Archives of British Men of Science
- Location: McKeldin Library
Location Code & Call Number: MCK M-FICHE Z7405.P7M21 - Compiled by Roy M. MacLeod and James R.Friday.
(64 fiche)
Description
This collection is a finding aid to collections of the personal papers of British scientists.
It is arranged in alphabetical order.
This microfilm set catalogs the locations of the personal papers of important British scientists and is meant to be used by scholars whose field of study is the history of science. It covers scientists who were professionally active from about 1870 through 1950.
The information you can get by using Archives of British Men of Science varies wildly both in quality and in quantity. The compilers spent the years 1969 and 1970 in a search for the papers of about 3,400 scientists and for some of these individuals they found a lot. Where this is the case, this collection lists, in varying degrees of detail, what was found and where it is held. For other scientists they found nothing. Still, entries are included here for scientists on whom nothing was found. The compilers explained in their introduction that they did this so as to help historians avoid fruitless avenues of inquiry.
The 64 microfiche which comprise Archives of British Men of Science are in alphabetical order by scientist. So, strictly speaking, an index to this collection is not really needed. The authors have provided one anyway, in two formats. The index is held as a forty page hard copy pamphlet in McKeldin Reference and, also, as a sixty fifth microfiche which is filed at the front of this 64 fiche microfilm set.
To use this guide, you look up a scientist by name in either the microfilm or hard copy index. From this you will be given a microfiche number and a frame number.
- For example,
- Stewart, A.W. 50/B9
The above entry tells you that the location of any personal papers found by the compilers on A.W.Stewart is on microfiche number 50, frame B9. Frames are organized from top to bottom from B through F and left to right from 1 to 12. Frames start with B1, B2, etc. because the header at the top of the microfiche is treated as row A.
The only serious flaw in this collection is that access to its' contents is solely by name. Since there is no vocational index included as a part of Archives of British Men of Science someone looking, for example, for the papers of prominent British botanists would first have to find a list of such individuals in some other source.
Index/Guide
The following source provides more detailed information about the contents of each microfilm reel in the collection:
- MCK REF Z7405.P7M2
- MacLeod, Roy M. and James R.Friday. Archives of British Men of Science.
