The Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced yesterday the launch of a newly updated and expanded Einstein Archives website, a joint project between the university’s Library Authority and the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology with the support of Princeton University Press. The website contains a catalog of more than 80,000 documents, including over 40,000 of Einstein’s personal papers and 30,000 additional documents discovered since the 1980s.

Improvements in the site’s search technology will enable users to look for documents by subject, and, in the case of letters, by author and recipient. The first line or title of each document will also be displayed, alongside information on date, provenance and publication history. Interested parties can then contact the Hebrew University’s Media Relations Department (at [email protected]) in order to obtain images of the archived documents (Photos will need to be credited to The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.)

Originally launched in 2003, the archive’s previous site contained 43,000 records of documents and 900 manuscripts in Einstein’s own hand. The expanded site will initially feature a visual display of about 2,000 selected documents amounting to 7,000 pages related to Einstein’s scientific work, public activities and private life up to the year 1921. These documents are sorted according to five categories: scientific activity, the Jewish people, the Hebrew University, public activities and private life.

”The renewed site is another expression of the Hebrew University’s intent to share with the entire cultural world this vast intellectual property which has been deposited into its hand by Einstein himself,” said Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, former Hebrew University president and current academic head of the Einstein Archive.

Einstein was a founder of the Hebrew University and one of its most loyal supporters. He bequeathed all of his writings and intellectual heritage, including the rights to his likeness, to the university in his will.