Making Accessible Oral History Interviews in the History of Physics, Astronomy, and Allied Fields

FAIN: PW-50820-11

American Institute of Physics, Inc. (College Park, MD 20740-3841)
R. Joseph Anderson (Project Director: July 2010 to September 2013)

The digitization and mounting on the Internet up to 500 oral history transcripts and selected audio excerpts of interviews with notable physicists and allied scientists.

The Niels Bohr Library & Archives and the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) proposes to digitize 500 oral histories in its collection, along with brief selections of the associated audio, and put them on the Web to make them accessible to researchers and a resource for education and public programming in the humanities. This is the second phase of a two-phase project, and when completed over 1,000 interviews will be available to users. AIP's oral history collection is an exceptionally broad, deep and rich group of interviews with some of the most important scientists of the twentieth century, and it is an outstanding humanities resource on 20th and 21st century science and technology. We request grant funds of $73,824 to help support Phase Two. The interviews describe the scientists' education, employment, engagement with government and other institutional and social structures, as well as their scientific practice.