Zoom Sessions with Eduardo Beira
Notes and Video of Nov. 30 Zoom session on Additional tools for document management as well as AI inquiry with Gemini AI
The slide deck of the talk is HERE.
Notes and Video of Nov. 21 Zoom session on How Google Drive can be used with the MPP
To request access to the Digital Michael Polanyi Papers, go HERE
The video of the first zoom session
Here is the SLIDE DECK.
Digital Resources for the Michael Polanyi Papers
After Michael Polanyi’s death in 1976, Polanyi’s papers, now known as the Michael Polanyi Papers (MPP), and a number of books in Polanyi’s personal library eventually were sent to the University of Chicago Library where the papers became one of the Regenstein Library’s many special research collections. The library books eventually went back into the circulating collection, although there is a list the titles now in two boxes of the papers. An archivist prepared the Guide to the Papers of Michael Polanyi Papers (sometimes called the Cash Guide—the name of the archivist), which has now been been revised several times and put online. An early version of the Guide was an issue of Tradition and Discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical 23.1 (1996-97). There are now 60 boxes (approximately 30 linear feet) of archival materials of various sorts in the Chicago collection. In the early nineties, the Michael Polanyi Liberal Philosophical Association (MPLPA), centered in Budapest, purchased available microfilms of archival material and digitized 44 boxes of this collection. This was an early and innovative archival digitization project and it was a component of the broader post-communist program of the MPLPA to make resources on Polanyi’s thought available in central and eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet empire. The 44 boxes of the digital MPP are in fact many thousands of small jpg files (around 45 thousand since each page is a separate file); in a subsequent project, the MPLPA put together a database which helps users locate and link materials in the MPP.
Eduardo Beira is a Portuguese Polanyi scholar who has translated all of Polanyi’s major books into Portuguese; he has made available on the web a digitized version of Polanyi’s 1940 film Unemployment and Money. The Principles Involved (with subtitles in five languages) and materials about the making of this film. Beira has spent several recent years experimenting with Google Drive and search tools that can be used with digital collections such as the MPP. The Nov. 21, 2024 Zoom session (10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Central) will demonostrate how Google Drive can be used with the MPP which soon should be available for access via a website provided by Beira. A follow-up Nov. 30, 2024 Zoom session (10-11-30 a.m. Central) will explore additional tools for document management as well as AI inquiry with Gemini AI of the diigital MPP archive. Both sessions will be illustrated with “research question” workflows with the available tools in Google Drive and add-ons.
Please do register for these Zoom sessions. Participation in the Nov. 21 Zoom sesson is not required in order to participate in the Nov. 30 Zoom session, although the second session will depend on some knowledge acquired in the first session. A link for a video recording of the Nov. 21 Zoom session will be posted as soon as possible after Nov. 21, 2024.