A survey last year of North American institutions holding photographic plates used from around the 1880s until the 1990s to record astronomical data revealed—to nobody’s surprise—lots of plates getting little use. The survey’s findings bolstered the case for a national archive of plates—a role the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute in Rosman, North Carolina, wants to take on. PARI is volunteering to archive such plates and to digitize them to make the data easily accessible to researchers. So far, though, PARI lacks the funds to digitize, and some astronomers say money would be better spent on new science.
Carried out under the auspices of the American Astronomical Society’s working group on the preservation of astronomical heritage, the survey collected such information as numbers and types of plates, locations, storage conditions, availability for use, and actual use over the past 10 years. Nearly 2.5 million photographic plates were identified in North America,...
