Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre
AustralianScience and Technology Heritage Centre | |
---|---|
Former names | Australian Science Archives Project |
General information | |
Status | Closed |
Location | University of Melbourne |
Country | Australia |
Closed | 2006 |
Affiliation | University of Melbourne |
The Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre (Austehc), lasted from 1999 to 2006,
Originally, Austehc was called the Australian Science Archives Project (ASAP), but was later changed after facing some challenges in May 1999.[3] Their two most popular projects were Bright Sparc, which was developed in 1994, and Australian Science at Work, developed in 1999.[4] Later on, these two projects merged with each other and became known as Encyclopedia of Australian Science during the time of Austehc's successor, the eScholarship Research Centre.[5]
History
The predecessor of Austehc, Australian Science Archives Project, was first established in 1985. Their goal was not to conduct in-depth research and publish the result, but to provide researchers information for their own research.
With the introduction of the
Due to being unable to gain financial independence, many of ASAP's ongoing projects were merged with other works of the Melbourne Office.
During the time Austehc lasted, more than half of their publications (52%) were archival guides. The reason for this was because they wanted to standardise the website for the previous archival guides so that it would "not become relics of early socio technical constraint".[3] 13% of their published work were journal articles, which was deemed as low considering the fact that they were aspiring to become an official research centre. 22% were conference papers. Web resources and client reports each took 7% and 5% of the total respectively.[3]
In 2005, the restructuring of the Faculty of Art in the University of Melbourne caused many difficulties for the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre. In 2006, Linda O'Brien, the Chief Information Officer and University Librarian of University of Melbourne, offered to transfer Austehc to the University Library with an increase in budget allocation but under a new name: eScholarship Research Centre.[3]
Projects
Bright Sparc
Bright Sparc was an online register where users could find the work and bibliographic resources of people who contributed to the development of Australian's science, technology, engineering, and medicine.[8] When it was first established, it could only register names and archival records of influential people. However, as time went by, they were able to add more and more information about each scientists such as a summary of their life and work, career timeline, etc.[8]
This project began developing in 1993 due to the rapid development of technologies.[6] The Australian Science Archives Project started transferring existing data and added new features to this new platform. However, it was also during this time period that the World Wide Web gained its popularity, which led the Bright Sparc to be officially launched as a web resource in 1994.[6] This project lasted until February 2010, when the eScholarship Research Centre decided to merge Bright Sparc with Australian Science at Work to create the Encyclopedia of Australian Science.[8]
Australian Science at Work
The Australian Science at Work project was first published in 1999 by the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre.[2] This was an online register of research institutions, corporations, industries, scientific societies, and other organisations that were actively involved in the history of science in Australia, funded by the Australian Research Council.[4] Originally, Austehc planned to add this information into the Bright Sparc register. However, this procedure was too complex to append additional data into Bright Sparc with the technology of the time.[6] After these two projects coexisted independently for 10 years, they eventually amalgamated in February 2010, establishing the Encyclopedia of Australian Science under the jurisdiction of the eScholarship Research Centre.[8]
Goals and achievements
As the name suggests, the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre stressed the importance of maintaining valuable sets of records and artefacts regarding Australia's science, technology, and medicine.[2] When Austehc was first established, Gavan McCarthy, director of Austehc, expressed his keenness on creating a place to keep all the important historical researches that would benefit the future generations. He believed that not only does the heritage of science and technology was essential to help others understand more about their daily lives, but it was extremely critical for further scientific development.[2] With new digital documentation technologies arising at the time, it created opportunities for Austehc to preserve and share scientific knowledge. To accomplish their mission, Austehc became a Web publisher to help develop the international archive and heritage community as well as a research centre to investigate and verify historical informatics.[2]
Austehc Web was able to provide a wide variety of resources that could be easily accessed by people of different levels, ranging from primary school materials to PhD documentations.
Future
After the closure of the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre in 2006, it became integrated with the University of Melbourne's Library and changed its name to the eScholarship Research Centre (ESRC), with a much better financial allocation offer.
It was also during this time that Bright Sparc and Australian Science at Work came together as one entity under a new name, the Encyclopedia of Australian Science.[8] As mentioned above, they had originally wanted to make Bright Sparc and Australian Science at Work one project but due to the technological difficulty for that time, they were unable to achieve this. In February 2010, the ESRC managed to complete this task, creating a new project.[5] The Encyclopedia of Australian Science is an online registry with the function of both Bright Sparc and Australian Science at Work, which includes information about people, organisations, and research institutions that have contributed to Australia's heritage of science, technology, and medicine.[5] Within the registry, the following data on people and organisations are presented:[5]
- Name and alternative names
- Date and place of birth/death (if known)
- Occupations or field of specialisation
- Summary of their life and work
- Timeline of career
- Related organisations
From 2014 onwards, the eScholarship Research Centre remained roughly the same but now became part of the Research and Collections in Academic Services.[3] With the monetary crisis subsided, there was an increase in journal articles and other scholarly outputs in their publications.[3] 32% were archival guides, 28% were conference papers, 21% were journal articles, web resources took up 9%, client reports and books were 4% each, and others were 2% of the total publications.[3]
After 35 years of dedication to preserve Australia's science and technology heritage, the ESRC was officially closed on June 30, 2020.[9] Several ESRC projects will be transferred in the near future and although materials will no longer be updated to the ESRC, they will still be preserved and be available online for access.[9]
References
- ^ a b "Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre". Research Data Australia. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j McCarthy, Gavan (June 2000). "Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre: Networking Australia's Cultural Heritage". LASIE: Library Automated Systems Information Exchange.
- ^ ISSN 0004-9670.
- ^ ISSN 0950-4125.
- ^ a b c d The University of Melbourne. "Encyclopedia of Australian Science". Research Data Australia. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
- ^ ISSN 0004-9670.
- ^ The University of Melbourne. "Australian Science at Work". Research Data Australia. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
- ^ a b c d e The University of Melbourne. "Bright Sparcs". Research Data Australia. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
- ^ a b "News – Australian Society of Archivists Inc". www.archivists.org.au. Retrieved 29 May 2021.