The University of California, San Diego Library has become the official repository for the papers of Jonas Salk, the physician, virologist, and humanitarian who developed the world’s first successful polio vaccine and helped make San Diego a center for bio-medical research.
The papers, which fill nearly 900 boxes, were recently donated to the library’s Mandeville Special Collections by Salk’s sons, Peter, Darrell and Jonathan.
Salk founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies adjacent to UC San Diego. The institute will celebrate the Jonas Salk Centenary in the fall of 2014 and, as part of this notable milestone, the library will hold a major exhibition of the Salk papers and collaborate with the institute on other celebratory events.
“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 cover the period from the mid-1940s to his death in 1995 and include activities related to the development of the polio vaccine in the mid-1950s and the founding of the Salk Institute in the early 1960s. The papers cover general correspondence, files relating to polio, Salk’s writings, photographs, artifacts—including two dictating machines—personal writings, and various research materials.
— From a UC San Diego news release
