Présentation résumée en langues étrangères : Journée d'études

Abstract

Scientific archives Papers read at the "Journée d'Études" organized by the Research Center on the History of Science and Technology of the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (Paris, La Villette, 25 February 1988) The recent development of the history of science and technology as an autonomous discipline, and more generally the interest shown for scientific and technological culture, lead to a préoccupation for the safeguard and préservation of scientific and technological archives. France is rather backward in that field, especially when compared with Anglo-Saxon countries where, for more than twenty years, specialized centers have been created for those archives. In France, the administrative records of research institutions are generally kept either by the institution itself or by the Archives nationales, through the medium of the Section des Missions, but the researchers in history of science and technology, who come from various origins, are not always aware of the existence of those records. Another useful source is the personal papers of scientists ; much remains to be done in that respect, in order to persuade the scientists themselves and their families to preserve their papers and deposit them in a place where they are open to researchers. Such are the various aspects of a policy for scientific and technological archives which it was hoped to emphasize in organizing the " Journée d'Études " at the Research Center on the History of Science and Technology of the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie at La Villette. Since its origin, the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie has shown its interest for scientific archives by the création of a post of archivist within the Research Center. This symposium has enabled archivists, librarians, keepers of little-known repositories, historians of science, and scientists, to meet and get better acquainted with each other. Guy Beaujouan opened the day with a description of the initiatives launched in that field by the Direction des Archives de France, the Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques and the Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique. The rest of the morning was dedicated to the présentation of the resources of some institutions which keep scientific archives : the Muséum d'Histoire naturelle, by Yves Laissus (part of the older archives of that institution have been transferred to the Archives nationales ; the Académie des Sciences, by Pierre Berthon ; the Library of the Institut de France, by Françoise Dumas ; the École Polytechnique, by Claudine Billoux ; and Odile Welfélé gave detailed informations on the resources ofïered to researchers by the archives of the Ministry of Research, the Centre national de la Recherche scientifique, the Palais de la Découverte, and a few others. The afternoon was dedicated to the personal papers of several scientists of the I9th. and 20th. centuries, which are kept in various institutions and have been recently classified. Françoise Parot commented on the career and papers of the psychologist Henri Piéron, founder of the Institut national d'orientation professionnelle. Thérèse Charmasson spoke of the papers of the physicist Aimé Cotton, which were deposited by his children in the Library of Physics of the École normale supérieure. Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Christine Blondel and Monique Monnerie explained the main stages of the constitution of the archivai fonds of the physicist Paul Langevin at the École supérieure de Physique et de Chimie, and showed how the existence of such an outstanding scientific fonds can be the nucleus of a center of historical research in a teaching and research institution. Daniel Deméllier commented on the contents and importance of the papers of Alfred Kastler, Nobel Prize of Physics, which are also deposited in the Library of Physics of the École normale supérieure. Denise Ogilvie explained how the papers of Jacques Monod, Nobel Prize of Physiology and Medicine, became the origin of the création of an archive service within the Institut Pasteur. Marie-Laure Prévost emphasized the importance of Louis Pasteur's papers, which were acquired by the Bibliothèque nationale in 1964. Michèle Sacquin commented on the difficulties she met in arranging the papers of Pierre and Marie Curie, in the Department of Manuscripts of the Bibliothèque nationale , and on their interest for the history of physics. Of course the institutional and personal archives which were presented during the " journée d'études " are not the only ones that exist. Much remains to be done for a better knowledge and a better préservation of the scientific archives of our time.