Special Collections: UC San Diego Library Receives Personal Papers of Jonas Salk

From the UCSD Library Blog:

The University of California, San Diego Library has become the official repository for the papers of Jonas Salk, noted physician, virologist, and humanitarian, best known for his development of the world’s first successful vaccine for the prevention of polio.
The papers—which constitute almost 600 linear feet (or nearly 900 boxes)—were recently donated to the Library’s Mandeville Special Collections by Salk’s sons, Peter, Darrell and Jonathan, all of whom, like their father, trained as physicians and are involved in medical and scientific activities.
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“It is a great honor for the Library to be the official repository for Jonas Salk’s papers,” said Brian E. C. Schottlaender, The Audrey Geisel University Librarian at UC San Diego. “The UC San Diego Library’s Mandeville Special Collections houses the papers of some of the world’s most prominent and accomplished scientists, including Francis Crick, Stanley Miller, and Leo Szilard, as well as Nobel Laureates Harold Urey, Hannes Alfven, and Maria Goeppert Mayer. The papers of Jonas Salk are an excellent complement to these materials.”
The Salk papers constitute an exhaustive source of documentation on Salk’s professional and scientific activities. The papers cover the period from the mid-1940s to his death in 1995; best documented are activities largely related to the development of the Salk polio vaccine in the mid-1950s to the early 1960s and the founding of the Salk Institute. The papers cover general correspondence, files relating to polio, his writings, photographs, artifacts—including two dictating machines—personal writings, and various research materials.

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