The Scientific Instrument Commission (SIC) of the International Union of
the History and Philosophy of Science has announced a project to create a
collaborative website devoted to the Transits of Venus.
Could you play a role in shaping this important new resource?
The Transits were key events in the international development of science.
The project will bring together information and images from historical
transit observations - instruments, illustrations, photographs, people,
expeditions, and sites - to create a database drawing on as wide a range of
sources and repositories as possible.
We are seeking a small group of partners to take part in the project's
initial development. This will involve providing digital materials and
contributing to the testing and refinement of the web site.
Partners should ideally represent collections with Transit-related
materials, whether artefacts or archives. We would hope to work closely
with at least one individual from each partner in developing the detailed
site design. The technical development will be carried out by the
University of Oxford's Academic Computing Development Team.
The software development will begin early next year but we would like to
begin discussions with initial partners as soon as possible. The public
website will be launched in Autumn 2003 and we hope that it will then
gather further materials and contributions to create a major resource
before the next Transit in June 2004.
To register an interest or seek further information please contact one of
the three members of the SIC working group:
Stephen Johnston
Museum of the History of Science, Oxford
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Sara Schechner
Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Harvard
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Steven Turner
National Museum of American History, Washington
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