This summer Department of Special Collections @ Redwood City is host to seven students – two of whom have been working on longer term projects. They are each working on a specific processing and metadata (description) projects in order to make our collections accessible and, in some cases, more discoverable online.
We are very excited to announce the release of ePADD 5.1! ePADD is free and open-source computational analysis software developed by Special Collections & University Archives and partners, that facilitates screening, browsing, and access for historically and culturally significant email collections.
Read on for more about the release, and the latest news from the project team.
In the wake of a number of anniversaries marking fifty years since the Vietnam War, including last October’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Stop the Draft Week, the largest militant anti-Vietnam War demonstration up to that time, the Stanford Libraries are pleased to announce the acquisition and opening of the papers of activist, author, and graphic designer Robert P.J. Cooney, Jr., including a substantial amount of archival material from the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence during the 1970s.
Adi Da (Bubba Free John) was a 20th century religious leader that studied English literature at Stanford, Joseph Campbell proposed a universal narrative that is mythopoetic, and host Michael Toms interviewed the latter and the early followers of the former in the embryonic episodes of the radio show New Dimensions.
The thing I love most about working in Archives and Special Collections is the opportunity I get to glimpse into the lives of individuals and get a sense of their thoughts and feelings. I’m particularly interested in learning about the interior lives of women, especially as women are often underrepresented in the archival record, including in Stanford’s own collections. I did a (very rough, very inexact) examination of about 2300 collections held by Stanford’s Manuscripts Division, looking specifically at collections 1 box or more. Looking only at collections centered around a particular individual or family, the rough math worked out to about 72% of collections centered on men, 22% centered on women, and 6% centered on families. Again, these numbers aren’t exact, but the collections are undoubtedly dominated by men.
With that said, I’d like to highlight some moments from the lives three women represented in our collections: Edith M. Garretson Davies, Nellie Kono, and Marilyn Lyttle.
Please join us in welcoming our new Digital Archivist, Sally DeBauche, who will start work on April 2nd. Sally will be responsible for reviewing workflows and for making the acquired- and born-digital materials that are received in Special Collections available for research. She will join Stanford's ePADD project team as well as become involved with other projects related to digital materials. While she will be based primarily at the Library’s Redwood City facility, you will also see her on campus.
Read about how the University Archives is using From the Page technology to transcribe handwritten letters and round trip metadata into the Stanford Digital Repository usng IIIF: http://content.fromthepage.com/stanford-university-archives/
