Catalog

Amos Gitai and the Challenge of Archives

Offering a kaleidoscope of writings that together explore archival practices as they interact with the artist’s ongoing creative process, this book collects writings by and about the filmmaker Amos Gitai. Included are Gitai’s lectures at the Collège de France, reflections by scholars and practitioners, poems by Gitai, and a complete filmography of his decades-spanning oeuvre. The collection provides access to the creative process of an artist who feels at home in the fields of cinema, architecture, theater, and visual arts, and puts forth a unique reflection on the role of art and archives as a way for healing and dialogue.

By Amos Gitai and Jean-Michel Frodon
January 2026
Paperback, 296 pages
6 x 9 inches, 37 BW images
9780911221718
Price: $35 USD

Yitzhak Rabin: Chronicle of an Assassination

On November 4, 1995, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Within a year, architect and filmmaker Amos Gitai released the documentary The Arena of Murder (1996). The film proved to be the first step in a creative and interpretative journey which unfurled itself through a protean body of work. As Gitai asks in one of the poems he composed in response to the murder, “the question arising from all this / is how to transpose / the historical event that is Rabin’s murder / in different media / in different dimensions / in different places and territories.”

This book traces Gitai’s body of work across cinema, theater, exhibitions, commentary, fiction, and poetry, showcasing an artist enthralled by the history of his time and searching for answers to the question of how the arts might respond to the political moment.

By Amos Gitai
December 2025
Paperback, 240 pages
6 x 9 inches, 23 BW images, 108 color images
ISBN: 9780911221701
Price: $35 USD

Embodied Knowledge: Women and Science before Silicon Valley

Embodied Knowledge: Women and Science before Silicon Valley explores the long history of women pursuing scientific, medical, and technical knowledge from the Middle Ages through the mid-twentieth century. It showcases the Libraries' considerable holdings for this subject, including Stanford's own role in this history.

Many women participated in making knowledge. Long before the rise of the institutional laboratory, the body and the home were domestic laboratories. With contributions by Londa Schiebinger, Jessica Riskin, Fiona Griffiths, and others, this volume highlights patterns rather than exceptions, documenting women’s scientific exploration and the practical realities of earning a living. The variety of scientific and medical publications written by, for, and about women reminds us that this is a history of the many rather than the few.

Edited by Paula Findlen, with a foreword by Persis Drell
August 2023
Hardcover, 395 pages
8 x 10 inches, 11 BW images, 187 color images
ISBN: 9780911221671
Price: $35 USD

Focus on Community: The Ricardo Alvarado Photography Archive at Stanford

Focus on Community celebrates photographer Ricardo Alvarado’s insightful images of the thriving multicultural communities in 1940s and 1950s San Francisco. Alvarado was a member of a pioneering generation of Filipino immigrants to the United States, often called the Manong Generation, who directed his lens not only towards his family and friends in the Fillmore District and Western Addition, where he made his home, but also toward the realities of racism, segregation, and the history of colonization. Alvarado lived the life he captured, which is evident in the intimate and candid black-and-white photos included in this catalog, taken at weddings, house parties, birthday parties, and car shows. Readers get the sense that Alvarado is familiar with his subjects, able to capture their elated expressions and relaxed postures. The catalog includes a preface by Janet Alvarado, the artist’s daughter, as well as an in-depth overview of Alvarado’s life and vision written by family friend and civil rights and immigration attorney Angelo Ancheta.

Edited by Benjamin L. Stone and Anna Lee
April 2023
Paperback, 100 pages
8.5 x 11 inches, 81 BW images
ISBN: 9780911221664
Price: $25 USD

Materialia Lumina: Contemporary Artists’ Books from the Codex International Book Fair

Consisting of seventy-five exemplary books curated from among the thousands of artists’ books that were exhibited at the CODEX International Book Fair over the past fifteen years, this book showcases work by some of the world’s most accomplished masters of the book arts. A scholarly and descriptive catalog co-published by Stanford University Libraries and the CODEX Foundation, with support from the Boston Athenæum, and edited by Paul van Capelleveen of the National Library of the Netherlands, this substantial hardcover features essays and articles from an array of preeminent academic scholars, museum curators, and heads of major collections.

