Digital Archives of Science - Revisiting the Vestiges of Knowledge-Making

The archive of science is a place where scientific practices are sedimented in the form of drafts, protocols of rejected hypotheses and failed experiments, obsolete instruments and other vestiges. As science goes increasingly digital, so does its archive, opening up new ways of understanding the making of scientific knowledge for historians. Digital collections clearly differ from the traditional
lieux de mémoire
. What they store are not tangible and authentic objects, but data to be processed by computer algorithms. How do these digital infrastructures shape our encounter with the scientific past? What insights can we gain from the vestiges of science as they turn into data?

Positioned at the intersection of Science Studies, Media Studies, and Digital Humanities, this book critically examines digital archives of science as (new) infrastructures for the representation and production of memory and knowledge. Drawing on a large corpus of scientific collections across disciplines and combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, it explores the boundaries and possibilities that digital archives introduce for the history of science and technology.
 

About the author

Alina Volynskaya
, Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), University of Luxembourg.

Product details

• Authors: Alina Volynskaya
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 14.03.2026
• EAN: 9783119148221
• ISBN: 978-3-11-914822-1
• No. of pages: 305
• Weight: 500 g
• Illustrations: 58 b/w ill., 1 b/w tbl., Tabellen, schwarz-weiss, schwarz-weiss Illustrationen
• Series: Studies in Digital History and Hermeneutics
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Geschichte allgemein und Weltgeschichte, HISTORY / General, Bibliotheks-, Archiv- und Informationsmanagement, digitale Infrastruktur, digital infrastructure, Erste Hälfte 21. Jahrhundert (ca. 2000 bis ca. 2050), ca. 1940 bis ca. 1949, Zweite Hälfte 20. Jahrhundert (ca. 1950 bis ca. 1999), Digitales Archiv, Digital Archive, Wissenschaftssammlung, scientific collection