Einstein Archives Online

Einstein Archives Online, originally created in 2003 was updated and relaunched in March 2012. It will ultimately provide access to the large collection of scientific and nonscientific manuscripts held by the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the digitized manuscripts in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein , edited by the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology. The website presently contains a thorough online Finding Aid to the collections. Though links are not clearly indicated, placing the screen cursor over the bold text of some section headings in the Finding Aid will reveal links. There are lists of persons, geographic names associated with the manuscripts, and directory folders for scientific, nonscientific, and biographical materials. The folder numbers in this Finding Aid can be searched in the Archival Database using the field limiter Call Number.

Most of the 80,000 records in the Archival Database currently provide only metadata on the manuscript items, but digitized manuscripts are continually being added. The goal is to provide access to some 7,000 images, up from the approximately 3,000 images available from 2003-2011. Users can view any digitized manuscript by clicking on a thumbnail of the manuscript. The digitized manuscripts checked for this review were crisp and legible. The website also contains a Gallery that provides a sample of manuscripts from the Einstein Archives, reflecting the breadth of materials that will be accessible online when this project is completed. The Finding Aid and Archival Database sections in their present form should prove useful to science historians and Einstein scholars. As more of the manuscripts are digitized, the site will become an essential tool for the scholarly community. Summing Up: Recommended. All academic and professional collections. -- S. A. Curtis, University of Missouri--Kansas City Choice