Edited by Paul van Capelleveen
February 2022
Hardcover, 392 pages
9 x 12 inches
ISBN: 9780911221657
Price: $60 USD

Work and Social Justice: The David Bacon Photography Archive at Stanford

Work & Social Justice highlights the work and career of photographer David Bacon and illuminates the visual dimension of the university’s strong holdings in materials on movements for social change, especially for Mexican American civil rights. This catalog features striking photographs of celebrated labor leaders such as Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Reverend Jesse Jackson. But the most powerful images are of workers themselves: farm workers bent double in the fields; hotel workers with hands cracked from harsh chemicals reaching into the depths of massive laundry machines; protestors marching in the streets. With an essay by Jose Padilla, director of California Rural Legal Assistance and an interview with journalist Meredith Blasingame, Work & Social Justice allows us to experience David Bacon’s legacy of chronicling working peoples’ journeys towards becoming social activists, documenting the movement's power and urgency.

Edited by Benjamin L. Stone, with a preface by Roberto G. Trujillo
October 2020
Paperback, 95 pages
8.5 x 11 inches, 86 BW images
ISBN: 9780911221640
Price: $25 USD

Leonardo's Library: The World of the Renaissance Reader

This generously illustrated catalog highlights Stanford University Libraries’ holdings of books and manuscripts that shaped Leonardo da Vinci’s world and influenced his ideas, reading habits, and understanding of books. Via essays by Carlo Vecce, J. G. Amato, Alexandria R. Tsagaris, and Veronica S.-R. Shi, readers can explore how Leonardo may have engaged with the books in his library, and with themes such as classical and vernacular literature, philosophy, medicine, and architecture. The catalog also includes an appendix that transcribes the three major lists scholars have used to reconstruct the evolution of Leonardo da Vinci’s library as well as descriptive entries for each of the fifty-five books and manuscripts at the center of an exhibition held at Stanford University Libraries to showcase the materials.

Edited by Paula Findlen
May 2019
Paperback, 208 pages
9 x 12 inches, 87 color images
ISBN: 9780911221633
Price: $75 USD

Peter Koch, Printer: A Descriptive Bibliography (1975–2016)

Peter Koch Printer is an illustrated catalog in three volumes that celebrates the books and ephemera of Bay Area typographer Peter Koch. Koch began designing books in 1974 and has since become one of the most influential book designers in the United States. Each volume features interviews and critical essays that speak to the intellectual and artistic value of Koch’s work. The first volume offers an overview of his life and career, featuring full-color images of his fine press books with insightful descriptions by rare books librarian Nina M. Schneider. The second volume documents Koch’s “Western Suite,” which consists of three portfolio editions, two books, and two exhibitions dedicated to themes of exploration and the subsequent destruction of the American West. Volume three explores Koch’s ideas related to material literacy and the art of printing as a philosophical practice and is generously illustrated with examples of Koch's bibliophilic, typographic, and cowboy surrealist ephemera.

Edited by Roberto G. Trujillo
May 2017
Hardcover, 492 pages, 3 volume set
9 x 12 inches, 88 BW images, 625 color images
ISBN: 9780911221602
Price: $225 USD

The Tanenbaum Collection at the Stanford University Libraries: A Catalog of The Charles J. Tanenbaum Collection of the 18th Century

The Tanenbaum collection contains materials relating chiefly to eighteenth-century British and American history and literature. In this publication, introductory essays by Stanford University librarians detail the significance and breadth of the collection, offering insight into Charles Tanenbaum’s personal mission and passion for making his collection of physical materials available to students. Highlights featured in this catalog are Tanenbaum’s collection of Anglo-American pamphlet literature of the revolutionary period, primary materials related to the making of the United States Constitution and the early Republic, as well as landmark editions of eighteenth-century books about exploration. Essays by renown scholars Jack Rakove and Caroline Winterer attest to the richness of these materials. The complete bibliography and index of the collection are accompanied by select visuals.

Edited by Benjamin L. Stone and John E. Mustain, with a foreword by Michael A. Keller
January 2014
Hardcover, 326 pages
10 x 12 inches, 81 BW images
ISBN: 9780911221534
Price: $75 USD

Monuments of Printing: Gutenberg through the Book Arts Revival

Monuments of Printing: Gutenberg through the Book Arts Revival brings to life the first two hundred fifty years of printing in the West, beginning with Johannes Gutenberg's printing of the Bible with movable type in Mainz, Germany in 1455. This catalog showcases seventy-two books and isolated leaves from Stanford University Libraries’ Special Collections, some featured in full-color images. Rare books curator John E. Mustain offers glimpses into these important artefacts, like a first edition of Homer printed in Greek, and highlights their printers and typographers, emphasizing how the physical book form, made by particular human beings in a particular place and time, communicates a history that is as valuable as the texts themselves. Monuments of Printing reminds readers that books are meant to be experienced by both active minds and bodies.

