Library & Archives Year in Review

The Library & Archives enjoyed a year of significant changes and new initiatives. In 2014, we acquired exciting new collections, made improvements to our physical and digital infrastructure, and, most importantly, guided thousands of researchers and visitors as they explored our materials.

Just a few of the many highlights this year include

• Opening our renovated archives reading room; it now holds 40 percent more researchers and more room for their laptops and cameras. This was the first renovation since the reading room opened in 1978.
• Unveiling our new exhibit in honor of the World War I centenary, Women and the Great War. A lively panel discussion in honor of the exhibit examined the role of women in war today.
• Acquiring significant archival collections on twentieth-century political and economic change, including the papers of US secretary of state Warren Christopher, Polish prime minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski, Mexican communist leader Miguel Arroche Parra, materials on the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the publication of Doctor Zhivago, and many more
• Launching our new Library & Archives website, with more than one hundred new pages about our geographic, subject, and audiovisual collections. Users can now browse our online collections, check out the latest news, and get a glimpse behind the scenes.
• Moving twelve football fields of library and archival materials from the Hoover Tower as part of Stanford’s Energy Systems Innovation project, which replaced the Tower’s original
• steam pipes and asbestos insulation.
• Signing an agreement with Stanford Information Technology Systems to host our more than eighty terabytes of digital historical materials. Since linking our servers last month, we’ve begun transferring a wide variety of materials, including World War II radio broadcasts, 1970s campaign commercials, and born-digital documents.
• Offering a new fellowship program that provides support research based on our collections. The first recipients will be announced in the coming weeks on our website.
• Hosting many scholarly workshops and events, including the first annual Workshop on Political Economy, the second annual Workshop on Modern China, and the eleventh annual Workshop on Totalitarian Regimes. We also welcomed an international slate of scholars and statesmen, including the former president of Latvia, to our Baltic Conference.
• Helping to re-create the same violin recital that Churchill, Stalin, and Truman enjoyed at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 at Stanford’s new Bing Concert Hall.

The Library & Archives will reopen on January 5, 2015. We look forward to seeing you in the New Year!