Henry Lowood
Library Curator
“What starts as a vision can become a foundation that you can build on for more work in the future. ”
Curator of the History of Sciences and Technology Collections and Film and Media Collections
University Libraries
Aspiration and accomplishment define Henry Lowood’s career at Stanford. In his more than three decades of employment, Henry has progressed from a half-time librarian specialist to professional librarian positions to his current curatorial roles—as well as part-time teaching assignments. “It seems like there is, on the part of the various people who supervise me and the directors in the library, a lot of attention to the individual talents and wants of the person.”
But he has seen more than job advancement along the way. “What starts as a vision can become a foundation that you can build on for more work in the future,” says Henry, “such as me saying ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a collection on the history of Silicon Valley?’” That archives project, launched in the mid-1980s, is now a resource that has been the basis of classes, books, doctoral dissertations and more.
His latest goal: an extensive project regarding the preservation of a 15,000-piece collection of digital games and interactive software. “I’m doing the work that I want to do, and so it’s really an ideal situation,” says Henry.
