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Symposium on Scientific Archives
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Jill Moretto
(GSK),
Maria Papanikolaou
(EMBL),
Salome Rohr
(CERN),
Tilda Watson
(Wellcome Sanger Institute)
Description
On the occasion of the International Archives Month and the 75th anniversary of the International Council on Archives (ICA), the Symposium on Scientific Archives is intended to be an opportunity to bring archivists and record managers working with scientific collections together to share challenges, experience, opportunities and build a community of practice.
Please submit your abstracts for talks at the event (maximum 20 minutes for both presentation and questions) on the following topics:
- Advocacy for the archive and archive processes within the organizations
- Archival policy frameworks with a focus on digital archiving
- Classification of records and levels of access
- Digital preservation strategies and approaches
- Digitization strategies
- Discoverability of archives
- Acquisition and transfer of records to historical archives
The deadline for submission of abstracts is 6 June 2023. Registration to participate in the symposium is open until 21 June 2023.
The agenda will be finalized and circulated mid-June.
Organisers:
- CERN Archive
- EMBL Archive
- EUROfusion Consortium
- GSK's heritage archives
- Wellcome Sanger Institute Archive
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Session 1: Welcome and Scientific Archive DevelopmentConveners: Salome Rohr (CERN), Maria Papanikolaou (EMBL)
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Welcome 10mSpeakers: Maria Papanikolaou (EMBL), Salome Rohr (CERN), Tilda Watson (Wellcome Sanger Institute)
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09:40
Collecting scientific archives, from data to heritage collections: how can a university archive and records service position itself? First assessment of a young department and perspectives. 20m
Sorbonne University's archives and records service was created in 2018 following the fusion of the two previous archives services and missions of Sorbonne University's predecessor universities. Since 2019, it has been attached to the university's library department, and its missions have continued to evolve both in the context of the massive digitization of the institution's processes and in the favorable context of the development of the open science policy promoted by its management. Research data, personal data protection, long-term preservation, as well as scientific heritage, archival descriptions and digitization...
In this presentation, we propose to start by taking a brief review of the evolution of the position of the archives service, both in terms of the exercise of its perimeter and the evolution of the missions of its archivists. We will then focuses at the collaborations, fruitful or not, with the various actors of the university, and, finally, we will try a prospective exercise on the perspectives of consolidation and development of its missions in a French context in full evolution.Speaker: Océane Valencia -
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Processing the papers of a Nobel Laureate 20m
Archivists tend to come from a humanities background, meaning it can be difficult to understand scientific terminology and processes. This presentation discusses the approaches taken to interrogate the papers of one of GSK's most important scientists in order to appropriately catalogue and organise them, to make them available.
As a result of this project the GSK Heritage team gained valuable knowledge and created a "cheat sheet" of how to manage and arrange scientific papers for our collections.Speaker: Jill Moretto (GSK) -
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The Turing Digital Archive 20m
Alan Turing, one of the founders of computer science, was a student and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. In 1960 is mother gave some of her collection of his personal papers to the College; associated documents written by him continue to accrue to the Turing Papers held at King’s. When a pilot study for digitising an entire archival collection was mooted in 1999, the organisers asked King’s if the collection chosen could be the Turing Papers and the King’s Archivist worked with them to create the Turing Digital Archive, now at https://turingarchive.kings.cam.ac.uk. This talk will discuss lessons learned over the nearly 25 years of the digital archive.
Speaker: Dr Patricia McGuire (King's College) -
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Discussion 1a 20m
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Session 1: Digitalisation of Scientific ArchivesConveners: Jill Moretto (GSK), Tilda Watson (Wellcome Sanger Institute)
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CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS) Digitization Project 20m
CERN Scientific Information Service intends to expand its digital library and in this context the CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS) Digitization Project aims to digitize the PS collection and make it available via the CERN document server (CDS).
