Discover stories from the Archives at NCBS
-
The Almirah – In Search of Jamal Ara’s Papers
“”Birds of Bihar… Birds of Bihar…” she would keep mumbling this over and over again in her last days. I am not sure why she kept repeating the phrase. Perhaps it was a draft of a book that she was writing, or a project she wanted to undertake. I do not really know. But as…
-
Archiving a cytogeneticist’s material
I immensely enjoyed archiving A P Krishnaja’s material, primarily because as a Biology graduate with molecular biology research experience, sifting through her laboratory data felt like looking through a window to the past. Various laboratory methods have evolved over time to accommodate the growing needs of the researcher, but certain routines have been preserved from…
-
Why we changed the way we collect material in 2024
In 2023, we went on a rather energetic, and (for us) unprecedented drive to bring in exciting new material into the archives. Rather quickly into the year, we realised that the standard methods of acquisition just didn’t bring in archival material from female scientists, the way they did from male scientists. We had less of…
-
What are clippings of food recipes doing at a science archive?
My fellow archivist, Deepika, and I don’t see it as a coincidence that our first standalone collection from a woman scientist entered the archive after the team had expanded significantly to include more women archivists, some of us with a background in and keen understanding of the culture of science, feminist theory, women’s movements and…
