We are pleased to welcome Pennington Ahlstrand to Special Collections. Penny has accepted a position as the Project Archivist for the Gordon Moore project and will be working primarily out of our new Redwood City location.
By Astrid J. Smith and Wayne Vanderkuil.
An object associated with demure and lady-like behavior, the captions underneath each detailed etched vignette on this 1797 fan are surprisingly wry, witty, and thought provoking. Once commonplace, no self-respecting Georgian era lady would be without such an object. As Leah Marie Brown states, “Fans were must-have accoutrements for ladies of 18th century. They were used to perform multiple functions: They could offer a gentle breeze in an overheated room, allow the user to spy on people behind her (some fans had small mirrors on their sticks), conceal gossiping lips, and convey a secret (or not so secret) message.”
See how Digital Production Group went about imaging this unique ladies' fan.
The University Archives and Media Preservation Lab are pleased to announce that more than 800 audiorecordings from the Michelle R. Clayman Institute have been digitized and are now streaming online. The recordings document seminars, talks, conferences, and lectures held at the Institue from 1973-2004.
The recent digitization of cassettes from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research was a reminder of the wide range of collection sizes preserved by SMPL. This entry will give a brief description of why this collection is interesting and how it relates to the multiple workflows of the Stanford Media Preservation Lab.
Over on the Library of Congress Digitial Preservation blog, the Artifact Atlas, our crowdsourced effort to document audio-video related artifacts experienced during digitization, was given a flattering profile.
During the fall of 2013, Stanford University Libraries (SUL) convened a working group to investigate the current state of access to audio and moving image materials held within its various collections, notably rare materials within its different special collections departments, along with those held at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives.
Following many weeks of investigation, the Media Access Working Group (MAWG) produced a report in December 2013 outlining its findings, along with various recommendations to help tackle the issues discovered. The group considered issues relating to use cases, copyright status, available technologies - including media streaming, and content usage.
Recently a film director from the BBC visited the Stanford Libraries while seeking content for a documentary related to the noted cetacean researcher and activist John C. Lilly (1915-2001).