`Scientific Archives Project Launched`

A new project that will help ensure the survival of the papers of leading Australian scientists was launched recently in Melbourne. The Australian Scientific Archives Project (ASAP), based in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne, is funded by grants from the University, the Ian Potter Foundation, and the Myer Foundation. The Project has employed an archivist, Mr. Gavan McCarthy, formerly a member of the Melbourne University Archives staff, who will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the scheme under the general guidance of the Director, Professor Rod Home, and an Advisory Board of archivists, historians and scientists.

The Project will not become a repository in its own right for the manuscript records of Australian science. Rather, it will serve as a half-way house, taking in collections of documents, processing them, preparing listings, and ultimately finding an appropriate long-term home for them such as in a library or existing archives collection. In addition to the papers of individual scientists, the Project may also from time to time handle the papers of Australian scientific societies that are having difficulty in safeguarding their old records. Listings will be published and distributed to major reference libraries and other interested purchasers at minimal charges.

The Archivist's first task is to develop guidelines for dealing with collections. These will be largely based upon those prepared by the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre at Oxford, on which the new scheme is modelled. In addition, the first collections for processing are being identified.

All inquiries should be directed to Gavan McCarthy at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic. 3052 (tel. (03)-341-6556).

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