The Royal Society has made its its digital archive accessible free of charge until 1 February 2009. The archive, which contains the Royal Society’s publications since the foundation of Philosophical Transactions in 1665, is an amazing resource for historians of science and technology. The archive is normally only available to subscribers as part of one of the Royal Society’s ‘packages’ of journals. Not only does it include a great variety of current science and technology, but it also includes papers from great scientists, such as Humphry Davy and William Herschel.

Enjoy this resource while they are free!

The House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) includes over 200,000 House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to the present (2003/4 session), with supplementary material back to 1688. The HCPP delivers page images, searchable full text, and downloadable PDFs for each paper.

The British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service is a slightly smaller archive but has a much-better developed system of indexing, which makes it easier to use. Unfortunately, it does not cover all papers, like the HCPP does, instead it covers the important papers from sources other than just Parliament.

Anybody doing political, social, or economic history will find these two sites a wonderful resource and a true treasury trove of information!

We stayed up until nearly 3a watching election results. Then, we got up to watch the last of the results this morning after only a few hours of sleep. But all of that is worth it because America has turned a corner!

Today, when I woke up, the entire world has a different view of the United States and for that I am proud to be an American. Since I moved out of the USA, the quality of Americans have been questioned because of our choices in past elections, but that has changed! At times, America is slow to get started, but now that it has woken up! Hopefully that means that we can return to being a force for good throughout the world … and restore the former glory and power of the USA.

Over the last few months, an academic storm has been brewing over! The European Science Foundation has been working on their new initiative - a European Reference Index for the Humanities. In other words, their goal is to rate every journal in every subject as either A, B, or C. Essentially, in British vocab, they are creating a league table with three divisions … and, as one can imagine, that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. To that point, more than 50 journals in the history of science, technnology, and medicine from around the world have requested to be removed from the list. They are all publishing a joint editorial highlighting the issues that these leaders in the field have with this process .. which are many and very valid! I completely agree with all of the points raised in the editorial. The whole process has been a travesty and I hope that the pressure brought to bear will be successful by either having the journals removed from the listing or, more dramatically, having the whole process scraped!

If you have any opinions of your own, feel free to speak your mind below or on the Royal Society’s website.

Yesterday was the parade to celebrate the medals won by Team GB in China, and it was a great day for the athletes. For me, watching on TV, the highlight of the coverage was the speech of Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. It was short, witty, upbeat, and emphasized the achievements of the athletes. Here are a couple of the better quotes:

About the achievements of the athletes:

There is no wrong time of the day or the week to commemorate the best cycling result by any team ever in the history of sport, or the incredible achievements of our rowers, British rowers, British swimmers, and sailors, who together have produced the most extraordinary British aquatic triumph since Horatio Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar itself.

About London 2012:

I know the sceptics will say or that we can’t match the Chinese or deliver a fantastic Olympics in a recession and I say to them that it is exactly because of that downturn that we must seize the chance to rejuvenate, regenerate part of East London, that has been neglected for decades, with all the potential that brings for jobs and growth … I think it’s going to knock China for six from that point of view, not necessarily just from the facilities.

For a complete script of the speech, see this page.

Yesterday, terrorists bombed London’s transportation system and brought Central London to a standstill (as far as public transit is concerned). Yet, I noticed several things that made it very interesting.

First and foremost, was the reaction of the London population. To many of them, it was like nothing major had happened. They understood the reason that they could not use the Tube, but they went about the day as if it was more-or-less a normal day. The reaction that many on the scene had was also pretty remarkable. Many of those involved were also very calm … at one point on the BBC, to find someone who was hysterical, they had to interview some American tourists, who were not even directly involved in the incidents. To me, this underlines the British attitude of just plugging along and getting it done, no matter what is thrown at you. The English culture is a tough one.

Second, I have praised BBC before but again, they showed that they knew how to balance new coverage and the other aspects of TV. For instance, it was not that long after the event that only BBC1 was still covering the event. The rest of the BBC family was back on normal programming. To be honest, ITV did the same for most of the day. It was nice and allowed you, as a viewer, to get an update by changing channels back to the news but not have to listen to the same thing repeated, like we had to in the States after 9/11. True, it is the biggest attack on British soil since WW2, but it is not enough to stop the Brits from going on about their lives.

That is another thing, Brits have a cultural (and personal) rememberance of real horror from WW2 and, so, that seems to be helping them to deal with situation. One WW2 vet on BBC even said as much, that the British are not going to be scared by something ’small’ like this because they were able to survive a lot more during WW2. It was both very reassuring and a little cocky … but in that British way.

I also want to praise the Metropolitan Police, especially the Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Brian Paddick. During a midday press conference, he answered a question about “Islamic Terrorism” with a very educated and thoughtful answer. In short, he said that it does not exist. Those people are terrorists but they are not true Muslims. That, according to his knowledge of Islam, being a terrorist is not something a true Muslim would be. The ones that are terrorists are fundamental extremists. Hopefully, with statements like that and with the condemnation of the acts by the Islamic community, the terrorist acts will not lead to any violence against the peaceful Muslim community in the UK.

Personally, I am not worried about getting on the Tube or buses in London. It is still safer to be there than to be travelling on the road in a car (according to the BBC, 7 times safer). So, this is not going to change anything about my life. I may be a little more observant on public transit, but it is not going to change my mode of travel to/from/around London.