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Center Leads Consortium to Create Web Database of Archival Finding Aids
The AIP History Center has received a grant from the National Endowment
for the Humanities for a one-year project to create a searchable Web database
of archival finding aids. Containing 76 finding aids describing collections
in nine archives, the database will significantly improve access to important
collections documenting 19th and 20th century American physics and allied
fields. Over the course of the next year, Center staff will mark-up and
mount on the Web some of the most useful finding aids from the Niels Bohr
Library and eight other institutions: California Institute of Technology,
Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern
University, Rice University, University of Alaska, University of Illinois,
and University of Texas.
The collections represented in the project date from the late 19th century
forward. They cover the development of America’s participation in the
revolution in the physical sciences through 1940, and are especially strong
for the years after the U.S. entered World War II. In addition to covering
such broad areas as nuclear physics, geophysics, astrophysics and astronomy
after 1945, they document the social and political aspects of modern science,
including the mobilization of science for defense, the development of
big science, science education, and the evolution of America’s postwar
science policy.
This work is a continuation and expansion of the Center’s International
Catalog of Sources for History of Physics and Allied Sciences (ICOS),
which now contains over 7000 summary records from approximately 600 repositories,
describing archival collections in physics and allied fields. Typically,
researchers first learn about collections of interest to them by checking
guides or catalogs such as the ICOS. They then look at finding aids to
obtain more detailed information on what is in the collection. Getting
access to hard copies of finding aids, which are quite voluminous, can
be cumbersome and time-consuming. The Web is changing this as more and
more archives “publish” their finding aids electronically. The Center
has been mounting finding aids from the Niels Bohr Library for some time
(there are currently ten on the Center’s Web site). The new project —
creating a cross-searchable database of finding aids — is the next step
beyond mounting HTML encoded finding aids on the Web as discrete documents.
The end result will provide detailed and controlled access to information
on collections.
In addition to the cross-searchable database, the project will expand
on existing Web finding aids by fostering the free exchange of information
over existing computing platforms creating a cross-searchable database
covering the whole set. It will use a recently developed encoding standard
for description of archival materials that has recently gained acceptance
in the archives community: Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)
Encoded Archival Description (EAD). Use of SGML EAD allows one to define
the structure and content of a finding aid, going beyond the standard
Web HTML which is simply a method of display. A group of SGML-tagged documents
can be indexed according to predetermined criteria, and then searched
as a group down to the most detailed level of description. Once the grant-funded
project has created the core database, the AIP History Center plans to
maintain and expand it on an ongoing basis, aided by user feedback.
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Center
for History of Physics
© 2003 American Institute of Physics,
One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3843. Email: aipinfo@aip.org
Phone: 301-209-3100; Fax: 301-209-0843
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