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|  | Home > Research Help > History of Science > Good Web Sites Recommended Web Sites for This is a list of digital collections, resource lists, associations and organizations, and other recommended web sites for information about the history of science or technology and related topics. Please also see the Images page for additional links.
American Philosophical Society Library (Philadelphia, PA) -- Manuscript collections in nuclear physics, computer development, medicine, and more, specializing in the history of genetics nad eugenics, the study of natural history in the 18th and 19th centuries, quantum mechanics, and the development of cultural anthropology in America. For descriptions of the collections, use MOLE (Manuscripts On-Line Guide). Dibner Institute, Burndy Library (MIT, Cambridge, MA) -- Post-war secondary materials in the history of science and technology; primary sources in special topics including electricity and magnetism, electro-technology, and early modern chemistry and metallurgy; as well as mechanics, mathematics and optics from the seventeenth to nineteenth century. View their newsletters and online publications, and descriptions of collections (such as "historical lamps"). Echo Science and Technology Virtual Center (George Mason University, Virginia) -- This is a meta-site with links to hundreds of sites in all areas of science/tech/med history. The site is searchable by keyword. Gottinger Digitalisierungs-Zentrum -- The Center for Retrospective Digitization was established to do retrospective digitization of library materials as part of an initiative to build a German digital research library. Here is their list of projects. History of Science and Medicine Web Sites -- site maintained by Professor Barker for his History of Science classes at Oklahoma University. History of Science resources (University of Delaware) -- list of recommended web sites by subject, museums, and much more History of Science, and History of Social Studies of Science -- site maintained by the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (Altenberg, Austria). Annotated list of books, periodicals, societies, institutes and libraries, departments and programs, and other resources in the field. Internet History of Science Sourcebook -- These "sourcebooks" are collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts for educational use, maintained by Professor Halsall of Fordham and University of North Florida. Jordanus: an International Catalogue of Mediaeval Scientific Manuscripts -- This catalogue provides information about mediaeval manuscripts written in Western Europe between 500 and 1500 A.D. Museum of the History of Science (University of Oxford) -- Available resources include online exhibits, an image library, and museum newsletters. National Academies Press -- Electronic books that you can read online for free, from the National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, National Research Council, and Institute of Medicine. Here are tips for searching. OSTI (Office of Scientific and Technical Information) -- This is the Department of Energy's information site. It is absolutely invaluable for researchers: you can search the huge collection for DOE research results, research projects, DOE Nobel Prize Winners, e-prints, conference papers and proceedings, and more. Profiles in Science -- From the National Library of Medicine, this site contains the archival collections of prominent twentieth century biomedical scientists and contains published and unpublished materials, including books, journal volumes, pamphlets, diaries, letters, manuscripts, photographs, audio tapes, and other audiovisual materials. Astronomiae Historia / History of Astronomy -- Here is the massive Table of Contents for this site. There is a great deal of information here, including astronomers' obituaries. Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation -- The Institute specializes in the history of botany and all aspects of plant science. It acquires and maintains collections of books, plant images, manuscripts, portraits, and data files, especially in the area of North American flora. The Institute also provides information in the areas of art history, botanical art and illustration, history of science, horticulture, botanic gardens and gardening, medicine, rare books, social and cultural commentary, and travel and scientific expeditions. MendelWeb -- An educational site for classical genetics, introductory data analysis, elementary plant science, and the history and literature of science. The site is built around Gregor Mendel's 1865 paper "Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden" and a revised version of the English translation by C.T. Druery and William Bateson, "Experiments in Plant Hybridization." (Last revised 1997.) New York Botanical Garden library and online catalog -- This library is one of the world's largest and most important botanical and horticultural research libraries, with over one million books, journals, original art and illustration, seed and nursery catalogs, architectural plans of glass houses, scientific reprints, and photographs. Chemistry: The Chemical Heritage Foundation Alan Turing Archives and Photographs -- A site listing Turing's publications and many sources of information, photographs, and other resources. "Built in America" -- The Library of Congress houses two large collections entitled "Historic American Buildings Survey" and "Historic American Engineering Record." The digitized images of measured drawings, black-and-white photographs, color transparencies, photo captions, data pages, and more show examples of architecture, engineering, and design in the U.S. and its territories, through a range of building types and engineering technologies. Computer History Museum -- This museum, located in Mountain View, CA, has online exhibits, an oral history program whose transcripts can be searched, and a catalog whose 20,000+ records can also be searched. Historical Electronics Museum -- The history of America's defense electronics. Exhibits include communications, early radar, Cold War radar, modern radar, countermeasures, underseas, electro-optical, and space sensors. A History of Imaging: revisiting the past to chart the future. Mait, Joseph N. Optics and Photonics News 17(2), February 2006, pp. 22-27. A comprehensive article about milestones during the history of imaging. Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement -- Mostly materials from “the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, which was the center of American eugenics research from 1910-1940. In the Archive you will see numerous reports, articles, charts, and pedigrees that were considered scientific "facts" in their day.” MendelWeb -- An educational site for classical genetics, introductory data analysis, elementary plant science, and the history and literature of science. The site is built around Gregor Mendel's 1865 paper "Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden" and a revised version of the English translation by C.T. Druery and William Bateson, "Experiments in Plant Hybridization." (Last revised 1997.) U.S. Board on Geographic Names -- Created in 1890, this body coordinates names for U.S., some foreign, and Antarctic entities, as well as undersea features. INSTRUMENTATION AND INVENTIONS Alexander Graham Bell's Path to the Telephone -- This is a series of flowcharts that include many sketches from Bell's experimental notebooks, patents, depositions in court, and correspondence. The charts are arranged in a hierarchy; the top level shows the major experiments along his path to a device that transmitted speech. Click on one of the sketches to move to a lower-level map, depicting another series of experiments, and so on. Epact: Scientific Instruments of Medieval and Renaissance Europe -- Epact is an electronic catalogue of medieval and renaissance scientific instruments from four European museums:
"All European instruments from these museums by makers who were active before 1600 have been entered in the catalogue. They include astrolabes, armillary spheres, sundials, quadrants, nocturnals, compendia, surveying tools, and more." Silicon Valley Oral History Project -- "SiliconBase" is an online archive about the history, sociology, politics, economics, and culture of the region. The project's developers worked with researchers and area companies to identify materials and to preserve records for future researchers. The collections includes 2,000 documents, including text, images, videos, and sound recordings. Thomas A. Edison Papers-- An exhaustive collection of information. Worlds Woven by the Telegraph and Internet -- This is a National Library of Medicine exhibition whose "online resources" link gives many sources to the history of the telegraph and its inventors. (Note that many of the links are dead.) Dictionary of Scientific Biography -- Volume 15 (which is Supplement 1) of this series has "topical essays" in the history of mathematics. This series is located in the Science Reference section on C-Level, Q141 .D5. Essay topics include:
Mathematics Genealogy Project -- As the site states, their goal is "to compile information about ALL the mathematicians of the world." The database can be searched, of course, and as of 2007 there will also be MathSciNet links with many of the names. Archimedes Project -- This Harvard site's aim is "to develop model interactive environments for scholarly research on the history of mechanics and engineering, from antiquity to the Renaissance." Galileo Galilei's Notes on Motion -- This 300+-page manuscript contains Galileo's work on mechanical problems over a period of forty years. It contains short texts in Latin and Italian, extended drafts intended for publication, calculations, diagrams, and even some documents pertaining to experiments he performed. History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine Medical Library Association, History of the Health Sciences World Wide Web Links "American Natural Science in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century" is a project to digitize collections that document the establishment of an "American" approach to natural science during about 1800-1850. It includes volumes of The Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1817-1842) and a book by John Audubon. Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online -- This University of Cambridge project is working toward making all of Darwin's works available online. There is a list of contents currently available. AIP Center for History of Physics -- The center has almost all books on physics and astronomy through most of the 20th century, including books (e.g., pre-WWII German-language textbooks) as well as papers and letters, oral histories, photographs, and artifacts. "Preserving the Heritage of Discovery" is an article (Physics Today, January 2002) with a wonderful description of the Center and its holdings. The American Institute of Physics is in College Park, MD. Atomic Heritage Foundation -- This foundation is a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Age. In 2006, it merged with the Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association (MPHPA) [formerly "Children of the Manhattan Project."] According to the web site, the site is the largest web-based repository for primary source material about the Manhattan Project and its veterans. Center for History of Physics, Einstein Archives Online -- This collection contains the personal papers of Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and supplementary material collected at the Albert Einstein Archives. It includes the manuscripts of Einstein’s scientific and non-scientific writings, correspondence with colleagues and contemporaries, personal documents, and family correspondence. The collection also includes materials such as photographs, sound recordings, and film footage. Materials are mostly in German and English.
Plague and Public Health in Renaissance Europe -- This is a hypertext archive of narratives, governmental records, religious writings, and images documenting the arrival, impact, and response to the problem of epidemic disease in Western Europe between 1348 and 1530. NASA Historical Archive -- NASA's archive of space history and manned missions, including information about the early astronauts, the patches worn for each mission, and much more. Ad*Access -- About 7,000 advertisements, mainly from U.S. publications, dating between 1911 and 1955. These are only a small subset of all advertisements printed during those years, so this site focuses on ads that relate to one of five main categories: Beauty and Hygiene, Transportation, Radio, Television, and World War II. Baltimore Architecture Project -- This project provides searchable biographical and historical information on Baltimore's buildings and their architects, curretnly for 1850-1945. The BAP is part of a nation-wide database called "American Architects and Buildings." Davies Project This Princeton-University-based project collects research into the history of university libraries in the United States, and the history of their collections. Open Collections Program, Harvard University Library -- Digital collections of primary sources on historically important topics, including thousands of searchable, rare, unique materials. Here are several of the complete list of collections:
Librarian at Eisenhower for History of Science and Technology: Last revised: April 30, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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