Contagion: A love story
Vaughan, Warren Taylor. Influenza : an epidemiologic study. Baltimore, Md.: The American Journal of Hygiene, 1921. From the collection of Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University.
More than 15 years ago, a group of Harvard University faculty and librarians cloistered themselves in a wood-paneled room to debate which topics and themes from history would best serve the future of human knowledge, and of humanity itself. Of the vast and rich library and archival collections at Harvard, which should be digitized to share openly with the entire world? With great wealth comes great responsibility, and this group was charged with making well-considered decisions that would serve the greater good.
There were many contenders for topics and passionate debate ensued. We should not be surprised that these curators, researchers, and thinkers—with the book dust of the ages perpetually filling their nostrils—eventually landed on what we now see in 2020 as prescient conclusions: major global themes of labor and economies, human migration, and disease and epidemics.
It was under the aegis of this thoughtful task and under the mentorship of the entrepreneurial Thomas J. Michalak, that the we, the co-founders of Athenaeum21, first met, and sharpened our skills at Harvard University Library's visionary and short-lived Open Collections Program. The program was originally funded and with a clear mandate from the Hewlett Foundation to make Harvard’s collections available to high school and community college students. Along the way, while designing and leading the first large-scale digitization program at Harvard, we learned the interdependencies and fragilities of the human and technology ecosystems that create and preserve knowledge in its infinite forms, and that drive the (re)discovery and use of that knowledge. We came to understand the true costs and rewards of investing for longer time horizons; and the greater costs and ephemeral rewards of short-term solutions. And we developed approaches that would later come to be known as digital analytics, conversion rates, and search engine optimization.
While the Open Collections Program is no longer, the digital collections assembled by those prescient minds live on, arguably more relevant to the current moment than ever before:
Women Working, 1800-1930
An exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. See the digitized collections from Harvard Library [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.OCP:womenworking] or see how we originally built it [https://web.archive.org/web/20060612214004/http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/].
Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
Documenting voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression. See the digitized collections from Harvard Library [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:immigrat] or see how we originally built it [https://web.archive.org/web/20070708051656/http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/].
Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics
Documenting the global, social-history, and public-policy implications of disease. The collection provides general background information on diseases and epidemics worldwide, and is organized around significant episodes, topics, and people concerned with contagious disease. See the digitized collections from Harvard Library [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:contagio] or see how we originally built it [https://web.archive.org/web/20120102211929/http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/].