AIDS history research: new ArchiveGrid available.

People researching the history of AIDS (or AIDS activism, particular organizations like ACT UP, or individual public figures) may get invaluable help from private collections of papers that have been donated to university libraries and other institutions. The problem has been finding out what collections exist and where they are located. Now a new service for scholars called ArchiveGrid is getting rave reviews; it was free through June 2006, and currently offers both institutional and individual accounts.

For example, go to http://www.archivegrid.org and use the search box near the upper left of the screen to search for "ACT UP" (with the quotation marks). In June 2006, 61 collections were found. ArchiveGrid has a short description of each, contact information for the appropriate department at the library, and sometimes a link to a library page with more information about the collection. Each library has its own rules for access (including restrictions from the original donors, who may have confidentiality concerns).

A search on "HIV" (quotation marks not needed) found a total of 201 collections and other items. Probably all of them are relevant to AIDS. Searching for "Philadelphia HIV" without the quotation marks found 32 that mention both. ("Philadelphia" alone found over 73,000 historical collections, etc. that mention the city.)

The great majority of collections indexed are in the United States at this time, but a few are in Australia or UK. Over 3,000 libraries and other organizations have contributed information to ArchiveGrid (see list on site).

ArchiveGrid tried to raise funds to maintain free access, but currently (July 2006) it must charge $15.95 per month or $95 per year for individual use. This is affordable even for unfunded research projects, because usually one month of access will be enough to locate relevant collections of materials, and the ArchiveGrid database changes very slowly. Also, without paying anything you can run your searches to find the total number of hits, and titles only of the first three items, to learn whether the service will be relevant for your project.

Fundraising Note

This writer designed software for gift-economy distribution of any digital information, including art, medical journals, or services like ArchiveGrid. Anyone could buy any amount of access and receive it in a smart URL (Web link), then easily share their access through social networks as they wished. Most downloads will be free, simply a click with no registration or account required--and the act of free downloading itself will instantly pay the artist, publisher, or other owner. For more information, wait for our article on medical uses, or see our general site at http://www.smart-accounts.org.