Not a "Library of Babel": Find "Hidden" Resources in the Stanford Libraries
by Shinjoung Yeo
Borges ominously wrote in the Library of Babel, "But the searchers did not remember that the calculable possibility of a man's finding his own book, or some perfidious variation of his own book, is close to zero." There are times it may seem as if all searches are coming up "zero". I would like to highlight a "hidden" resource within the Stanford Libraries' Web pages. Check out the subject specialists' Web pages for recommended resources in all formats.
For example, Ben Stone, Curator for British and American History, recommends two collections that may get overlooked if you are only searching Socrates.
Alabama Territory.
Early state records (Microfilm N.S. 363) is a massive set (1600 reels) of early records (legislative, constitutional, executive, etc.) microfilmed just after World War II. It is still an amazing resource for anyone doing research in American history. Please take a look at an early review. As with so many sets of this type, the printed guide is critical to navigating the collection. Jim Knox, retired librarian, added handwritten notations to provide reel numbers for the Stanford set, as well as location information. (Some reels are located in the Law Library. Some states are digitizing the records found in this set, but many are still only available in microfilm.
Second, the digital collection Ben Stone would highlight is titled The Making of the Modern World, but it is better known by its former title, the Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection. The renamed digital edition replaces our old microfilm set (Microfilm N.S. 1350, described as The Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature microfilm series, published in 1972, provides microfilm of some 60,000 titles from the Goldsmiths' Library at the University of London and the Kress Collection at Baker Library, Harvard Business School. There is also a small selection of titles from several additional libraries.)
While the microfilm set was titled "economic literature," it can be called that only in the broadest sense. It has lots of great material on a wide variety of topics, plus an easy to use interface. More people might want to be aware of it.
Last, Pre-Revolutionary Diaries, 1635-1774 (Microfilm N.S. 16720) is a microfilm collection I discovered while browsing Ben Stone's American History pages that appears to be the 17th century version of today's "blogs". Here you will find the thoughts and musings of early Americans in their own handwriting. This is a thirteen reel collection of 276 diaries written by 112 people filmed from the collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society. For contents, consult the Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Pre-Revolutionary Diaries, found in Media/Microtext (Call no. E187.M53 1988).
There is much to discover throughout the Stanford Libraries' collections that goes beyond a simple Socrates search. Use a subject specialist's expertise and knowledge to find much more than zero.
