Jerusalem, March 14, 2011 -- A $500,000 grant from the Polonsky Foundation of London will enable the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to digitize its Albert Einstein Archives and make it available online to researchers and students everywhere. The announcement was made on Einstein's birthday and also on Israel National Science Day, both falling on March 14.
The digitization project will ensure the preservation and accessibility for over 80,000 documents in the archives. "Our goal is to build a user-friendly, inclusive digital database," said Hebrew University President Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson.
Einstein's papers had originally been preserved at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where the Nobel Prize winner had carried on research and reflection for decades. Einstein, one of the original founders of the Hebrew University, together with Martin Buber, Sigmund Freud and Chaim Weizmann, left his entire archives to the Hebrew University in his will.
The archives are considered one of the most significant resources in the world for the history of modern physics. They also shed light on the social, political and intellectual history of the modern world. The Einstein Archives have been located in the National Library of Israel on the Edmond J. Safra Campus of the Hebrew University since 1982.
The digitization project is expected to be completed in about one year, when it will be readily accessible on the Albert Einstein Archives website.
Dr. Leonard Polonsky said, "This project unites the Hebrew University Library with digitization projects of the Polonsky Foundation recently launched at Oxford University's Bodleian Library and Cambridge University Library."