Blog topic: Manuscripts

2017 marks the 10th year of the Gustave Gimon Visiting Scholar Fellowship at Stanford Libraries, during which time 22 scholars outside of Stanford have had the opportunity to use the materials in the Gustave Gimon Collection of French Political Economy. The Gimon collection, acquired by the library in 1996 and named in honor of the donor's father, Gustave Gimon, a hero of the French Resistance, contains almost 1000 items documenting the development of political and economic ideas in France from the 16th-19th centuries.

It was my distinct pleasure to offer a window into Stanford Libraries’ rare music collections to students in the “Why Music Matters” course from the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institute, and performers in the St. Lawrence String Quartet’s Chamber Music Course.  We gathered in Special Collections for an up-close examination of manuscripts and early print materials, dating from 1942 (Irving Berlin’s White Christmas) all the way back to the 12^th century (a sacred chant fragment).

Welcome to part four of our week-long venture into the John Marcum papers. In the midst of revolution and upheaval, many African countries found themselves courted by both East and West in a proxy Cold War. Naturally, much of the battle was fought with propaganda, and these items reflect the urgency and tension of those times.