Faculty Publications

Document Type

White Paper

Publication Version

Published Version

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society

Volume

51

Issue

7

First Page

1

Last Page

12

Abstract

We argue that it is essential that the Astro2020 survey of the present state of American astronomy and the recommendations for the next decade address the issue of ensuring preservation of, and making more discoverable and accessible, the field’s rich legacy materials. These include both archived observations of scientific value and items of historical importance. Much of this heritage likely will be lost if action is not taken in the next decade. It is proposed that the decadal plan include recommendations on (1) compiling a list of historic sites and development of models for their preservation, (2) carrying out a comprehensive inventory of astronomy’s archival material, and (3) digitizing, with web-based publication, those photographs and papers judged to have the most value for scientific and historical investigations. The estimated cost for an example project on plate preservation is a one-time investment of less than $10 million over ten years plus the typical on-going costs to maintain and manage a medium-sized database.

Department

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Original Publication Date

7-9-2019

Object Description

1 PDF File

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Copyright

©2019 The Author(s)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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