Edited by John E. Mustain, with a foreword by Robert Bringhurst
April 2014
Paperback, 119 pages
8.5 x 11 inches, 41 color images
ISBN: 9780911221527
Price: $30 USD

Things That Dream: Contemporary Calligraphic Artists’ Books

Things That Dream is a lavishly illustrated catalog with double-page color images of sixteen one-of-a-kind editions of poetry by Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca. Each book represents a five-year long collaboration between poet and model Mary Jilia Klimenko, artist Manuel Neri, calligrapher Thomas Ingmire, book artist Daniel Kelm, and fellows at Kelm's Wide Awake Garage. Published bilingually in Spanish and English, the text features an extensive essay by contemporary art critic Bruce Nixon, who provides critical context for the completed volumes and the significance of each of the artists involved. He writes, “[a]ny of these books will offer itself, like a painting or sculpture, as a site of deep encounter.” This catalog provides a special opportunity for students, scholars, and admirers of poetry to view these critical and artistic artists’ books interpreting the work of two iconic poets.

Edited by Bruce Nixon
January 2012
Hardcover, 529 pages
9 x 13 inches, 7 BW images, 410 color images
ISBN: 9780911221480
Price: $85 USD

The American Enlightenment: Treasures from the Stanford University Libraries

The American Enlightenment: Treasures from the Stanford University Libraries showcases the Libraries’ holdings of association copies from the Enlightenment period. Association copies are one-of-kind, singular books connected to a (usually) famous owner who has recorded their ownership or reactions in the book. Examples are a copy of John Milton’s Paradise Lost bearing the signature of both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison or a personally inscribed copy of The Beauties of the English Stage, an anthology of British play extracts belonging to the poet Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a collection of poetry. Caroline Winterer’s keen insights into the intellectual collaboration surrounding these unique holdings provide readers an intimate access point to the grand ideas of the Enlightenment, revealing the revolutionary intellectual life of British Americans at this time.

Edited by Caroline Winterer
February 2011
Paperback, 52 pages
9 x 11 inches, 67 color images
ISBN: 9780911221459
Price: $16 USD

Celebrating Mexico: The Grito de Dolores and the Mexican Revolution 1810, 1910, 2010

This richly illustrated catalog commemorates the two-hundredth anniversary of Mexico's independence from Spain and the one-hundredth anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, two critical periods in Mexico's struggle for sovereignty that began with Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s call to arms in Dolores, Mexico. Published bilingually and jointly with The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, Celebrating Mexico features a complete checklist of the holdings at each library as well as eighty-six full-color and duotone images of posters, broadsides, and documents that illustrate the movement for Mexican independence. With essays by historians Ivonne del Valle, Margaret Chowning, and Jorge Ruffinelli, this catalog provides an important and visual context of the military and ideological battles that led to the nation’s freedom.

Edited by Charles Faulhaber, with a foreword by Roberto G. Trujillo
January 2010
Paperback, 80 pages
9 x 12 inches, 86 color images
ISBN: 9780911221442
Price: $20 USD

Mary Webb: Neglected Genius

Mary Webb: Neglected Genius brings attention to the lesser-known works of the British poet and novelist Mary Webb. In two volumes, Webb’s work is explored in depth through over one hundred and eighty items from Stanford University Libraries’ collections, which includes the only extant manuscript of Webb’s novel Armour Wherein He Trusted, a letter of appreciation from British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and a group of letters from Webb to her future mother-in-law. The second volume features Webb’s unpublished manuscript of “Clematisa & Percival,” a story written by her as a teenager, and exquisitely illustrated by William Bishop. Edited by esteemed book collectors Mary E. Crawford and Bruce J. Crawford, and with contributions by Mary Webb’s biographer, Dr. Gladys Mary Coles, Mary Webb: Neglected Genius offers an excellent review and original reflections on the life and work of a once beloved writer.

Edited by Mary E. Crawford
July 2010
Hardcover, 234 pages, 2 volume set
6 x 9 inches, 80 BW images, 13 color images
ISBN: 9781605830247
Price: $75 USD

Zuanchō in Kyoto: Textile Design Books for the Kimono Trade

Zuanchō in Kyoto: Textile Design Books for the Kimono Trade introduces a unique aspect of Japanese textile-design history known as kimono zuanchō, woodblock-printed books of design ideas for kimono. Kenichirō Yokoya, curator of the Otsu City Museum of History, provides a historical overview of these design books, which began to be published in response to a technical innovation in the kimono industry during the Meiji era. Even though zuanchō were meant to be practical books, this generously illustrated catalog highlights the striking, vivid colors of kimono designs, from painterly style to graphic approaches, characterized by kinetic lines, geometric shapes, and the abstraction of traditional Japanese themes drawn from nature. This catalog adds a rich visual dimension to Stanford University’s already strong holdings on the history of the book and tempts readers to blur the meanings of decorative and fine art.

