Follow Phaedra on Social Media

We’ve created Twitter and Instagram accounts to keep you updated on Project Phaedra! Follow to learn more about our journey processing this collection, when new materials are available for transcription, and whatever neat highlights we find along the way. We’ve just sent our first batch of notebooks off to the imaging department at Harvard’s Widener Library. …

Visual Astronomy Display: May 2017

Visual Astronomy Display for May 2017 Highlights… The Hubble Space Telescope brings us more evidence for water vapor plumes on Europa; Cassini takes a historic dive through the narrow gap between the planet Saturn and its rings, returning images for its closest look at Saturn’s atmosphere; NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shared a few videos explaining …

New Guide to Data Archiving and Sharing

The Wolbach Library has developed a guide to archiving and sharing research data. You can find it posted on the library’s website. Why would you want to put your data on the web? First, archiving a copy of your data in another physical location–on somebody else’s server–is a great way to prevent a data loss …

Visual Astronomy Display: April 2017

Visual Astronomy Display for April 2017 Highlights… Planners at NASA’s Payload Operations Integration Center share how they decide what to tell the crew of the International Space Station what to do every day; Have you ever wondered how the Apollo astronauts learned to land on the Moon? Vintage Space did some digging and has the …

Visual Astronomy Display: March 2017

Visual Astronomy Display for March 2017 Highlights… The big news this month is all about TRAPPIST-1, the system of 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting a red dwarf 39 light years away; Have you ever heard the crackling sound of a meteor burning across the sky? DNews explores this unexpected phenomena; Cassini discovers an active ocean on …

PHaEDRA will be at the Smithsonian Digitization Fair!

PHAEDRA has been accepted to the Smithsonian Digitization Fair! At our exhibit table, Wolbach librarians will be available to share information and developments in our efforts to digitize and transcribe astronomical logbooks from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The theme of this year’s Digitization Fair is “Bracing for Impact: Digitizing Collections to Change Lives!” Our …

Visual Astronomy Display: February 2017

Visual Astronomy Display for February 2017 Highlights… NASA scientists analyze data from 6300 weather stations, sea surface temperature measurements and Antarctic research stations to determine how the average surface temperature of Earth is increasing; Astronaut Christina Koch talks about the Space Launch System, which will take astronauts beyond the International Space Station; Geek out over …

UAT v.2.0.0 Released

Today we are releasing Version 2.0.0 of the Unified Astronomy Thesaurus. This release cleans up minor errors, such as duplicate concepts and preferred label consistency. We have also changed all concept IDs to numeric identifiers, a change that will facilitate editing and management of the UAT going forward. Overview of Changes The UAT was switched …

A CryptoParty!

Just before the holiday break, partners from across Harvard, including the Wolbach Library, came together to host a Holiday CryptoParty. CryptoParties are, at their core, workshops at which attendees learn about privacy, security, and cryptography concepts and tools. This first (we think!) annual Harvard CryptoParty featured a theme: “Privacy, surveillance, and the scholarly enterprise.” Attendees …

Visual Astronomy Display: January 2017

Visual Astronomy Display for January 2017 Highlights… When Jocelyn Bell Burnell first discovered a pulsar in 1967, she wasn’t sure what to make of them. SciShowSpace explains how scientists figured out what they were and how they worked; Lettuce is growing on board the International Space Station once again; A new statistical study of planets …