Elena S. Danielson has been appointed associate director of the Hoover Institution and director of the Hoover Library and Archives.
She succeeds Charles G. Palm, who retired as of December 31, 2001.
Danielson joined the Hoover Institution in 1978 and has served in positions of increasing responsibility since then. In 1981, she was named an assistant archivist, in 1988, was promoted to associate archivist, and in 1997, was named archivist. She also serves as curator of the Institution’s West European Collection.
Danielson has written for a number of academic and archival publications, such as American Archivist, and she has presented information at conferences in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and Russia. She is a regular contributor to the Hoover Digest.
Before her Hoover appointment, Danielson held teaching positions at Santa Clara University and Stanford University.
Danielson holds a Ph.D. and an A.M. degree in German studies from Stanford, a master’s degree in library science and an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Charles G. Palm joined the Hoover Institution in 1971 and served as deputy director of the Hoover Institution since 1990.
Palm’s long and distinguished career at Hoover included a 1992 negotiated agreement between the Institution and the Russian State Archival Service, which led to the worldwide distribution on microfilm of more than 12 million pages from the Soviet Communist Party and State Archives. Palm directed the acquisition program that brought to Hoover many other major collections, including 2.5 tons of materials on the collapse of communism and the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe and the voluminous archives of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
He was appointed by President George Bush to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in 1990, serving until 1996.
In 1998, he was appointed to the California Heritage Preservation Commission, which promotes preservation of the state’s history. Palm was elected chairman of the commission in 1997.
Palm was cocompiler of Herbert Hoover: A Register of His Papers in the Hoover Institution Archives (Hoover Institution Press, 1983) and Guide to the Hoover Institution Archives (Hoover Institution Press, 1980).
Palm was associate director for the library and archives, 1987–90; head librarian, 1986–87; and archivist, 1984–87.
He is a fellow of the Society of American Archivists. He was president of the Society of California Archivists from 1983 to 1984.
He earned his A.B. degree in history from Stanford University in 1966 and graduate degrees from the University of Wyoming and the University of Oregon.
The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the 31st president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic public policy and international affairs.
