{"title":"Collecting Genomics: Documenting Modern, Collaborative Science","authors":"Victoria Sloyan","doi":"10.1163/9789004324305_010","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Scientific research has long functioned through collaboration, whether between the wealthy natural philosopher and his unnamed scientific servants, as in the case of Robert Boyle and his laboratory assistants, or between correspondents who exchanged natural historical specimens and information, crediting each other in their publications.1 In the modern era it has become only more collaborative and multidisciplinary, particularly since the postwar rise of big science. And yet many archivists striving to capture and preserve scientific records rely on traditional collecting methods that focus on individuals and organisations in isolation. Whilst pragmatic considerations play a part in this, it is also due to the pervasive cultural myth that dominates our understanding of scientific practice; that of the lone scientific researcher experimenting and theorizing in isolation. The Wellcome Library project Collecting Genomics has attempted to tackle this through its work collecting records produced in the lead up to and during the Human Genome Project (HGP). We adopted a documentation strategybased approach that explored the surrounding landscape of the HGP and was specifically designed to capture collaborative working and the interconnected relationships that defined the project. One consequence of Collecting Genomics was increased contact between archivists and scientists. For reasons outlined below, we archivists became involved in record preservation at an earlier stage of the record lifecycle: at the point at which records were semicurrent rather than ready for deposit in an archive. This meant engaging with record creators (scientists) who in many cases were still in the middle of their careers. It quickly became apparent that","PeriodicalId":169660,"journal":{"name":"Archival Afterlives","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Archival Afterlives","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004324305_010","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Scientific research has long functioned through collaboration, whether between the wealthy natural philosopher and his unnamed scientific servants, as in the case of Robert Boyle and his laboratory assistants, or between correspondents who exchanged natural historical specimens and information, crediting each other in their publications.1 In the modern era it has become only more collaborative and multidisciplinary, particularly since the postwar rise of big science. And yet many archivists striving to capture and preserve scientific records rely on traditional collecting methods that focus on individuals and organisations in isolation. Whilst pragmatic considerations play a part in this, it is also due to the pervasive cultural myth that dominates our understanding of scientific practice; that of the lone scientific researcher experimenting and theorizing in isolation. The Wellcome Library project Collecting Genomics has attempted to tackle this through its work collecting records produced in the lead up to and during the Human Genome Project (HGP). We adopted a documentation strategybased approach that explored the surrounding landscape of the HGP and was specifically designed to capture collaborative working and the interconnected relationships that defined the project. One consequence of Collecting Genomics was increased contact between archivists and scientists. For reasons outlined below, we archivists became involved in record preservation at an earlier stage of the record lifecycle: at the point at which records were semicurrent rather than ready for deposit in an archive. This meant engaging with record creators (scientists) who in many cases were still in the middle of their careers. It quickly became apparent that