Prosser
Gifford is Director of Scholarly Programs at the Library of Congress.
A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and a
Ph.D in history from Yale. His academic career includes teaching appointments
at Yale University and at Amherst College, where he was Professor of History
and Dean of the Faculty from 1967-1979. Dr. Gifford was appointed deputy
director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1980
until worked there until 1988, when he became a visiting scholar at the
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris (1989). He has served
on the boards of trustees of various academic and research bodies, including
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. At the Library of Congress,
he has directed a variety of special programs and projects, including
establishing the Japan Documentation Center (1992); organizing a major
exhibition of Treasures from the Bibliotheque nationale de France (1995);
setting up the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library
competition (1996) and setting up the Mellon Foreign Area Fellowship competition
(1966); and organizing the first of a series of LC Bicentennial symposia
(Frontiers of the Mind, 1999) as well as the Democracy and the Rule
of Law symposium.. He has extensive experience as an editor of volumes
on African history, United States foreign policy, and, most recently,
Creating French Culture: Treasures from the Bibliothèque nationale
de France (1995).
