Stanford will inherit the late paleontologist Stephen J. Gould’s collection of notebooks, papers and other items that served as source materials for the scientist’s hundreds of articles and books.

Gould, who died of cancer six years ago, began his career as an evolutionary biologist and won fame by publishing over a dozen books about evolution for a popular audience. He held a triple professorship at Harvard in biology, geology and the history of science.

Gould and his wife visited Stanford in 2001, and they proposed the creation of digital editions of his work to Stanford librarians.

Curators hope to find where Gould got his inspiration by studying the notes he scribbled and the passages he underlined.

The collection is likely to include samples of Gould’s vast collection of embossed airline coffee cups.