Engineers and physicists who are responsible for the maintenance and development of the machines, especially the PS accelerator, often must consult historical reports to solve current technical problems. This can be problematic for today accelerator’s operations because, although all the documentation has been preserved, most of the collection is available only on paper and accessible exclusively from the archives. This project therefore represents the need to digitize almost 20,000 scientific reports, from the 1950s to 2000.Speaker: Lydia Pieper (CERN) -
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Post-script – file notes on the Stephen Hawking Archive 20m
Personal archives traditionally feature manuscripts, which have been (or are in the process of being) replaced by computer generated media. The Stephen Hawking Archive exemplifies this shift to post-script, or at least to new scripts. This paper reflects on my experience of accessioning the Stephen Hawking Archive, interacting with multiple stakeholders who attributed significance to the archive. I started with the question: what constitutes a personal archive? I consider questions of authorship, networks, and mediation. I consider what is included in the Stephen Hawking Archive, and what is not yet included.
Speaker: Katrina Dean (Cambridge University Library) -
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GOCFL as a software approach to support standards-compliant OCFL extensions in the archival context 20m
With the continuous rise of Oxford Common File Layout (OCFL) as one of the most important standards for creating meaningful AIPs, it is time to take a look at its extended capabilities. While OCFL has so far been used primarily as an extended Bagit to create archive containers with checksums, the structured application of OCFL extensions allows the addition of technical and semantic metadata information for both review and archiving services.
Self-Contained AIPs consist of multiple layers of data and metadata (semantical and technical). These are partly generated automatically by the archive management software and are sometimes difficult to interpret without the associated software and/or infrastructure.
With the help of GOCFL-software, OCFL extensions (see below) metadata and other information can be integrated and documented directly in the OCFL-AIP-structure.
The presentation uses a practical example to show how various areas of archiving can be mapped directly to the OCFL standard using very easy to use processes based on GOCFL (https://github.com/je4/gocfl).
Introduced are extensions which support- Technical metadata indexing
- Filepath transformation
- File format migration
- Reporting etc.
The use of GOCFL in the ingest process increases independence from the archive management system.
In addition, two different documentation formats (web, PDF) are created, which can be easily used by non-experts or third parties to make archival decisions (extension of the retention period, overview of the overall data situation, dealing with brain drain, ...).Speaker: Jürgen Enge (Basel University, University Library) -
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Discussion 1b 20m
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Session 2: Scientific Archives in EiroForum Organisations - Physics & EngineeringConveners: Eva Belonohy (UKAEA), Salome Rohr (CERN)
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The CERN Preservation Platform 20m
CERN Digital Memory project has developed a Web platform to enable the preservation of digital assets produced by the organization following the OAIS principles.
In this talk, we intend to first expose the motivations behind this development.
We will then explain how the platform is designed - its backend and its scalability.
We propose to feature its user interface via a brief demonstration and we will conclude by describing the status of the platform at CERN and its future.Speaker: Antonio Vivace (CERN) -
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Fusion data across the data lifecycle 20m
The Joint European Torus (JET) has produced over 1PB of raw and processed data over its 40-year lifetime. Raw data is stored in a proprietary data format which varies depending on the underlying experimental source. The legacy nature of this format and the associated software poses some challenges for both adding new sources and considering the long-term preservation of the data and metadata. I will discuss the technical solutions which attempt to address these challenges at opposite ends of the data lifecycle, and describe how they apply both during JET’s operational life and when operations finish at the end of 2023. This includes migrating the data to a new location separate from its original infrastructure, handling emerging techniques for data analysis, and preparing raw data for long term maintainability. Additionally, I will draw comparison with new approaches to making data from the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST) fusion experiment accessible.
Speaker: Thomas Farmer (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority) -
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ESA: Archiving a Scientific and Technical Legacy in Space 20m
In 2002, ESA decided to create a new, dedicated, place for space records. The European Centre for Space Records at ESRIN, Italy, was conceived to host technical documentation coming from ESA projects and space missions. Two decades later, the ECSR is the home of the analogue and digital legacy of the European Space Agency, archiving the administrative, legal and contractual archives with the scientific documentation. The digitisation strategy started in 2018 supports new initiatives and allows the ESA Archives the possibility to promote its activity. The approach to gain a broad public is new and focused on two concepts: enlarging the community of space enthusiasts and promoting a new Space History
Speaker: Pierre Kirchner (European Space Agency) -
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Experimental Presentation of the European Space Agency historical archives, preserved at the Historical Archives of the EU, for the Younger Generation 20m
The Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) preserves and makes accessible to the public for onsite and online consultation the archival material of the EU institutions, private deposits of European pioneers and visionaries, movements and international organisations. The European Space Agency (ESA) has contributed to the history of European memory, the fonds has been preserved at the HAEU since 1989.
