Sustaining early disciplinary websites of lasting importance: The case of history of science

FAIN: PR-295870-24

Stanford University (Stanford, CA 94305-2004)
Michael A. Keller (Project Director: May 2023 to present)

A Tier I project to develop guidelines for preserving and providing access to the content of early scholarly websites in a sustainable manner.

Scholars of the history of science and technology produced some of the first digital projects that demonstrated how websites could be used as repositories of information and documentation to support research, yet most are no longer maintained or accessible. Stanford University Libraries project, Sustaining Early Disciplinary Websites of Lasting Importance, proposes to run an inter-linked set of studies covering 1) user preferences for accessible and sustainable historical digital scholarly collections; 2) potential technical solutions recommended by library developers who regularly work with scholarly data; and 3) UX testing of wireframes or prototypes based on the received recommendations. We have selected three websites of widely recognized importance in the field of history of science, all of which are currently either inaccessible or becoming unusable. Outcomes will consist of preliminary guidelines for preserving and providing access to the content of early scholarly websites.