Dec. 30, 2005 issue
of Entertainment Weekly, the Jan. 23, 2006 issue of US,
and the November 2005 issue of New Jersey Life.
Jennifer Walter of Langley, British Columbia,
for her paper "The Boss and The Bible" presented at
the Glory Days Symposium.
Kathleen Keegan from Freehold High School in
Freehold, NJ, for helping us complete our collection of yearbooks
from Bruce’s high school years.
Richard Miller of Germantown, MD for the Marquette
University Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series entitled "Crime,
Lawbreaking, and Counterhegemonic Humanism in the Songs of Bruce
Springsteen."
Susan Edwards of Colts Neck, NJ., for the April
17, 2006 issue of The New Yorker containing the Pete
Seeger profile.
Deborah Robinson of Baltimore, MD for the April
21, 2006 Seeger Sessions review on Slate.com.
Leannah Harding of Arlington, VA., who moderates
the BruceGrrlsDC group, for many, many links.
Marco Bulgheroni for two wonderful issues of Mucchio
Selvaggio.
---------------------------------------------
Michelle Maiatico of New Market, MD,
for 21 issues of the fanzine The Fever, 32 issues of the
fanzine The Fever: Bruce Monthly, and individual issues
of Rock Espezial and Ciao 2001.
Gerald Sommerer of Langenfeld, Germany for his
third donation to the Collection, consisting of 18 publications
including three issues of the Swiss fanzine Drive All Night,
four issues of the Norwegian and Swedish fanzine Factory,
and a fantastic issue by the German publication Popstar devoted
entirely to Bruce, detailing his career through "Born In
The USA."
Mori Alessio of Bra, Italy, for the book "Bruce
Springsteen, Trent'Anni Da Boss. "
Miguel Jancich of Buenos Aires, Argentina, for
three donations, including the Collection’s first issue
of the Argentine fanzine Streets of Fire.
Francesco Benevento of Milan, Italy, for the
all-Bruce magazine Rock Show and two Italian books,
including "Terra di Zucchero," documenting Bruce’s
career from 1972 to 1990.
Christy Blanchette of Vllaey Cottage, NY for a
large and generous donation of fanzines and other publications.
Carlos Blanco of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the 100
greatest shows in Brazil issue of Bizz
Joe Gervais of Fremont, CA for the August 1988 Penthouse
Matthias Buckpesch of Hamburg, Germany, for the
August 2005 Music Express and the July 2005 Rolling
Stone from Germany
Muriel Kleisterlee and Jos Westenberg of
Utrecht, The Netherlands, for their book "Rising High" and
for six issues of the Belgium fanzine Thunder Road
Astrid Ewen of Billerbeck Germany for nine magazines
including the Bruce cover issue (#4 2005) of Good Times
Jim McKelly, of Auburn, Alabama, for the March 1981
issue of the St. Louis publication Metro The Tabloid
Kristina Pfützner, a German fan living and
working in Mexico, who reviewed Devils & Dust in the
Mexican magazine Compas
Jeffrey and Anne Noss of Florham Park, NJ, for the Playbill for
the performance of Anytown at the Joyce Theater
Francesco Magni of Lugano, Switzerland for the January
2006 MOJO, the December 2005 Mucchio Selvaggio,
and volume 1 number 1 of the new Italian magazine MUZ from
January 2006, all with Bruce cover stories
---------------------------------------------
Gail Haltiwantger of Jacksonville, FL., Guillaume Augias of Paris, Joan Colet of Barcelona, Gerri Sommerer of Langenfeld, Germany, Sal Trepat of Barcelona, Midge Botten of Kent, UK, Tramps Like Us members from Paris, and Jean-Louis Valdeyron of Montpellier, France for making significant recent contributions to the Collection.
Special thanks also go to Francesco Magni of Manno Switzerland, for his donation of 40 issues and supplements of the Italian fanzine The River, and to Sue Thomason of Alsager, Cheshire, UK, for donating the first five issues of the UK fanzine Ragamuffin Gunner.