In recent years, the HAEU has been proactively engaging with the younger generation. How to present the ESA historical archives to the younger generation in the context of the HAEU? How to tailor archival presentations so that these can serve as an inspirational experience, which enriches the mind-sets and remains in the long-term memory of the youngest HAEU visitors?
The exploration of the experimental presentation of ESA for the younger generation started in 2021. Since then, diverse concepts of promotion and different disciplines – from literature to science – were investigated. The current presentation concept is inspired by storytelling, von Restorff – isolation effect, and memory triggers.Speaker: Andreja Casar (Historical Archives of the European Union) -
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Historical Archive at the European Southern Observatory 20m
In this presentation, we will talk about our interest as the Library, Documentation and Information Services Department at the European Southern Observatory, in developing an historical archive with the documentation available at our telescopes. In particular, those available at La Silla and Paranal observatories. This is relevant not only for our institution but also to contribute to the history of astronomy in Chile, in which ESO is one of the primary contributors. Although this concern is not new and in previous processes important files have been identified, we still need to define what materials are important to preserve and how we will structure this process.
Speaker: Mrs Leslie Kiefer (Librarian at European Southern Observatory, Chile) -
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Discussion 20m
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Session 3: National archives and archiving methodologyConveners: Jill Moretto (GSK), Salome Rohr (CERN)
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Welcome to Day 2 10m
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The web portal “Archivi della scienza”. A webportal for science archives in Italy 20m
“Archivi della scienza” (Archives of science: www.archividellascienza.org) is a web portal created with the dual purpose of facilitating archival research for historians, and attracting a wider audience to archives in general, and to history of science. The presentation examines some of the practical and methodological problems in its implementation and development.
Speaker: Prof. Giovanni Paoloni (full professor at the University of Rome – “Sapienza”, teaching Archival Theory and History and Policies of Scientific Research) -
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"Data or Evidence? Advocating for the Protection of Scientific Archives." 30m
Data, records, and archives are defined differently, but they share a common quality: they can all be sources of evidence. For millennia, archivists have been responsible for capturing, preserving and making available authentic and reliable sources of evidence, from clay tablets to paper records and now to digital data. Organizations that manage scientific archives are at the sharp end of this transition, as research data, administrative records, and scholarly products of scientific research take digital form now. How can archivists responsible for preserving scientific evidence explain to their organizations the crucial linkages between data, records, and evidence? How can archivists advocate for support for their changing role?
Speaker: Dr Laura Millar (Archives, Records and Information Management Consultant) -
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Discussion 3a 20m
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Session 3: Scientific CollectionsConveners: Eva Belonohy (UKAEA), Tilda Watson (Wellcome Sanger Institute)
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Contribute to the history and memory of science in Portugal 20m
The Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (Foundation for Science and Technology) is the national public agency that supports research in science, technology and innovation in all areas of science. It is a public institute under responsibility of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, created in 1997, succeeding the Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica (JNICT) (National Board of Scientific and Technological Research), created in 1967. The history of FCT has an important role in the history of science and technology and the organization of science in Portugal, holding a significant heritage related to this history with interest for all areas of knowledge.
The Arquivo de Ciência e Tecnologia (ACT) (Science and Technology Archive), held by FCT, preserves and promotes the archival heritage of FCT. Opened in 2011, has as its mission the treatment, preservation and dissemination of the archival heritage in the custody of the FCT, and others with scientific and historical interest, thus contributing to the preservation of the history and memory of science and technology in Portugal. It reserves and manages documentation of undeniable interest and historical quality, which reflects Portuguese cultural and scientific activity, essentially from the second half of the 20th century onwards, largely translated into thousands of support files to Studentships, institutions, research projects, among others.