Edited by Misako Mitsui and Roberto G. Trujillo, with an essay by Kenichirō Yokoya
December 2007
Paperback, 40 pages
8 x 10 inches, 39 color images
ISBN: 9780911221411
Price: $20 USD

Experiments in Navigation: The Art of Charles Hobson

This catalog celebrates Stanford University Libraries' acquisition of a remarkable archive by San Francisco-based artist and publisher Charles Hobson, who spent three decades designing and publishing both fine press and commercially printed books. The catalog highlights nine of Charles Hobson’s artist’s books, which he contextualizes through narratives that describe how he conceived, researched, and developed the ideas, artwork, and physical structure for each of the books. The text is generously illustrated with images from the archive, production photographs, and photographs of the finished products. “Hobson does not hesitate to cross traditional boundaries in bookmaking,” says editor May Castleberry, referring to the artist’s fearless experimentation in his own creative process. Experiments in Navigation unveils the diversity and creativity of Charles Hobson’s work and serves as an essential guide for artists and scholars navigating their own creative paths.

Text by Charles Hobson
January 2008
Paperback, 63 pages
8 x 11.5 inches, 12 BW images, 88 color images
ISBN: 9780911221428
Price: $25 USD

Ira Nowinski: The Photographer as Witness

This exhibition catalogue documents three disparate series of works by photographer Ira Nowinski: In Fitting Memory: The Art and Politics of Holocaust Memorials; Karaite Jews in Egypt, Israel, and the San Francisco Bay Area; and Soviet Jews in San Francisco. Ira Nowinski has been a fixture on San Francisco’s artistic and cultural scene for more than three decades, and among the abiding themes that his photographs reflect are his passion for social justice, his fascination with the urban scene, and his longstanding involvement with the literary, performing, and visual arts. With thirty-two duotone prints, and contributions by Zachary M. Baker, Dr. Anita Friedman, and John Felstiner, who provide invaluable context for Nowinski’s work, Ira Nowinski: The Photographer as Witness opens a window onto an important archive in the Libraries’ Special Collections.

Edited by Zachary M. Baker
August 2004
Paperback, 64 pages
8 x 11, 32 BW images
ISBN: 9780911221336
Price: $25 USD

A Vast and Useful Art: The Gustave Gimon Collection on French Political Economy

The Gustave Gimon Collection at Stanford University Libraries illustrates the interplay between economics and politics with works spanning the preindustrial era between 1515 and 1860. The books and manuscripts in the collection range from theoretical treatises to practical handbooks focusing on political economy but also the broader spheres of religion, utopian speculation, and notions of sovereignty. This volume is an invaluable resource for scholars of French political economy and culture and is organized into four parts. Part one, Scholars’ Perspectives, offers essays by seven scholars writing about various aspects of the collection and includes illustrations of original materials. Part two, Highlights, gives a closer look at a smaller selection of citations which are annotated and categorized by seven relevant themes. Part three provides a panoramic view of the collection through its bibliography and supplementary lists and offers commentary and scholarship on segments of the collection. Part four includes a reference bibliography, list of illustrations, and an author index.

Edited by Mary Jane Parrine
January 2004
Hardcover, 280 pages
10 x 12 inches, 53 color images
ISBN: 9780911221305
Price: $49 USD

Matt Phillips: The Magic in His Prints

Matt Phillips: The Magic in His Prints highlights the Libraries' collection of monotypes, drypoints, etchings, lithographs, artist's books, and sketchbooks by Bay Area artist Matt Phillips. Phillips is widely recognized as an expert of the monotype, but this catalog centers his lesser known works and works-in-progress, revealing the frenetic energy of his creative process. Some highlights are his wood-paneled artist's books depicting brilliant beach scenes, and the hand-colored drypoints of the rolling hills of Napa Valley. Eight color and eight black-and-white illustrations, a preface by Roberto Trujillo, co-curator and Head of Special Collections, and an essay by D. Vanessa Kam, co-curator and Head Librarian of the Bowes Art & Architecture Library give readers a robust understanding of the full range of Phillip’s work and bring to life the magic and romance in the subjects he returns to throughout his substantial body of work.

