ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

A New Access Strategy to Sources on the Digital Revolution

• In Event: The Impact of the Digital Revolution on the History of Science and its Social Implications-3

English Abstract

Since the 1950s, the digital revolution has shaped and transformed a steadily increasing number of scientific disciplines. This has led to the formation of a new type of source material for historians of science and technology: scientific software. However, and in stark contrast to other source types, historical and philosophical access has not been guided by systematic attempts of collecting, preserving, and – above all – editing scientific software. Our project aims at setting up such guidelines, and will lead to a systematic collecting and editing of software used in the physical sciences and engineering in Germany from 1950 to 2010. For doing so, our project uses a variety of documentation methods, including oral history, and develops modes of participatory research with practitioners. In our talk, we will present the outline of the project, which is funded by the German Union of Scientific Academies, and undertaken at RWTH Aachen, the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the University of Bielefeld.

Author

• Carsten Reinhardt, University of Bielefeld