It’s always nice to get some media coverage so I wanted to point your attention to an article in the Stanford Daily, the university’s student newspaper. The article is titled “Hoover’s Untold Treasures”. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with a Daily reporter, showing her some of the treasures in the Hoover Archives, talking about my work and describing the history of the Hoover Institution.
The Stanford Band in front of the Hoover Tower, Credit: Nick Siekierski
My favorite part of my work is sharing the great stories behind the collections with students. As referenced in the article, undergraduate students don’t always find the collections relevant to their classes (although many great teachers do make this happen), nonetheless, their exposure to HILA (Hoover Institution Library and Archives) often pays dividends down the road.
Many students who have seen one of our intro to the archives presentations or who have had a professor assign a research project, often come back as graduate students for full-time research a couple of years down the road. Even the former director of HILA, Elena Danielson, remembers attending one of these presentations as an undergrad!
The great thing about knowledge is that it grows on you. The things you learn today, might not be useful to you now, but they may be tomorrow. Theres isn’t much that is more inspiring to me than to see someone’s excitement at making a discovery. It’s a blessing to be able to help make that happen.
