ARCH-COM 2002-04
15 October 2002
41st Meeting of the Archive Committee
Present: G. Veneziano (Chairman) (GV); L. Camilleri (LC); A. Hollier (Secretary) (AH); C. Onions
(CO); C. Pettenati (CP);
F. Costa (FC); J. Karlson-Forestier (JKF); J-M. Laurent (J-ML); S. Maio (SM); C. Nuttall (CN); T. Pettersson (TP); A. Placci (AP); B. Pollermann (BP); D. Schinzel (DS); F. Thizy (FT)
Apologies: X. Daney (XD); H. F. Hoffmann (HFH); G. Lindecker (GL)
A. Ball (AB); L. A. Gaume (LAG); M. Desnyder-Ivesdal (MDI); P. Mage
(PM); C. Montuelle (CM)
Agenda (as approved at
the meeting)
1. Minutes of last meeting
(ARCH-COM 2002-02)
2. Chairman’s report (G. Veneziano)
3. Progress report
April - September 2002 (A. Hollier)
4. Update on Long-Term Electronic Archiving (B. Pollermann)
5. Photo captions project (D.
Schinzel)
6. AOB
7. Next meeting
1. Minutes of last meeting (ARCH-COM 2002-02)
The minutes were approved.
2. Chairman’s report (G.
Veneziano)
The Chairman said that the two main subjects on which he wished to
report would be covered in points 4 and 5.
In addition he said that two travelling centenary exhibitions, on
Heisenberg and Fermi, had been shown at CERN during the summer. The Heisenberg exhibition was produced by
the University Archive of Leipzig University and the Max-Planck-Institut für
Physik in Munich, and was on display from 1 – 23 July. The celebration on 18 July was introduced by
Luciano Maiani and included talks from Helmut Rechenberg, Valentin Telegdi and
Barbara Blum. The Fermi exhibition was
produced by the Department of Physics, University of Pisa, in association with
the Associazione per la diffusione della cultura scientifica La Limonaia, and the
Comune and Provincia of Pisa. It was on
display from 12 – 27 September, and the opening celebration was introduced by
Luciano Maiani and included talks from Antonino Zichichi, Ugo Amaldi, Jack
Steinberger, Valentin Telegdi and Arnaldo Stefanini. A related documentary video “Scienziati a Pisa: Enrico Fermi”
(English translation) was also shown at the celebration and as part of the
exhibition.
3. Progress report April –
September 2002 (A. Hollier)
AH reported that the current student, Marc Reymond will leave at the end of his contract this month. She has a potential candidate to replace him. (Note added after the meeting: this candidate has turned down the job after finding a more suitable and better paid post elsewhere). Sandrine Reyes will be absent on maternity leave from 28 October. A stagiaire spent 8 weeks at the CERN Archive during the summer, cataloguing the files of the Directors of Research.
There have been nearly 2000 new entries to the Archive catalogue over the last six months, compared to 7,000 for the previous 6 months, and 1,500 in the six months before that. The main CERN collections treated during this period include Directors of Research, TC Division and PS Division, as well as the manuscript collection of the Pauli Archive.
Just over 55 enquiries were answered over the last 6 months, compared with around 40 for the previous six-month period. Most were requests for specific documents, often for items that could not be found in the library, but John Krige (editor of the CERN History) and Herwig Schopper have also visited the archive with more extensive requests. A few small collections have been received, including records on SPS, and the Directors of Research.
AH also described two projects which aim to make publicly available some of the work done in the Archive. Archive documents are catalogued by provenance, so it is necessary to find out about changes in the internal organisation of CERN. This information is now being made available on the Archive Web pages, with short descriptions of the organisation of each Division, arranged and accessible by year. In future it is hoped to make this information accessible also by Division. The second project is a database of photos illustrating key events in the history of CERN. This was started as a convenient way of storing a useful sub-set of images needed by the Archive.
