The Manuscripts Division is pleased to announce the completion of the physical processing of the Stephen Jay Gould papers. The first and largest accession of Gould's papers arrived at Stanford University Libraries’ Department of Special Collections in 2004, with 8 smaller accessions following through early 2011. The first phase of the processing project, which began in Fall of 2009, included a detailed processing of Gould's correspondence, manuscripts, and juvenilia. Upon completion of these three series, the processing team switched gears to complete basic arrangement and description of the remainder of Gould's papers. The Gould papers consist of 564.5 linear feet of material, which includes over 850 boxes of textual material, approximately 450 audiovisual items, and 1,180 computer media files (52 megabytes). A comprehensive finding aid is forthcoming, and will be published online in Fall 2011.

Stephen Jay Gould was a renowned evolutionary biologist, paleontologist, historian of science, educator, popular science author, polymath, and an enthusiastic collector. His papers include, but are not limited to: subject files; coursework and research from his graduate studies at Columbia University; his teaching and administrative files from Harvard University and New York University; organizational and committee files; conference, lecture, and symposia files; research files and data; photographs; artifacts and memorabilia (including specimens); clippings and scrapbooks; photographs; audiovisual materials; biographical materials; files related to Gould’s passion for baseball and music; and various reprints and manuscripts by others.

Gould’s computer media (born-digital and a portion of his computer punch cards) have been processed by Peter Chan, our Digital Archivist at Special Collections.

Gould's extensive holdings of rare books and manuscripts have been individually cataloged as part of the Stanford University Libraries Special Collections' rare books and manuscripts collections, and are discoverable in Searchworks.

Sincere thanks to Laura Williams and Beth Noyes for their invaluable assistance on this project.

Stephen Jay Gould papers, call number: M1437