Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today was joined by Emmy Award-winner Seth MacFarlane and Ann Druyan, the longtime collaborator and widow of astrobiologist Carl Sagan, to celebrate the official opening of The Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive to the public at the Library of Congress.
Carl Sagan (1934-1996), a celebrated American astronomer, pioneering space scientist, astrobiologist, educator, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, was a consummate communicator who bridged the gap between academe and popular culture. The processed collection comprises 1,705 archival boxes of materials and came to the Library through the generosity of Emmy Award-winner MacFarlane. It includes Sagan’s earliest notebooks and report cards, extensive correspondence with scientists and other major figures of the 20th century, drafts of scientific papers, books, articles, historical documents of the first 40 years of the space age and his laboratory research at Cornell University on subjects as varied as the origin of life, global warming and nuclear winter.
“It is exciting that the Sagan-Druyan Archive is joining other great collections of scientific knowledge from various time periods that are here at the national library,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “Now, the information it contains will be available for the inspiration of the next generation of scientific thinkers and will represent an ongoing memorial to the great ‘science exciter,’ Carl Sagan.”
Read the Complete Announcement
See Also: Finding Aid For MacFarlane Collection