This Archive is responsible for the treatment, organization, communication and preservation of all this documentary heritage, that represents, essentially, archives of management institutions and scientific research organization at a national level, but also personal archives of scientists and researchers with a relevant activity in national and international scientific scene, such as the collection of Professor José Mariano Gago, former President of JNICT and Ministry of Science and Technology and José Francisco David Ferreira, an important doctor and scientist who introduced new techniques in his field of knowledge.
We also have a Science and Technology Library with national and international editions on science policy and management and administration of science, which must be preserved, identified and made available, as it is essential to support the study and understanding of the Archive.
The main purpose of this Archive is to make all this documentary heritage available for research, promoting studies on scientific research in Portugal.
This summary aims to present an archive that manages and provides unique information on Portuguese scientific activity. Also, to learn more about other projects and experiences.Speaker: Paula Meireles (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) -
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The importance of historical biodiversity data transcribed from botanical garden archives: results from the citizen science project ‘Plant Letters’ on Zooniverse 20m
Many botanic gardens are historical institutions holding centuries of invaluable records of their scientific and daily activity in the form of archival material. To make readily available part of the historical information (1870-1928) produced by the Institute, Herbarium and Botanic Garden of the University of Coimbra, we launched the participatory science project “Plant Letters” on Zooniverse. Voluntary citizens from all over the world, were asked to transcribe documentation associated with the production of botanical knowledge at the University of Coimbra. From these handwritten records, it was possible to extract an important set of natural historical data, which highlights the value of these documents. In the first phase of the project, ca. 1200 documents were made available in the platform, mostly in Portuguese, English and French. For over a year, ca. 1250 volunteers participated in the project transcribing a total of 3,809,000 characters, or over 641,000 words, more than one King James Bible. Data obtained with citizens’ collaboration is now accessible at the database “Plant Letters” (cartasdanatureza.uc.pt), and the searchable content of letters allows us to obtain historical records on: plant species distribution; plant material circulation; scientific processes of plant classification; reconstructing the contexts of living collections in the botanical garden, herbarium specimens, and museum objects in the university natural history holdings; international networks of botanical knowledge production. These biodiversity records pertain not only to Portuguese flora but also to the vegetation of former ex-colonies, who as independent countries require this valuable data. We will analyze the advantages and challenges of collaborative transcription approaches in archices, crucial aspects on engaging citizens in active participation, and strategies for open-access dissemination of data produced by the community, valuable for present and future conservation of biodiversity.
Speaker: Dr Ana Margarida Dias da Silva (Center for the History of Society and Culture & Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal) -
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Fight and advocacy for the preservation of the archive of the Magnetic Observatory of Tatuoca in the Brazilian Amazon: lessons, restraints, and obstacles. 20m
We are working on rescuing, digitizing and (hopefully) extracting data from the scientific archive collection belonging to the Magnetic Observatory of Tatuoca, at the Brazilian Amazon. This observatory goes back to 1932 as a temporary observation location, and since 1957, as a permanent observatory pertaining to the National Observatory authority from Brazil. The physical archive includes a special kind of documents called magnetograms, covering observations of Earth’s magnetic field registered between 1957 and 2007, when the Observatory began broadcasting data via web. In 2017, responding to the request of the Geophysics Institute at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), we, the Faculty of Archives and the Postgraduation of Information Science, took on the mission of rescuing this collection. Under the worst limitations of resources, we began this process dividing it into four phases: physical rescue and curation, digitization, data extraction applying artificial intelligence (an initiative carried under InterPARES research consortium), and the creation of a museum collection. Other than budget and know-how limitations, we have faced the coronavirus lockdown, equipment shortage, international barriers, institutional crisis, but also, we have learned so much regarding the reality of distant scientific archives and technological development applied to them.
