CNAM's web site dedicated to electricity and magnetism in the 18th century

A virtual library of the history of science and technology based on the his torical collection of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers librar y was inaugurated on the occasion of the bicentennial of the Voltaic pile. This anniversary supplied the theme for the first project: electricity and magnetism before electromagnetism. This project will make about fifty volum es available on-line, all in the French language and published before 1820. Based on the same theme and time-period, there will also be a bibliography of about 500 works and 1500 articles selected from a dozen French scientif ic reviews, most of which have already been scanned by the National Library of France. While testifying to the place of electricity in the culture of the experimental physics at the end of the 18th century, this collection of work underlines the relative paucity of theoretical concerns as well as th e importance of animal and medical electricity. This database will allow us ers to chart the evolution of publications according to different themes an d to study the subjects of experimentation and instruments based on a large number of plates.