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Reading Room Hours

The Archives & Special Collections Reading Room is open Monday through Friday 11-1 by appointment. If you wish to view any items from the archives or our non-circulating book collections, please complete the following form.

Welcome!

The mission of the Bard College Archives & Special Collections is to collect, preserve and make available materials in a variety of formats relating to the intellectual and social history of Bard College and its surrounding communities. By offering online and physical access to its holdings, the Archives & Special Collections seeks to support the research and work of undergraduates, the greater Bard community, public historians, private researchers, and scholars worldwide.

The Bard College Archives & Special Collections documents the history of the College and the Hudson Valley through its collections, and preserves significant book collections to ensure their long term availability. This website serves to showcase some of the materials available for study, as well as to provide enhanced access to selected materials. Our collections fall into the following categories: College archives; Local and Regional History archives; Delafield Family/Montgomery Place archives; and Monographic Special Collections. Click around and be curious! Specific collections will be presented or described in the following pages.

New Digital Collection: Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series

A poster image for the Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series.

The origin of the Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series goes back to the fall of 1979 when the late Nobel Laureate Physicist Paul Dirac accepted an invitation to deliver a lecture on "the Discovery of Anti-Matter."

His talk combined scientific and personal reminiscences to present a view of modern science rarely seen by the general public—science as a record of personal achievement as well as a body of facts and knowledge. Professor Dirac’s lecture drew an audience from throughout the East Coast, and its success inspired the establishment of the Bard Center Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series. The first two years of the Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series were supported by the Pre-College Teacher Development in Science Program of the National Science Foundation.

For all those interested in the field of science–students, teachers, researchers, professionals in scientific industries and lay people–the series provided a rare opportunity for first-hand contact with people who shaped modern science–the chance to see how they thought and worked, how they viewed their own achievements, and how they assessed the challenges that scientists faced, back then and in the respective future.

Visiting the Archives

The Archives & Special Collections Reading Room is open Monday through Friday 11-1 by appointment. If you wish to view any items from the archives or our non-circulating book collections, please complete the following form.

Gifts to the Archives

Do you have some St. Stephen’s or Bard memorabilia you would like to donate? The Bard Archives & Special Collections Department accepts donations of archival materials or books that fit into the many of the collections listed above. However, the Department will not accept donations of materials where ownership has not been transferred to the College. Given space and staffing limitations, all gifts for the Bard Archives must be approved by the Archivist, or other appropriate staff. We will be happy to start a discussion with you!

If you are interested in supporting the work that we do in other ways, click here.