Preserving and Digitizing the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives Collections

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has played a central role in the development of molecular biology and genetics for the past 100 years. In recent years this role has expanded to include some 50 professional meetings and advanced courses for more than 8,000 scientists each year. These gatherings provide a focal point for scientific discussion and cutting-edge biological research.

The Cold Spring Harbor Archives were created in 1972 to house the primary materials, scientific papers, lab notebooks, photographs, correspondence, and research materials kept by the laboratory’s researchers. The Archives have made these materials available to scholars, graduate students and writers interested in the history of molecular biology, genetics and the laboratory.

This grant supports the second stage of an ambitious program to preserve the entire collection, digitalize selected items to make them accessible to a worldwide audience, and create a searchable, online site with detailed information about the collections. The first stage, completed in 2003, included four collections chosen to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA and the completion of the Human Genome Project.

This second stage, which will complete the preserving and digitalizing project, includes: personal collections of James D. Watson, Barbara McClintock and Hermann Muller; reprint collections of the Carnegie Department of Genetics and the Charles Davenport and Milislav Demeric reprint collections; the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Scientific Meeting Collection; and the laboratory’s Oral History.