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Resources & Activities The most important resource available to graduate students in
S&TS is Cornell University itself. Home to dozens of laboratories and
research institutes, Cornell is both a public and a private institution grappling
with the turbulent politics of science and technology in the post-cold
war world. At the same time, the university is home to a world-class library
system that encourages and fosters historical inquiry.
In addition to superb collections in the humanities and in the natural
and social sciences, the system boasts a number of specialist libraries of
interest to S&TS. Mann Library is at the forefront of efforts to improve
information management and retrieval, especially in agriculture and the life
sciences. Kroch Library’s holdings in the history of science are among the
most important collections of primary-source materials on science and
medicine in the United States, with claims to History of Science being the
largest in number of volumes. These range from the Renaissance through
the nineteenth century, and are augmented by collections of more recent
scientific literature in the dedicated subject libraries, which include engineering,
law, industrial and labor relations, veterinary science, physical
sciences and biological sciences. Archival resources cover the full range of
sciences and engineering, and are explicitly oriented toward S&TS research.
Of special interest are the unique archival collections on science
writing, the cold fusion controversy, DNA testing in the law (informally
known as the “O.J. archive”), public perceptions of the Y2K episode, and
the Voting Technology Archive (a special archival collection on the technological
issues raised by the year 2000 US presidential election).
Additional activities hosted or oriented specifically towards S&TS
include the editorship of a journal by departmental faculty: the journal of
Social Studies of Science, edited by Professor Michael Lynch. There is an
annual invited lecture series; the Nordlander Lecture on Science and Public
Policy (given in recent years by such notable scholars as Yaron Ezrahi,
David Hollinger, David Holloway, Albert Teich, Shirley Malcom, Thomas
Hughes, Khotso Mokhele, Caldwell Esselstyn, Freeman Dyson, Kathy Hudson, and David Healy); lectures
by postdoctoral fellows in S&TS; and weekly informal lunchtime
seminars for faculty and graduate students at which local scholars, including
the S&TS graduate students, may present their work. |
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