|
|
The library is the historian's laboratory, as indispensable for teaching and research as the biologist's bench or the astronomer's observatory. It's more than simply a depository of the record of the past, and of the countless efforts by other historians to make sense of that record. It's also a living organism, a place where the abstractions of the classroom become palpable to scholars and students alike, as they undertake their own journeys of discovery through the stacks and the archives-and, increasingly, through digital media. And it's a place where dedicated professionals work conscientiously and creatively to enhance the research and teaching missions of the University.
Let's start with the foundational matter of collections. Books don't just magically appear on the library's shelves. They must be sought, judged and selected by knowledgeable curators like the legendary Jim Knox, now succeeded by Ben Stone, who have culled from the hundreds of thousands of titles published over the years in American history a collection of outstanding breadth and integrity. Government documents curators, too, are in a special category. Few working scholars, and even fewer students, graduate or undergraduate, can claim mastery over the sprawling arcana of government publications. Joan Loftus, especially, has artfully shepherded generations of my students through the wondrously rich and varied resources of the Jonsson Library of Government Documents. From her efforts have flowed literally hundreds of distinguished seminar papers, honors theses, and dissertations.
Of all Stanford's collections, the University Archives is, naturally, unique. Ably headed by Maggie Kimball, the archives are home to the official records of the university, as well as papers that document the careers of distinguished faculty members, including the historians David M. Potter and Thomas A. Bailey. The archives also house priceless collections on subjects ranging from the building of the transcontinental railroad to the development of Silicon Valley. It's not too much to say that the history of much of the modern West, including Stanford's own conspicuous place in it, simply could not be understood were it not for the library's quiet and patient policy, pursued over many decades, of accessioning, cataloguing, and preserving those kinds of documents.
The library has been no less essential to my own research and writing than it has to my teaching. Much of the research for Over Here: The First World War and American Society was conducted in the Stanford Libraries, as was virtually all of the research for Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. What's more, in the normal course of work on a variety of subjects, including the quadrennial revisions of my textbook, The American Pageant, I have innumerable occasions to call on the phenomenal expertise of various reference librarians. Their ability to provide swift, authoritative answers to the most dauntingly obscure questions, such as "what were the average population densities in the western territories in the 1850s," or "what was the precise amount of the bribe offered by the Tweed Ring to suppress Thomas Nast's anti-Tweed cartoons?" never fails to astound.
No university is even conceivable without a library at its core. Stanford is blessed to have a great one, with great people devoted to making it so.
David M. Kennedy
David M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History. He joined the faculty in 1967 after earning his bachelor's degree at Stanford and his master's and doctoral degrees at Yale. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. The book, eleven years in the making, is a comprehensive history of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II.
Kennedy teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in twentieth century US history, American political and social thought, US foreign policy, American literature, and the comparative development of democracy in Europe and America. His scholarship integrates economic and cultural analysis with social and political history. His 1970 book, Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, embraced the various complex dimensions of the subject and helped to pioneer the emerging field of women's history. Over Here: The First World War and American Society (1980) used the history of American involvement in World War I to analyze the American political system, economy, and culture in the early twentieth century.
Kennedy is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has won the Dean's Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Richard W. Lyman Award for Faculty Service. Most recently, he was awarded the Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching.
|
|
