I am pleased to announce that all of the accessions in the Carolyn Caddes Papers (M0658) are now described and available for research. For several years, only one accession was described online but thanks to Monika Lehman, our Public Services Intern, the rest of the accessions are open now for research.

Monika describes her experience processing this incredibly rich collection:

I had the opportunity to process Carolyn Caddes' papers. Carolyn is a portrait photographer who is most known for her collection of portraits published in a book entitled Portraits of Success: Impressions of Silicon Valley Pioneers (1986). Caddes spent years interviewing, photographing and researching the major players in Silicon Valley who worked in the technology sector, venture capitalism and government.

This project is a spin-off from the ongoing GAMECIP (Game Metadata and Citation Project) funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). We are planning to spin off and expand our work on controlled platform vocabularies with additional research and photography, then publish a definitive terminology and ontology for computer game platforms in a manner that will be useful for libraries, museums, collectors and scholars. We are beginning with the most used set as an initial set.

The two core components of the project are (1) review and photography of hardware in Stanford’s Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection in the History of Microcomputing, in order to complete our assessment and provide visual aids in the published terminology guide; and (2) collation, editing and design of platform and media description sheets that will be made available online and, eventually, be available for publication in a print format.

The Stanford University Archives is pleased to announce a one-week exhibit of materials relating to John Casper Branner and the Branner Library. This exhibit will be on display at Branner Earth Sciences Library from June 5-12.

Items on display include photographs and other materials relating to Branner’s inauguration; photographs of Branner and family, including some taken on the Stanford campus with Thomas Edison; and materials documenting the founding of Branner Library.

This exhibit is part of the anniversary celebration commemorating the 100th year since the founding of the Branner Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections (June 14, 1915 - June 14, 2015). It is part of an ongoing series of anniversary events that culminates with a public celebration, speakers, and tour of the library on Thursday, June 11, 2015 from 4-6:30 pm.

For more information about John Casper Branner, or about any of the collection materials included in this exhibit, please contact the University Archives at archivesref@stanford.edu.

Welcome to New Manuscripts Cataloging & Metadata Librarian

Please join us in welcoming Michelle Paquette who started May 18^th as our new manuscripts cataloging and metadata librarian. This fills a position vacated over a year ago when the former cataloger retired. While Michelle will be joining the Special Collection team at Stanford’s Redwood City campus, she won’t be a stranger to campus because part of her responsibilities will be managing metadata for our many digitization projects in collaboration with staff from the Metadata Department and DLSS, as well as curators and subject specialists.

Michelle received her Master of Science in Library Science degree from Simmons College and her Bachelor of Arts in English, summa cum laude, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was a metadata resident at Amherst College’s Frost Library where, in addition to her cataloging work, she planned and oversaw data migration projects working with MODS, Dublin Core, Darwin Core, XSLT, EAD and VRA Core. As a consultant for the Frost Library over the past year, Michelle developed a data model and metadata element set for the “Timeline of LGBT Political Landmarks in the Americas.”

John Casper Branner, Stanford Historical Photograph Collection (SC1049)

The Stanford University Archives is very glad to announce a one-week exhibit of materials relating to John Casper Branner, the first Professor of Geology at Stanford University, and its second President. This exhibit will be on display at Branner Earth Sciences Library from April 10-17.

Have you ever wondered why Stanford is represented by the color cardinal, and not the original choice of gold? Or why the university's motto is in German?

The University Archives, in collaboration with Kathleen Smith, Curator of Germanic Collections and Medieval Studies, is pleased to announce a new exhibition focused on the development of Stanford's insignia. Becoming Stanford: The History and Meaning of the University’s Insignia is now on display in the South Lobby of Green Library.

San Francisco Fountain detail by Joe Thompson

As previously announced, the Ruth Asawa papers are now available. In thinking of fun and innovative ways to present certain aspects of her work, we decided to scan a small series of San Francisco architecture snapshots from her collection and upload them to the social mapping website Historypin, and also include them in their Year of the Bay local history project. These photographs were probably used as research in creating the San Francisco Fountain in Union Square, which features many cast dough relief images of the city. Unfortunately there is no information on or about the prints in the collection. They are likely all from the 1960s, and were probably taken by Asawa (she has referred to taking pictures of the city in preparation). Architectural historian Sally Woodbridge may have also contributed. The varying qualities of the prints implies that several cameras or developers were used, and that they were probably taken over a period of time. At any rate, they collectively serve as a remarkable portrait of the city in that decade.

On March 13th, NPR featured a story on the Project South Collection held in the University Archives and Archive of Recorded Sound. Entitled "A King Speech You've Never Heard--Plus, Your Chance to Do Archive Sleuthing," the article describes the rich treasures found within the audio recordings, including a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., and asks for volunteers to comb through the materials and share their findings. It also asks for volunteers to help us transcribe the remainder of the collection. So far, our crowd-sourcing experiment has yielded over twenty volunteers, who have completed five transcripts. Several more transcripts are in the works. We thank NPR and all our volunteers for their efforts as there is much work that remains to be done for this amazing collection.

The Project South Collection consists of transcribed interviews with Civil Rights workers in the South recorded by several Stanford students affiliated with the campus radio station KZSU during the summer of 1965. The project was sponsored by the Institute of American History at Stanford. Includes information relating to black history; interviews of members of the Congress of Racial Equality, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee; recordings of formal and informal remarks of persons working with smaller, independent civil rights projects, of local blacks associated with the civil rights movement, and other people, including Ku Klux Klansmen; "action tapes" of civil rights workers canvassing voters, conducting freedom schools, or participating in demonstrations ; speeches by and/or interviews with Ralph David Abernathy, Charles Evers, James Farmer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Hosea Williams; and a Ku Klux Klan meeting and speech made by Robert Sheldon, its Imperial Wizard.

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All accessions in the Carolyn Caddes papers are open for research

GAMECIP spin off project this summer: hardware platforms

Branner @ 100: The Man and the Library

Welcome to New Manuscripts Cataloging & Metadata Librarian

Branner at 100: A new exhibit on John Casper Branner

Becoming Stanford: The History and Meaning of the University’s Insignia

Asawa Photos of San Francisco on Historypin

Project South collection featured on NPR website, sparks crowd-sourcing experiment

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