Speaker: Cristian Berrío Zapata (Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA Brasil)) -
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Discussion 2b 20m
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Session 4: Medical and archaeological archives, organising support for small scientific archivesConveners: Jill Moretto (GSK), MARIA PAPANIKOLAOU
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Documenting the Role of Science in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities 20m
This paper takes as its starting a quote from Jeremy Farrar’s book Spike: the virus vs the people (2021): “There was great science…there was science that could have been better…and there was bad science…”. This captures a sense of the extraordinary response of the scientific community to the pandemic through innovation and collaboration on both a national and international scale. Archives also responded, through adaptations to services at lightning speed, and undertaking rapid-response collecting initiatives. Most of the collecting that has taken place in the UK has related to the so-called ‘socio-cultural record’ of Covid-19, that is the acquisition of personal testimonies, objects and ephemera from patients, front-line clinicians and the general public. To date, however, much less collecting has taken place to document the pandemic’s ‘scientific record’. Reporting on the interim findings of my AHRC-RLUK Professional Practice Fellowship on ‘Documenting the role of UK science in the Covid-19 pandemic’ (September 2022 to July 2023), this paper will consider the challenges and opportunities this area of collecting presents to the archives and records management communities. Key themes include discoverability, digital archiving and advocacy for the archive and archive processes.
Speaker: Dr Amelie Roper (Cambridge University Library) -
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Patient Records in the Jonas Salk Papers 20m
Jonas Salk came to Pittsburgh in 1947 where he successfully developed the first vaccine for poliomyelitis. Mass vaccination began in 1955 and he was lauded as a national hero. Peter, Darrell, and Jonathan Salk donated the papers pertaining primarily to his Pittsburgh era research career to the University of Pittsburgh, including records on thousands of Pittsburgh area children who participated in early trials of the vaccine before the more well-known national trial.
This collection presents opportunities for case-studies in vaccine development, both at a technical and ethical level, and the public interest and response to it. The recent politicization of vaccines makes this an especially valuable resource. You may consult the online finding aid at pi.tt/salkarchive .
In this presentation I will explain the rules we put in place to access these medical records, seeking to balance the ethical norms embodied in HIPAA regulations, while attempting to provide reasonable access to both researchers and surviving patients and their family members.Speaker: Dr Jason Rampelt (Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System) -
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Archives Advocates: Utilizing an Advisory Board to Leverage Organizational Support for Small Scientific Archives 20m
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Archives Advisory Board has been a major force in advocating for our scientific Archives. Inaugurated in 2006 by Mila Pollock, Executive Director of the CSHL Library & Archives, the Board today consists of thirteen members with varied backgrounds such as scientists, Nobel laureates, historians, President of leading Archives, CSHL President and CSHL VP of Advancement. I will discuss and demonstrate the development of the Board, its role in strategic planning of the archives and the role of individual Board members in different projects. I will share my experiences, innovations and success stories working with Board Members. Participants of the meeting will learn about how highly successful Board of Advisors is structured and composed.
Speaker: Mrs Ludmila (Mila) Pollock (Executive Director, Library and Archives Center for Humanities & History of Modern Biology Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor, New York, USA) -
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Connecting Scientific Archives with Artifacts: Reflecting on the Smithsonian’s Ralph S. and Rose L. Solecki Papers and Artifacts Project at the National Anthropological Archives 20m
The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History recently conducted a two-year project to process and connect the archives and artifacts of archaeologists Ralph and Rose Solecki, who are noted for their work at the sites of Shanidar Cave and Zawi Chemi Shanidar in northern Iraq. Through a collaboration between archivists at the National Anthropological Archives and object collections management staff in the Department of Anthropology, the Ralph S. and Rose L. Solecki Papers and Artifacts Project sought to set an example for collaborative collections and archives stewardship through preserving the association between archaeological specimens and archival records. To do this, we integrated archival processing and specimen cataloging as well as digitization of select archival records and specimens in order to increase their discoverability and value for future researchers. In this talk, we reflect on what we learned from this case study and how it has informed our interdisciplinary conversations about the enduring legacy of collaborative collections and archives management within scientific archives and museums.
Speakers: Celia Emmelhainz (Smithsonian Institution- National Museum of Natural History), Molly Kamph (Smithsonian Institution- National Museum of Natural History) -
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Discussion 4 20m
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Conclusion and Next Steps 20mSpeakers: Eva Belonohy (UKAEA), Jill Moretto (GSK), Maria Papanikolaou (EMBL), Salome Rohr (CERN), Tilda Watson (Wellcome Sanger Institute)
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