The SLAC History Web site, maintained by the Archives and History Office, has recently been expanded to include the various SLAC histories that have been written to date with links to those available electronically. If you have trouble remembering a URL you can reach the new history list by typing the term ‘SLAC history’ in the search box at the top of the new SLAC Today Web site, and selecting the first link in your search result. 

From the SLAC History Web Archive: W.K.H. (Pief) Panofsky, presenting plans for SLAC at a 1962 meeting of Stanford trustees. (Photo by Richard Muffley)

Histories that are now available on-line include Stanford Historical Society feature articles from Sandstone and Tile "Deeper and Deeper into the Atom" (1980); Pief Panofsky’s "Big Physics and Small Physics at Stanford" (1990); and Bob Moulton’s "Physics, Power and Politics—Fear and Loathing on the Electron Trail: An Eyewitness Account of the Campaign for Congressional Approval of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 1959-1961" (2001).

The site also gathers articles that were previously available into one location. These include Doug Dupen’s 1966 report on SLAC; "An Informal History of SLAC," a three part series from the early 1980’s by Ed Ginzton, Pief Panofsky and Burton Richter; John Rees’ "Colliding Beam Storage Rings: A Brief History" (1983), and SLAC’s fortieth Anniversary Photo History. An important SSRL history, "Early Work with Synchrotron Radiation at Stanford," by Sebastian Doniach, Keith Hodgson, Ingolf Lindau, Piero Pianetta and Herman Winick (published in the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, 1997) is also included.

The Archives and History Office plans to improve and expand the list over time with the goal of making it a complete resource on the published history of the Laboratory. Relevant publications not available electronically will also be listed, with suggestions as to how they may be obtained or borrowed. As always, your comments and suggestions for additions are welcome.