Poem by Richard O. Roblin III, who was a student of James D. Watson at Harvard University in the mid to late 1960s.
Digitized as part of the "Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" project.
Showing posts with label Digitization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Digitization. Show all posts
An Ode to Bacteriophage Lambda
Poem by Richard O. Roblin III, who was a student of James D. Watson at Harvard University in the mid to late 1960s.
Digitized as part of the "Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" project.
From One Nobel Prize Winner to Another
Ever since Dr. Watson won his Nobel Prize in 1962 people have been seeking his autograph. As part of our digitization project, I'm creating metadata for these autograph requests and I'm plugging names into the Library of Congress Name Authority File to see if anyone of interest pops up. I often wonder if the people who wrote to Watson later went on to achieve anything of note themselves.
Well this morning I typed "Agre, Peter" into the search engine and was pleasantly surprised to find that Peter was in fact a fellow Nobel Prize winner. Agre, who received the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of aquaporins, wrote to Watson in 1970 while he was studying medicine at Jones Hopkins. Peter praised Watson for his work on The Molecular Biology of the Gene, and thanked him sending an autographed photo, which was now hanging up next to Pete's two other idols, Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling. He concludes with the letter with, "I will always be grateful and inspired."
I can't help but imagine that some future Nobel Prize winner has written (or tweeted) Agre himself -- and that in 50 years or so some archivist will be as amused by these connections as me.
Early Impressions of The Double Helix
One thing that I have learned about Dr. Watson as a writer is that he is not shy about sharing unfinished drafts with colleagues. We have scores of letters from the likes of Paul Doty, Tom Maniatis, and Matt Meselson commenting on early versions of Avoid Boring People. He also famously shared drafts of The Double Helix with Crick and Wilkins, who were, somewhat understandingly, appalled.
As part of the "Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" digitization project, we will soon be making these letters freely available online for the first time.
I found one particular set of letters regarding an early draft of The Double Helix very interesting. Watson had sent a copy of the manuscript to an acquaintance in the summer of 1965, who subsequently sent a series of letters back to Watson documenting her delight with the draft. Her name was Suzanne Reeder, had just left Cambridge (Massachusetts), and was obviously close with Watson. The letters start in July 1965. She mentions attending a conference in Berlin, as well as meeting Odile Crick in Cambridge sometime earlier, before returning home to England. Towards the end of the letter she indicates that she will be flying back to the states, and then asks for a copy of the book.
Watson apparently swore Suzanne to secrecy -- he clearly knew that the book would be controversial.
Her initial impressions of Crick are quite positive: "You make Francis sound tremendous -- he gets better as one reads on."
Suzanne anticipates that Watson will have trouble publishing the memoir: "What a pity you can't print it as written."
She was also acquainted with Walter Gilbert, and discusses problems with his repressor research below. "I shall be quite sad to think of all his work unrewarded -- all those sleepless hours in the cold room." He was rewarded, about 25 years later, with a Nobel Prize.
Her impressions of Crick clearly change as the book progresses: "The more I read, the more I think Francis must just be horrifying. I sewed a piece of his dressing gown [presumably a memento from her meeting with Odile] into my quilt yesterday and I think that's as close as I'd want to get to him"
She also mentions Watson's great success with his other famous work, the Molecular Biology of the Gene. Watson tends to work on multiple projects at the same time. Both MBotG and The Double Helix were written in the early 1960s. Genes, Girls, and Gamow and Avoid Boring People were both written throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. When he assumed the directorship of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory he remained a professor at Harvard, and he served as head of the U.S. Human Genome Project while still leading CSHL.
She didn't get to read the finished work in 1965. Watson was traveling across Africa meeting with local scientists and giving lectures for the Ford Foundation, and did not have time to complete the manuscript as of yet. Suzanne ends the letters prophetically: "I am absolutely certain that the book contains libel - which is tragic, since the libelous bits are so hilarious. I hope the lawyer doesn't mutilate it too much."
As part of the "Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" digitization project, we will soon be making these letters freely available online for the first time.