JKL said that these new developments should be advertised in the Weekly Bulletin. AH commented that those responsible for updating the ‘Highlights of CERN History’ feature (on the CERN pages for the General Public) had been shown the photos base when they came for assistance in identifying recent ‘highlights’. Several members observed that compiling histories of the organisation of Divisions would be complicated because the composition of groups within them changed, and one would want to see information on a Division at a particular time plus a link to its previous and subsequent organisation. AH agreed. It was suggested that it might be worth considering links to the HR database.
AH observed that a lot of her time over the summer had been taken up with preparations for the two exhibitions; GV expressed his appreciation of this work. CP added for information that a working group has been set up to prepare for CERN’s 50th Anniversary celebrations.
4.
Update on Long-Term Electronic Archiving (LTEA) (B. Pollermann)
BP reported that his presentation to the Management Board has gone
ahead as planned on 25 April, but despite having been well received, and
despite some encouraging comments, no further action had been forthcoming. BP had stressed that the issue had short-
and medium-term importance as a way of increasing efficiency and cutting costs,
and that it did not concern only historical archives. The main points proposed include archiving of e-mails and web
pages, and the development of a CERN-wide documentation policy. BP considered that Jürgen May could be a
suitable person to implement the latter point, and said that he and GV had had
some preliminary discussion with him about it.
GV complimented BP on his presentation to the Board, and added that he
had himself contacted the D-G several times to follow up this matter but had
received no reply. Although the mandate
given to the Working Group on Long-Term Electronic Archiving had been achieved
in presenting the final report to the D-G and the Management Board, he would
like to do everything possible to encourage implementation of the report’s
recommendations. He asked if the
Committee had any suggestions for next steps, but there were none.
During the discussion, BP observed that e-mail archiving in the IT
Division is not being worked on. As
before, only messages sent to mailing lists are pre-archived. He observed that the move to Microsoft for
e-mail was a current priority for the Division; FC said that this included an
option to specify retention policy, which might prove useful. CN said that many
TIS messages must be kept confidential; BP replied that this could be ensured
in any true archiving system. BP also
reported that the IT Division was planning to move documents from one of its
small, local document handling systems (cern.ch/ref) to either CDS or EDMS, and
hoped similar actions would become more widespread. SM observed that all their documents were in EDMS, and CP
stressed that this was good – both EDMS and CDS were recommended systems, it
was documents stored elsewhere that were considered to be at risk. TP said
usage of EDMS was increasing as its benefits became clear, so he was optimistic
that use of such systems would grow; BP felt that a policy decision, in the
form of a documentation policy, was needed to ensure this. TP added that even in EDMS further action
would be necessary in future to ensure the longer-term accessibility of documents.
GV concluded this item by expressing the Committee’s disappointment
that no further action had been taken following the presentation of the LTEA
group’s report.
5. Photo captions project (D. Schinzel)
DS reported that he and Alfredo Placci had undertaken a pilot study
over the summer to find out the best way to tackle the captions project for the
period 1975 – 1984. Their initial plan
had been to sort the photos into categories: (a) experiments, (b) accelerators,
(c) technologies, (d) civil engineering, and (e) VIP visitors, which could then
be further examined by volunteers knowledgeable about these subjects. However, a trial on the 1975 photos showed
that it was impossible to do this without disturbing the Photo Service’s
existing classification system. They
think the best way to proceed would be for a group of volunteers to meet once a
month to look through all the photos together.
Their experience suggested that this should not take too long,
particularly since a lot of photos could rapidly be discarded. In the course of the pilot study a number of
good photos had been discovered, and the work found to be interesting and
enjoyable. DS and AP are willing to
continue this project, but need further volunteers. On DS’ suggestion, AH had obtained a list of list "retired
staff members continuing their research activity' at CERN. GV proposed that some of these people should
be approached to help. GV showed the
list, and a group of names was selected.
It was considered best that the formal invitation to participate should
be in the form of a letter signed by the D-G.
DS commented that the project only concerned photos held by the Photo
Service, but that a number of other photo collections existed, or were being
built up, around CERN.
Action: GV and DS to draft letter to potential helpers; GV to have it signed by the D-G.
6. AOB
7. Next meeting
Friday, April 25 at 2.30pm in Salle B (61/1-009)