(mu/red) Since the 18th November 2003 a freely accessible archive database of of the ETH Zurich’s archives is available on-line (1). This means that the contents of ETH Zurich’s archive, as well as the collections of manuscripts and legacies from the ETH library can be accessed online. In addition, full texts of documents concerning protagonists from ETH’s history and minutes of meetings of the former ETH School-Board are available.

The database includes documents from following sources: the Historical archives of the ETH School-Board, the archives of ETH Zurich, the ETH-Board and the archives of the History of Nuclear Power in Switzerland. In addition links can be found to documents in the library’s collection of manuscripts and legacies.

Limits to access

Documents that are still subject to protection laws, and therefore must remain sealed for the time being, are not accessible and not listed in the database.

Full-text search of the database using keywords is possible. It is also possible to limit the search to certain sources or time periods, or to find master data, i.e. individuals, bodies and place registers, via the field “key-word search“.

Screenshot of the archive database online: An excerpt of a letter Wolfgang Pauli wrote to the President of the ETH School- Board in 1940. large

“Papers“ on Pauli – and, in future, on Einstein

An integrated feature of this database is a virtual publication of the official service record of the physicist Wolfgang Pauli. In order to realise this almost 700 documents from the Historical ETH School-Board Archive were digitalised and indexed. They can be accessed by users in pdf format.

Plans are afoot for a virtual publication of documents on Albert Einstein and for the digitalisation of minutes of the meetings of the ETH School-Board from the years from 1854 to 1955.