I found one particular set of letters regarding an early draft of The Double Helix very interesting. Watson had sent a copy of the manuscript to an acquaintance in the summer of 1965, who subsequently sent a series of letters back to Watson documenting her delight with the draft. Her name was Suzanne Reeder, had just left Cambridge (Massachusetts), and was obviously close with Watson. The letters start in July 1965. She mentions attending a conference in Berlin, as well as meeting Odile Crick in Cambridge sometime earlier, before returning home to England. Towards the end of the letter she indicates that she will be flying back to the states, and then asks for a copy of the book.
Watson apparently swore Suzanne to secrecy -- he clearly knew that the book would be controversial.
Her initial impressions of Crick are quite positive: "You make Francis sound tremendous -- he gets better as one reads on."
Suzanne anticipates that Watson will have trouble publishing the memoir: "What a pity you can't print it as written."
She was also acquainted with Walter Gilbert, and discusses problems with his repressor research below. "I shall be quite sad to think of all his work unrewarded -- all those sleepless hours in the cold room." He was rewarded, about 25 years later, with a Nobel Prize.
Her impressions of Crick clearly change as the book progresses: "The more I read, the more I think Francis must just be horrifying. I sewed a piece of his dressing gown [presumably a memento from her meeting with Odile] into my quilt yesterday and I think that's as close as I'd want to get to him"
She also mentions Watson's great success with his other famous work, the Molecular Biology of the Gene. Watson tends to work on multiple projects at the same time. Both MBotG and The Double Helix were written in the early 1960s. Genes, Girls, and Gamow and Avoid Boring People were both written throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. When he assumed the directorship of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory he remained a professor at Harvard, and he served as head of the U.S. Human Genome Project while still leading CSHL.
She didn't get to read the finished work in 1965. Watson was traveling across Africa meeting with local scientists and giving lectures for the Ford Foundation, and did not have time to complete the manuscript as of yet. Suzanne ends the letters prophetically: "I am absolutely certain that the book contains libel - which is tragic, since the libelous bits are so hilarious. I hope the lawyer doesn't mutilate it too much."
Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics Preview on Flickr
For the past year we have been digitizing documents from the James D. Watson and Sydney Brenner Collections as part of the Wellcome Library's "Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" project. This includes all types of documents: letters, postcards, handwritten manuscripts, laboratory data, and even Watson's day calendars. But the images I was most interested in come from Watson's extensive photograph collection.
The photos document Watson's entire life, from his infancy to his 80s. In fact, they go back even further -- the portrait above is of his father, James D. Watson, Sr., and was taken in 1897. Take a closer look at the photograph and you will notice that little Jimmy is not seated on a chair, but is actually on his mother's lap! Taking portraits was a much lengthier procedure in the 19th century, so mothers often hid beneath a sheet to comfort their children and keep them still throughout the photo session. The result is a slightly unsettling image of an infant held by a cloaked specter (known as "ghost mothers").
For more early images from the Watson Collection check out our Flickr page where we will be providing a preview of the photographs digitized as part of "Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" project.
New Exhibit: A Natural Bestseller
CSHL Archives is proud to announce a new exhibit entitled "A Natural Bestseller: The Double Helix" which documents the publication of Dr. Watson's famous memoir using material that has been digitized as part of the "Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" project. The book was controversial when it was released--many praised its unprecedented insight to the personal lives of scientists, while others dismissed it as simply "gossip". Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, the two other co-recipients of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA, were both strongly opposed to its release and their threat of legal action led to Watson's American publisher (Harvard University Press) to decided against publishing the book. The exhibit includes a scathing letter from Crick to Watson (6 pages in length) with a laundry list of complaints regarding the manuscript. Crick concludes his letter by noting, "My objection, in short, is to the widespread dissemination of a book which grossly invades my privacy, and I have yet to hear an argument which adequately excuses such a violation of friendship." The letter clearly illustrates why The Double Helix was known as "That Controversial Book".
You can view the exhibit online at http://library.cshl.edu/naturalbestseller/ or in person at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Library.
Having a Laugh with Watson
Working on the digitization of the James D. Watson Collection I have literally looked at thousands of documents and while all are of historical note and interest, I have kept note of items that exhibit extraordinary humor. The following items, by themselves, speak volumes about James D. Watson’s relationships with friends and fellow colleagues.
A letter from Francis Crick to James D. Watson in which Crick points out just a few problems he has found in Watson’s speech given at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Dale Purves picks up on a Trivial Pursuit fact gone awry. Perhaps you know the correct year?
