The collections of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives document the wars, revolutions, political and social movements, and the struggles for peace around the globe in the 20th and 21st centuries. The course will introduce students to the origins and evolution of this unique institution, highlight its rare collections, and reveal how it collects, preserves, and makes available to researchers an enormous and ever-expanding array of primary-source material, including personal archives, photographs and film, posters, rare books and periodicals, artworks, and digital records. Students will gain insight into the operations of a special collections research center, including the role of conservation, the digitizing of collections, and how public exhibitions make the history that emerges from the collections available to a broader public. Speakers will include Hoover's curators and members of the Research Services, Digital Services, Preservation, Exhibitions, and Research and Education teams. Historian, Hoover Research Fellow, and IR Lecturer Bertrand Patenaude (Stanford MA 'REES 79, PhD 'REES 87), will introduce the course and coordinate the individual sessions.
1 units · Satisfactory/No Credit
The collections of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives document the wars, revolutions, political and social movements, and the struggles for peace around the globe in the 20th and 21st centuries. The course will introduce students to the origins and evolution of this unique institution, highlight its rare collections, and reveal how it collects, preserves, and makes available to researchers an enormous and ever-expanding array of primary-source material, including personal archives, photographs and film, posters, rare books and periodicals, artworks, and digital records. Students will gain insight into the operations of a special collections research center, including the role of conservation, the digitizing of collections, and how public exhibitions make the history that emerges from the collections available to a broader public. Speakers will include Hoover's curators and members of the Research Services, Digital Services, Preservation, Exhibitions, and Research and Education teams. Historian, Hoover Research Fellow, and IR Lecturer Bertrand Patenaude (Stanford MA '79, PhD '87), will introduce the course and coordinate the individual sessions.
Offered in Winter 2026 at Stanford University.