Text by D. Vanessa Kam
January 2001
Hardcover, 31 pages
8 x 11 inches, 8 BW images, 8 color images
ISBN: 9780911221244
Price: $15 USD

Chile in the Nineties

Chile in the Nineties is an expansive collection of essays in twenty-one chapters by intellectual, professional, and technical experts of Chile. The essay topics include the Chilean political system, education, labor relations, modernization, gender politics, economics, society, and culture. Chile in the Nineties is not intended to be an official record, says former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle in his introduction, but instead offers wide-ranging reflections and thoughtful, analytic assessments of a decade of multifaceted change in Chile, providing scholars with a strategic outlook for Chile's future.

Edited by Christián Toloza and Eugenio Lahera
February 2000
Paperback, 703 pages
8 x 10 inches
ISBN: 9780911221213
Price: $45 USD

The Barchas Collection at Stanford University

This catalog describes the 2,200 titles deemed rare or valuable in The Barchas Collection in the History of Science and Ideas, a distinguished collection at Stanford University gifted by Samuel I. and Cecile M. Barchas. The collection is especially strong in medicine, geology, astronomy, and general natural history. The catalog includes sixty-four high-resolution reproductions of title pages and illustrations from titles in the collection. Contributions by editor Dianne Chilmonczyk, librarian Roberto G. Trujillo, and curator Henry E. Lowood offer important context about the gift and value of The Barchas Collection. This catalog is a valuable resource for historians of science and medicine, bibliographers, book collectors, and others concerned with the documentation of scientific ideas.

Edited by Dianne Chilmonczyk
November 1999
Hardcover, 419 pages
9 x 11 inches, 5 BW images, 57 color images 
ISBN: 9780911221190
Price: $40 USD

Sigmund Freud: An Exhibition of Original Editions, Autographed Letters, and Portraits

This exhibit catalog presents an extensive collection of one-of-a-kind archival materials that offer a more personal, intimate look at the scientist and scholar Sigmund Freud. Edited by psychotherapist Dr. Roy Ginsburg and the former director of library collections Michael Ryan, collection highlights include unique inscribed copies of Freud’s presentation papers as well as some of his letters to friends and peers, in which he shares concerns about the low attendance of his initial lectures and the reputation his theories were garnering. With essays by Paul Robinson and Dr. Haskell F. Norman providing important context and detailed descriptions of the collection’s items, this catalog gives renewed insights into the modern intellectual responsible for the evolution of psychoanalysis. 

Edited by Roy Ginsburg and Michael Ryan
March 1991
Paperback, 81 pages
8 x 10 inches, 16 BW images
Price: $5 USD

W.B. Yeats & The Irish Renaissance

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is almost universally acknowledged as Ireland’s greatest poet, remarks editor Michael Stanford in his introduction, but this catalog reveals another part of the poet’s legacy as a powerful literary citizen. With selections from Stanford University Libraries' James A. Healy Collection of Irish Literature, W. B. Yeats & the Irish Renaissance showcases books, manuscripts, and letters that demonstrate the poet’s deep investment in his contemporaries during the Irish Renaissance. A highlight is Yeats’s collection of poetry books published by his sister’s press, Cuala Press. The books are inscribed with his personal reflections and include encouraging remarks to the authors in the margins. The catalog also features noteworthy items such as Yeats’s unpublished letters to his father, artist John Butler Yeats, letters by the dramatist and folklorist Lady Augusta Gregory, and broadsides painted by literary critic AE (George William Russell). The catalog showcases the highest standards of Irish craftsmanship and celebrates the artist at the heart of a literary movement.

Edited by Michael Stanford
January 1990
Paperback, 94 pages
6 x 9 inches, 9 BW images
ISBN: 9780911221145
Price: $5 USD

The Barchas Collection: The Making of Modern Science

This exhibit catalogue contains detailed descriptions of more than eighty rare and important volumes from the Barchas Collection. The Barchas Collection is a major archive at Stanford University, with more than 5,000 volumes tracing the origins and development of modern science and medicine. With titles selected by Henry E. Lowood, Curator for the History of Science & Technology Collections, the works presented in this catalog are of bibliographic and historical importance. They include major works by such scientists as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Linnaeus, Darwin, Lyell, and Einstein. Some highlights include Isaac Newton’s own manuscript notes in an alchemical text from his library and an engraving of scientist and philosopher Margaret Bryan with her students that accompanies a description of her pedagogical lectures. This catalogue provides subtle insights into the creation and transmission of science while emphasizing the immense value of the Barchas Collection for future historical research.

Edited by Henry E. Lowood
January 1985
Hardcover, 118 pages
6 x 9 inches, 29 BW images
ISBN: 9780911221039
Price: $10 USD