Oral histories and memoirs go digital
Deborah Williams-Hedges
“In
1919, during the summer, when I was eighteen years old, I had been in
southern Oregon as a paving engineer, a paving plant inspector, working
for a contractor. . . . And at the end of the summer, I did not have money
enough to return for my junior year at Oregon Agricultural College. So
I didn’t return. I’d been sending my money to my mother, who
was a widow and was having a hard time. . . .”
This excerpt,
from the personal memoirs of world-renowned Nobel Laureate and Caltech
chemist Linus Pauling, is one of many intriguing tales and personal accounts
contained in the Institute’s Oral Histories Online Project (http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/).
The original
Caltech Archives Oral History Project began in 1978 for the purpose of
recording the personal memoirs of distinguished scientists, professors,
and administrators of the Institute. To date, approximately 200 interviews
have been completed, and most are open to readers in transcript form.
In the fall
of 2002, the Oral Histories Online Project began bringing selected interviews
to the public in digital text form. Approximately 30 in-depth interviews
from the fields of biology, chemistry, geology, physics, astronomy, environmental
science, and social science are currently online, and additional interviews
continue to be added.
The Caltech
Institute Archives, which houses photographs, documents, and artifacts
pertaining to the history of Caltech and the scientific community, recently
received a $10,000 grant to support the Oral Histories Online Project
from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. With the funding, the Archives
will publish additional interviews online, making them accessible to a
wider audience.
Founded in
1976, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation awards grants to support the
humanities, the study of Venetian history, and research libraries.
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