Digital libraries: Albert Einstein’s archives go digital

On March 14, 2011, celebrating 132nd birthday anniversary of Albert Einstein, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced the launch of a new project, which involves digitization of the German-Jewish physicist’s archives. The project is called to safeguard and provide access to documents in Einstein’s archives for future generations.

The digitization is expected to take around one year and then over 80,000 documents, featuring research notebooks, correspondence with colleagues and friends and papers Einstein wrote on science, philosophy and politics, will be available on the Albert Einstein Archives website at http://www.alberteinstein.info/.

Einstein was one of the founders of Hebrew University in 1918 and sat on its first board of governors. He left his entire archives to the university in his will. Since 1982, the archives have been kept in the Jewish National Library on the Edmond J. Safra Campus of the Hebrew University. All of the 80,000 documents will shed light on Einstein’s scientific work, his political ideas and also paint a picture of Einstein’s personal life, including musings on his family.