Documenting the Physical Universe:Preserving the Record of SLAC from 1962 to 2005

Abstract

Since 1905, Albert Einstein's ''miraculous year'', modern physics has advanced explosively. In 2005, the World Year of Physics, a session at the SAA Annual meeting discusses three institutional initiatives--Einstein's collected papers, an international geophysical program, and a research laboratory--to examine how physics and physicists are documented and how that documentation is being collected, preserved, and used. This paper provides a brief introduction to the research laboratory (SLAC), discusses the origins of the SLAC Archives and History Office, its present-day operations, and the present and future challenges it faces in attempting to preserve an accurate historical record of SLAC's activities