Undergraduate students from Stanford's Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) selected propaganda materials from the Hoover Institution Library & Archives for a class assignment. These winning essays, selected by PWR fellow Ethan Plaut, expose materials at the archives and help "to persuade readers to reconsider precisely how they are being persuaded." Cameron Van de Graaf's essay, about an item from the British Ministry of Information Collection, describes how a British pamphlet used parody to unravel Nazi manipulations of language.

On Wednesday, October 8, former Latvian president Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga gave the keynote address at the "War, Revolution and Freedom: The Baltic Countries in the 20th Century" conference sponsored by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives and Stanford University.  Speaking to a packed audience in Stauffer Auditorium, Vīķe-Freiberga spoke about the recent history of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, all of which became independent countries again in 1991 after nearly fifty years of Soviet rule.

As part of the inaugural Hoover Institution Library and Archives’ Workshop on Political Economy, Professor Angus Burgin of Johns Hopkins University gave the keynote lecture titled "Hayek, Friedman, and the Return of Laissez-Faire." 

The newly renovated archives reading room reopened on March 31, with seats for sixteen more researchers--and their laptops and cameras. It can now hold fifty-five researchers: forty of those working with paper-based collections, eight computer workstations for those using digital collections, six microfilm readers, and a DVD viewing station. More computer workstations and microfilm readers may be added in the future.