Capture Communication of Physicists Through the Archive

Archival investigation is a bedrock of historical research, and a library can be a kind of “laboratory” for historians and other humanists. Libraries currently face legal, technical, and economic challenges that threaten their stewardship function. In light of those challenges, how will archives and libraries serve future historians seeking to study physicists’ communications? Whose and which communications will be preserved, and how can we remedy the archival silences that exclude or minimize the perspectives of those who are relatively disenfranchised in the enterprise of the physical sciences? This talk will address challenges and opportunities for libraries and archives, framed by the question of whose communications will be preserved and made available.