Blog topic: Manuscripts

Haydn and the challenge of the baryton

October 21, 2014
by Ray Heigemeir
Manuscripts
Music


Peg box of a baryton, Brussels (undated)Divertimento 24o per il pariton [original manuscript, 1766]

Stanford University Libraries, Memorial Library of Music, MLM 491

Link to downloadable images of this work

The baryton [pariton] is a bass instrument in the viol family that may be simultaneously bowed and plucked. It features a double set of strings, the upper set gut, for bowing, the lower set metal, for sympathetic vibration and for plucked accompaniment. The metal strings run the length of the neck behind the fingerboard, which is hollowed in the back to allow the left hand to pluck the strings.

Loosely related to the lyra-viol, the baryton likely originated in seventeenth-century England. Its moment in the sun, however, came in eighteenth-century Austria, at the court of the barytonist Prince Nicholas Esterházy, with music supplied in abundance by his ambitious young Kappelmeister, Joseph Haydn.

Army jacket, dog tags, and letter is depicted

Eastside High student finishes work on World War II collection

October 15, 2014
Manuscripts

This summer, Public Services was delighted to have Lucia Ibarra, one of the Library's Eastside High School interns, work with us.  Lucia's project was to rehouse a previously unprocessed collection of World War II letters and note any interesting observations or information along the way.  The incredibly detailed notes she took will be used to create a finding guide (to be completed by December), but we wanted to share her description of her summer experience working with this archival collection:

Ruth Asawa Tamarind lithography workshop 1965

Arts initiative in Special Collections

September 23, 2014
by Glynn Edwards
Art
Digitization
Education
Manuscripts

Walking around campus, one can readily see the impact of Stanford’s Arts Initiative. Joining the existing Cantor Arts Center are several new buildings, including the Bing Concert Hall, which opened in 2013, the Anderson Collection at Stanford University, which opened on September 21st, and the growing structure that will be the McMurtry Building, slated to open in 2015.

In parallel with this new focus on the arts, the MSS division in Special Collections has worked over the last year with Peter Blank and Anna Fishaut at the Art & Architecture Library, in identifying and funding the preservation and processing of four recently acquired art collections. Some of the projects will include selected reformatting of audio-visual elements, processing of digital files, additional digitization efforts, and collaboration with the libraries’ Department of Conservation and the Art Library’s Visual Resources Center.

Portrait of Mandelbrot

Now Available: The Benoit Mandelbrot Papers

September 17, 2014
Manuscripts

 

The Manuscripts Division is thrilled to announce that the Benoit Mandelbrot Papers are now open for research. A finding aid to the collection is available on the Online Archive of California and materials are pageable through the catalog record in Searchworks.

The papers document the life and work of Benoit Mandelbrot, maverick mathematician and pioneer of fractal geometry. The collection contains biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, drafts and typescripts for books and articles, subject files, and reprints. The collection also contains a significant amount of research data, including notes, plots, graphs, and computer-generated visualizations of fractals. Also included are teaching materials, administrative records, awards, and materials related to publicity events, such as posters and flyers announcing conferences and lectures focusing on fractals or related topics. Other formats present in the collection include photographs, audiovisual material, and computer media, as well as an extensive amount of fractal and fractal-related artwork.

Doug Menuez's photographs on display at the Computer History Museum

July 17, 2014
by Glynn Edwards
Digital library
Manuscripts

In 1985, Steve Jobs gave Meneuz complete access to NeXT and he spent the next decade photographing over seventy companies, innovators, and investors in Silicon Valley. The Computer History Museum has a current exhibit up in their lobby of Meneuz’s photographs that runs through September 7th - Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985–2000. The images in this exhibit are part of

Lucy Waldrop joins us as the archivist for the Helen and Newton Harrison papers

July 14, 2014
by Glynn Edwards
Art
Born digital
Digitization
Manuscripts
New acquisitions

We are happy to announce that Lucy Waldrop will join Special Collections in September as the project archivist on the Helen and Newton Harrison papers project. This is an NEH-funded project and will conclude in February 2016. Lucy comes to us from Wichita State University, where as a project archivist, she processed several large collections including that of photographer and film director Gordon Parks. The Harrison collection is a significant acquisition and this preservation and processing project is one of several art projects being undertaken by Special Collections in collaboration with the Art Library in the coming year. 

Research Libraries Group (RLG) records now available

June 17, 2014
by Glynn Edwards
Born digital
Manuscripts
News

The Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG) was founded by The New York Public Library and Columbia, Harvard, and Yale universities and incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in late 1975. In 1978 RLG moved its offices from Branford, Connecticut, to Stanford University in California; adopted Stanford’s library automation staff and computer system (BALLOTS) as the starting point for its own library system (RLIN), plus a series of complementary services and databases; and opened its membership to research institutions throughout the U.S.

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