A letter from Francis Crick to James D. Watson in which Crick points out just a few problems he has found in Watson’s speech given at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Just another note from Boris Ephrussi to James D. Watson.
Dale Purves picks up on a Trivial Pursuit fact gone awry. Perhaps you know the correct year?
Letter from James D. Watson’s lawyer Ephraim London to Ed
Gilbert regarding copyright, Crick dolls, and Super-Watson sweatshirts!
- Stephanie Satalino, Digital Project Archivist
"Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" Digitization Project
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Library & Archives is pleased to announce a large-scale digitization project that will provide free, online access to the papers of Nobel Laureates Dr. James D. Watson and Dr. Sydney Brenner. This project is part of the Wellcome Library’s "Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics" series, and will include the papers of Francis Crick (Wellcome Library), Rosalind Franklin (Churchill College), and Maurice Wilkins (King's College, London), as well as Guido Pontecorvo, James Harrison Renwick and Malcolm Ferguson-Smith (University of Glasgow).
Dr. Watson’s collection documents his life, from his early days in Chicago, to the discovery of the double helix structure in Cambridge (for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1962), to his role as a leader locally at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, as well as internationally as head of the Human Genome Project in the 1980s. Dr. Brenner’s collection documents his work on the genetic code and establishing the nematode c. elegans as a model organism for animal development and neurology (for which he won a Nobel Prize in 2002). Thus the papers which document the story of the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, as well as the early research on the genetic code, will be united online to be freely and easily accessible by scholars and educators alike.
BBC Radio 4 recently aired a segment on the digitization project on its Today program. The segments includes interviews with Dr. Simon Chaplin, the head of the Wellcome Library, and Dr. John Sulston, who was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize with Sydney Brenner and H. Robert Horvitz in 2002. BBC medical correspondent Fergus Walsh, who contributed to the Today piece, also posted a story regarding the project in which he explores some of the material in the collections.
New Report on the Challenges of Digital Preservation
A new report, entitled Puzzling over digital preservation – Identifying traditional
and new skills needed for digital preservation, was recently presented at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress.
Abstract:
Digital preservation is a task requiring library and information science as well as information technology skills. It simultaneously utilizes traditional library skills and requires knowledge from information technology that goes far beyond the traditional roles of library and archive staff. But where does one start when implementing a digital preservation program? What knowledge is needed? What tasks can be covered by existing personnel? Where can one acquire expert knowledge needed? What information resources exist? Can a scalable approach be implemented to gain necessary skills? The paper is based upon a gap analysis conducted by the Leibniz Library Network for Research Information “Goportis”. It describes necessary know-how identified, ranging from digital curation skills needed to evaluate digital data carriers to specialist digital preservation knowledge of file formats needed to describe information with the goal of sustaining accessiblilty over long-term. It shows how central tasks of digital preservation like process description and preservation planning require expert knowledge of traditional librarian and information technology skills as well as new knowledge which is described as digital preservation skills.
The CSHL Library is currently working on its own institutional repository for the preservation of digital media, and the Archives is about to undertake a large scale digitization project of its major collections. Details regarding that project will be released soon. Stay tuned.
[via Digitization 101]
and new skills needed for digital preservation, was recently presented at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress.
Abstract:
Digital preservation is a task requiring library and information science as well as information technology skills. It simultaneously utilizes traditional library skills and requires knowledge from information technology that goes far beyond the traditional roles of library and archive staff. But where does one start when implementing a digital preservation program? What knowledge is needed? What tasks can be covered by existing personnel? Where can one acquire expert knowledge needed? What information resources exist? Can a scalable approach be implemented to gain necessary skills? The paper is based upon a gap analysis conducted by the Leibniz Library Network for Research Information “Goportis”. It describes necessary know-how identified, ranging from digital curation skills needed to evaluate digital data carriers to specialist digital preservation knowledge of file formats needed to describe information with the goal of sustaining accessiblilty over long-term. It shows how central tasks of digital preservation like process description and preservation planning require expert knowledge of traditional librarian and information technology skills as well as new knowledge which is described as digital preservation skills.
The CSHL Library is currently working on its own institutional repository for the preservation of digital media, and the Archives is about to undertake a large scale digitization project of its major collections. Details regarding that project will be released soon. Stay tuned.
[via Digitization 101]
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