---------------------------------------------
Special thanks to the following for recent significant donations: Daiichiro Eguchi of Tokyo for multiple issues of Be Street, early Japanese fanzine; Astrid Ewen of Billerbeck, Germany, for the May 2003 cover story in the German issue of Rolling Stone and the #23/24 double issue of The Wish; Hans Christian Færden of Borgen, Norway for a complete run of the Norwegian fanzine Rocksy; Philipp Nyffenegger of Zurich, Switzerland for multiple issues of the Swiss fanzine Drive All Night; Mike Saunders of London for publications documenting the Tom Joad tour of the UK and Bruce's appearance in the High Court of London in 1998; and Spirits In The Night, the Bruce Club at Holmdel High School in New Jersey, for donating a copy of Richard Neer's excellent book FM. We are grateful to them all.
[Note: not all of our donor announcements remain available for this page. The Donors List on Donations & Access honors the many generous people who have contributed to this Collection.]
(Press Release)
Asbury Park’s collection of books and magazines devoted to the lives and careers of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band has doubled in size in two years, topping 2,000 items with the donation of a 17-year-old fan magazine from Great Britain.
From an original series of donations totaling nearly 1,000 items in December 2001, the Springsteen Special Collection, housed at the Asbury Park Public Library, has steadily grown into the largest publicly accessible collection of Springsteen-related publications.
 |
| MILESTONE DONATION: Dan French's donation of "Point Blank" issue No. 9, which he edited and published in 1986, was the 2,000th item to enter the Springsteen Special Collection of books and magazines at the Asbury Park Public Library. French, administrator of a medical charity in London, gave 70 publications to the collection which contains items donated by Springsteen fans here and abroad. The collection contains publications from 30 countries. |
The 2,000th donation to arrive at the Collection was issue No. 9 of “Point Blank,” one of Great Britain’s earliest Springsteen fan magazines. It was the donation of “Point Blank” editor and publisher Dan French, 45, of Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, now an administrator for a medical charity in London.
“Asbury Park gave me one of the greatest musical experiences of my life,” French said in a letter accompanying the donation, “an unscheduled performance by Springsteen on Oct. 3, 1982 at the Stone Pony. That night will always hold a special place in my heart, so it's a privilege to be able to give even a small something back.”
Special Collections are found at many public, academic, and technical libraries. They organize and preserve significant source materials for research purposes, but are not part of the library's circulating collection.
Doris Carroll, president of the Library’s Board of Trustees, said the arrival of the 2,000th donation marks the “very first special event in the Library’s 125th anniversary celebration.” The Library, which traces its history to Nov. 23, 1878, “greatly appreciates the interest in and support of the Special Collection by Springsteen fans everywhere,” she said, and is working with volunteers to expand the availability of material from the Collection on the Internet.
The Springsteen Special Collection, organized by editors and readers of “Backstreets” magazine, was a gift to the Asbury Park Library from Springsteen fans around the world. The Collection has received donated items published in 30 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA and Yugoslavia. Members of Save Tillie, the preservation group working to save Asbury Park’s historic Palace amusements complex, provide staff and web services to the Collection.
“This Collection expresses the fan community's support for Asbury Park and for our belief that Asbury’s music history is also a sign-post to the future,” said Christopher Phillips, editor and publisher of the Washington D.C.-based “Backstreets.” “As a small magazine that has been publishing for nearly 25 years, there is a love of print that's reflected here too, and the desire for its preservation. The Collection gathers so many rare pieces, from the early 1970s to the present, for the use of music fans, scholars, authors -- anyone with a serious interest in Bruce Springsteen's life and career."
“Point Blank” No. 9, published in 1986, was part of a 70-item donation by French which included fan magazines from Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Holland, Japan, Finland and Sweden, along with other publications from Ireland, Canada, England and the US. UK author Mike Saunders of Hove, Sussex, added a hard-to-find issue of “Point Blank” No. 8 to French’s donation, giving the Collection a full set of the magazine’s 10 issues.
Although books and general circulation magazines make up most of the Asbury Park collection, fan magazines occupy a special niche, favored for detailed reportage and rare photography. Many of the more than three dozen Springsteen fanzines originated as a forum for fans, French said, as well as a way “of thanking Bruce for his music.”