In the month following its launch, the updated and expanded Einstein Archives website recorded tens of millions of hits and was visited by nearly 1 million people from around the world.
Launched by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at a March 19 press conference, the site contains a catalog of more than 80,000 Einstein-related documents, and a visual display of 2,000 documents up to the year 1921, with more digitized documents to follow.
The website, www.alberteinstein.info, recorded more than 21 million hits and 650,000 unique visitors in its first five days, and more than 34 million hits and 925,000 unique visitors in its first month. Visitors to the site came from 160 countries, among them Arab countries. The launch was reported by hundreds of news outlets across the globe and spent five consecutive days as a top story on Google News.
The website is an updated and expanded version of a previous site, launched in 2003, made possible by a generous contribution from the David and Fela Shapell Family Foundation in Los Angeles, California.
The current digitization project is funded by the Polonsky Foundation UK, through which Dr. Leonard Polonsky has initiated the digitization of other important archives of historical significance. ''Clearly, there is a pent-up demand for open access to these intellectual treasures,” said Dr. Polonsky.
The digitization project was made possible through the collaboration of The Albert Einstein Archives, the Hebrew University, the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and Princeton University Press.
With advanced search technology, the site enables easy navigation through the life and scientific career of Albert Einstein in five distinct categories: scientific activity, the Jewish people, the Hebrew University, public activities and private life.
Albert Einstein was a founder of the Hebrew University and one of its most loyal supporters. In his will, he bequeathed all of his writings and intellectual heritage to the Hebrew University, including the rights to the use of his image.
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