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New Internet Sites and Services for History of Science
Regular readers of this Newsletter will note that this news feature has become
a regular column, as opportunities to use the Internet for historical
scholarship, education, and entertainment continue to proliferate. Work
is proceeding to mount the AIP's articles (with links and other materials)
on the World Wide Web.
 National Aeronautics and Space Administration History.
Those with e-mail capability can conveniently subscribe to
the newsletter NASA History: News and Notes. To subscribe,
send a message to domo@hq.nasa.gov. Leave the subject line
blank. In the text portion, type "subscribe history" without
the quotation marks. Type only that, leave out your name
unlike many other LISTSERV programs, and you will receive
confirmation that your account has been added to the list.
The NASA History List will be a relatively low volume
LISTSERV; the NASA History office intends to use it to send
out their newsletter and to make other announcements as
appropriate. It will not be a true discussion list, although
if you would like to see one created, or if you have
difficulties or questions, you may call or send a message to
Roger D. Launius, NASA Chief Historian, Code ZH, NASA
Headquarters, Washington, DC 20564; 202-358-0384, Fax 202-
358-2866, e-mail: rlaunius@codei.hq.nasa.gov.
PCST-L is a new electronic mailing list devoted to public
communication of science and technology. The list provides
an opportunity for discussion, exchange and cooperation
among practitioners, researchers, and scientists with an
active professional interest in science popularization and
related topics. The audience includes science journalists,
public information officers at both profit and nonprofit
institutions and organizations, museum educators, scientific
popularizers, communication researchers, journalism
educators, and others. The list is explicitly intended to
cross international, cultural, and professional boundaries.
PCST-L is sponsored by the Public Communication of Science
and Technology Network, established in Poitiers, France, in
1989. The PCST Network has held subsequent meetings in
Madrid (1991) and Montreal (1994), and is scheduled to meet
in Melbourne, Australia, in September 1996. The list is
semi-moderated, meaning that contributions are routed
through designated moderator(s) for approval. To subscribe
to PCST-L, send a message to: listproc@cornell.edu. Write in
the body of the message: subscribe PCST-L yournamehere. If
you have any questions about PCST-L, contact Bruce
Lewenstein, the list owner and current moderator, at
bvl1@cornell.edu. If you have any questions about the
Cornell Information Technologies list processor, contact the
list server manager at: listmgr@cornell.edu.
Tech-Society is a Technology and Society Electronic
Mailing List operated by the IEEE Society on Social
Implications of Technology (SSIT) for the purpose of
enabling timely discussion of issues falling within the
scope of SSIT, e.g.: health and safety implications of
technology, engineering ethics and professional
responsibility, engineering education in social implications
of technology, history of electrotechnology, technical
expertise and public policy, social issues related to
energy, social issues related to information technology,
social issues related to telecommunications, systems
analysis in public policy decisions, economic issues related
to technology, peace technology, environmental implications
of technology. To subscribe to the list, send the following
message to majordomo@mail.ieee.org: subscribe tech-society@ieee.org.
To post messages, send to: tech-society@ieee.org. For more
information on SSIT, e-mail: j.herkert@ieee.org; note also
the Web locator given below.
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The Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, has launched
an extensive information service. Among the pages available
to World Wide Web users are:
a version of the special exhibition now running at the
Museum called "The Measurers: a Flemish Image of Mathematics
in the Sixteenth Century;" images of instruments, portraits,
and illustrations from the Museum's collections, notably a
special exhibition of early photographs including Michael
Faraday and John Herschel; and news and information from the
Museum itself, including publications and newsletter. The
pages contain 150 images, all for viewing at two sizes (low
and medium resolution); in addition very large versions of
the images in The Measurers exhibition can be used for
detailed examination. The Museum's URL is: http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/.
Biography is a proven way to organize historical
information, and Websters are taking advantage. New
biographical Web sites of note are a Leo Szilard exhibit
with links to documentary sources, at
http://www.peak.org/~danneng/szilard.html, and a Galileo project
with a variety of hyperlinked texts and pictures at
http://www.rice.edu/Galileo.
Seeking to expand understanding of
the history of women in physics in connection with the forthcoming
centennial of the American Physical Society, a page has been established,
currently containing a call for volunteers to help in the project. It
is at: http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp.
The IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology
(SSIT) World Wide Web Home Page has moved to:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/j/jherkert/index.html.
The site features information about SSIT, including the
Technology and Society electronic mailing list, IEEE
Technology and Society Magazine, and the International
Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS), as well as
links to related Internet resources.
Among sites mentioned in articles
in past Newsletters there has been an especially notable expansion of
the ASAP (Australian Science & Technology Project--World Wide Web Virtual
Library for History of Science, Technology & Medicine), the most comprehensive
general source for the field, at a NEW address: http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/hstm/hstm_ove.htm.
This is a well-organized collection of some 200 links, including a rapidly
expanding biographical dictionary, and currently attracting some 1,000
accesses per week. Check also the improvements in the history page of
the National Aeronautics & Space Administration, now including
links to histories of several of its labs, at
http://history.nasa.gov; and the CalTech Archives at http://www.caltech.edu/archives.
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