Would King Midas like sleeping in Fort Knox?
Tom Staley, director of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, opened his own library at the ripe old age of 8. He let friends borrow books on one condition: every now and then they had to donate to his collection. At 12, having amassed a trove of Big Little books, he catalogued and numbered each volume and would stack some in an orange crate to bring to his summer league baseball games. “I liked it because I knew I would have lots of time to read,” Staley says. For two decades Thomas F. Staley has led Harry H. Ransom’s Bibliothèque Nationale. During that time the HRC has cemented its claim on having the finest collection of literary materials from 20th century American and British writers — in the world. Its photography and film collections rival the country’s best and are growing so fast that the UT System recently bought an additional $200 million in insurance for the HRC’s holdings. That’s on top of the $1 billion it already owned. While UT tries desperately to catch academia
