Michelle Baildon

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries

The decisions that academic libraries and special collections make today, in a context of rapid technological and other change, will shape the research of historians of the future. Certain types of primary sources of special interest to historians of science and technology—including scientific texts, journal literature, archival documents of research institutions, and manuscript papers of scientists and engineers—are often stewarded by academic libraries, with particular responsibility assumed by science- and technology-focused institutions. Recent trends in collection development and management will have major implications for tomorrow’s scholars. What does it mean for both current and future historians of science and technology that more and more sources are full-text searchable online, and that more and more print sources are stored off-site? Will they be affected by libraries licensing rather than owning digital content? Will today’s born-digital counterparts to yesterday’s paper publications, documents, and images be accessible? Are research libraries and special collections currently capturing and preserving the same kinds of primary sources that historians of science and technology have relied on, and are there other kinds of sources we should be preserving? 

To gain some insight into these questions, I conducted semi-structured interviews with two faculty and three graduate students in programs for which I am a liaison: History; Science, Technology, & Society (STS); and the doctoral program in History, Anthropology, and STS (HASTS). Interviews focused on recent or current major research projects, including the professors’ latest monographs and the students’ dissertations. The subjects described their research topics, types of primary sources used, and how they identified and obtained their sources.