Documenting Multi-Institutional Collaborations: A Case Study in Physics

多机构合作——例如，由来自多所大学的团队在一个国家实验室进行的一项实验——对现代科学技术的进步变得越来越重要。尽管这些短暂的“小型机构”意义重大，但人们对如何记录它们知之甚少，而且这些团队的有意义的记录尚未得到保护，以供历史学家、社会学家和其他研究研究过程的人使用。该项目是美国物理研究所物理史中心开展的一项长期项目中的第一个，该项目旨在研究物理学和相关科学中多机构合作所面临的复杂问题。这项研究将确定协作的模式，定义文档问题的范围，实地测试可能的解决方案，并建议未来的行动。除了自身丰富的经验外，该中心的工作人员还将与档案工作者、科学技术史学家和社会学家一起参与这项工作。他们将得到著名科学家、管理人员和其他专家的建议。这项初步研究的重点是高能物理。今后的研究将在空间科学和地球物理领域进行。这项长期研究将越来越多地探讨将项目结果应用于科学和技术的其他领域，并制定政策和准则以改进今后的文件编制。

Multi-institutional collaborations -- for instance, an experiment run at a national laboratory by a team from a number of universities -- have become increasingly important to advances in modern science and technology. Despite the significance of these transitory "mini-institutions," little is known about how to document them and meaningful records of such teams have not yet been secured for the use of historians, sociologists, and others studying the research process. This project is the first of a long term project being undertaken by the American Institute of Physics Center for History of Physics to study the complex issues facing the documentation of multi-institutional collaborations in physics and allied sciences. This study will identify patterns of collaboration, define the scope of the documentation problems, field-test possible solutions, and recommend future actions. Adding to its own extensive experience, the Center staff will be joined in this work by archivists, historians of science and technology, and sociologists. They will be advised by distinguished scientists, administrators, and other specialists. The focus of this initial study is high-energy physics. Future studies will be in the areas of space science and geophysics. The long-range study will increasingly explore the applications of the project findings to other areas of science and technology and the development of policies and guidelines to improve future documentation.