It is with great pleasure that the Collection of Historical Scientific
Instruments announces the opening of its "Waywiser" site,
the virtual CHSI. It will permit anyone to look at the instruments in the
collection, to explore a widening and deepening set
of historical information. But it is more than that. As time goes on, we
will be able to add film and animation, scholarly
papers, notebooks, and meta-historical materials that use this remarkable,
and remarkably flexible database. It will be a
fabulous teaching tool--faculty and students will both be able to create
virtual exhibits, collecting and sharing collections of
instruments. You can, as of now, access the web pages of all the
instruments in the permanent (first-floor) Putnam Gallery.
But this is just the start. We have some 20,000 objects in the
collection--and it will be a while, a good while, before the
full universe of our things is online. Still, besides the instruments
exhibited in the Putnam Gallery, more than 450 other
instruments from CHSI are accessible on Waywiser. And this number is
growing by a few hundred every month.
This is an excellent moment to celebrate the huge amount of work that lies
behind this project. Jean-Francois Gauvin led the
charge on the e-front (in collaboration with Michael Kelley and Alex
Wellerstein), Sara Schechner and Jean-Francois Gauvin ran
the campaign to clean up the older data sets, Samantha van Gerbig headed
up the still photography (in collaboration with David
Unger and Richard Broadbent), and Martha Richardson played a crucial role
in her capacity as Collections Manager (in
collaboration with Phil Loring, Richard Wright and Mariel Wolfson). Behind
the whole is Jude Lajoie, who has guided this ship
into port and assisted the Collection over a huge range of managerial
tasks. None--none of this enormous year-long effort--would
have been possible without the generous support of the Wheatland family.
Let us hoist an e-glass of bubbly (not as good as the
real, alas) to all who helped.
As Director of the CHSI, therefore, grateful thanks to all who helped, and
my hope that all of you will soon be able to use the
e-system for research, teaching, and exploration. Let us know if you have
ideas for improving things!
best,
Peter Galison
Director CHSI
Joseph Pellegrino University Professor
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