‘Scientific heritage: Science today, history tomorrow’

Georgina Ferry’s recent article in Nature (493, 19-21) is an impassioned plea for the preservation of scientific and medical archives: highlighting the importance of preserving the full historical record for future historians and scientists, and setting out the factors which could result in a dearth of archives for future historians of science and medicine. This is a subject close to the heart of Saving Oxford Medicine, as it seeks to survey, acquire, preserve and provide access to the records of key Oxford medics.

Ferry makes three main points in her article which resonate strongly with the work of Saving Oxford Medicine.

Scientists’ perceptions of archives

‘Today’s scientists underestimate the historical importance of anything other than their published papers’ (Ferry). Over the last 18 months, the Saving Oxford Medicine team has surveyed the personal papers of a number of practising, retired and recently deceased Oxford medics. The findings have been salutary. Many have disposed of the bulk of their archives (notebooks, correspondence, research data etc.), in the belief that only the published data was relevant. In fact, researchers are keen to see the whole record not only the redacted version: the experimental and working data, the correspondence (personal as well as scientific), and the photographs of peoples, places and experiments which illustrate the wrong turns and the dead ends but which finally led step by step to each new discovery. It is vital to preserve this archival material for future researchers and to convince current scientists of its worth.

Digital archives

The nature of archives is changing. The term ‘archives’ no longer refers solely to ‘piles of yellowing papers’ (Ferry) but encompasses an ever-expanding range of born-digital formats: emails, word-processed documents, electronic databases, digital photographs, websites and even tweets. These digital archives are an essential component of the historical record but they require specialist technology and expertise to store them safely and preserve them in a readable format for future generations. Fortunately the Bodleian Library is in the vanguard of digital preservation. The Bodleian’s Digitial Archivist, manages the library’s digital repository, BEAM (Bodleian Electronic Archives and Manuscripts), which is capable of preserving and providing access to any digital archives and manuscripts acquired by the Bodleian. The library has also created its own web-archive, to preserve websites which relate to the Bodleian’s research collections, including those relating to Oxford medicine.

Funding

Ferry highlights the paucity of funding for the preservation and cataloguing of scientific archives, both paper and digital. The Bodleian has been very fortunate in attracting the financial support of the Wellcome Trust, generous individuals and the university’s own Medical Sciences Division to catalogue and preserve medical archives. A major project to catalogue the papers of Sir Walter Bodmer, geneticist, is well underway, funded by the Wellcome Trust. Bodmer was one of the first to suggest the idea of the Human Genome Project, to sequence human DNA. This ongoing support ensures that the hugely important records of Oxford medics and medical scientists continue to be acquired, catalogued and made available to researchers.

In her article Ferry quotes the molecular biologist and Nobel prizewinner, Sydney Brenner, ‘Let’s not wait until memories have faded and papers been discarded … before deciding to save our heritage’. This seems a very apt thought to end on.

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