Gerald W. Cloud named as Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts

The Harry Ransom Center announces the appointment of Gerald W. Cloud as its Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts.

Cloud will be responsible for overseeing the Ransom Center’s extensive holdings of early books and manuscripts, including promoting access to, and use of, the collections and interpreting them for varied audiences. The Ransom Center’s Pforzheimer Library of English Literature is one of the cornerstones of the Center’s early books and manuscripts collections.

Prior to joining the Ransom Center, Cloud served as head librarian at UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, curator of literature at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and most recently as an antiquarian bookseller at James Cummins Bookseller.

“Gerald’s professional experiences—academic teaching, collection development, knowledge of the antiquarian book trade, scholarship in bibliography and the history of the book—will be invaluable to the Ransom Center and its patrons,” said Steve Enniss, Director of the Harry Ransom Center.

Cloud will support researchers working with the Ransom Center’s early book and manuscripts collections and collaborate with colleagues to promote enhanced access to collections, including digital initiatives and exhibitions. He’ll also work closely with the Center’s conservation department on setting treatment priorities for collection materials as well as expanding and strengthening the Pforzheimer Library.

“I look forward to raising the profile of the Ransom Center’s collections and invigorating use for original research with scholars, students, faculty and others,” said Cloud.

Holdings within the Pforzheimer Library include the plays, poems, novels, essays, polemical writings, and translations of some of the most important English writers from 1475 to 1700. All major writers (William Caxton, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Francis Bacon, John Milton, Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, and William Congreve, among many others) are represented by first and important editions. The Pforzheimer books are supplemented by 2,000 manuscript items.

Cloud begins his position on January 12, 2015.