PhilSci Archive

History

PhilSci-Archive was conceived in the fall of 2000 on the model of the LANL archive by Rob Clifton (1964-2002), John Earman and John D. Norton, professors in the Department of Philosophy (Clifton) and History and Philosophy of Science (Earman, Norton) at the University of Pittsburgh. It was brought from conception to birth by the active engagement, financial support and endorsement of several groups: the Center for Philosophy of Science (Jim Lennox, Director); the office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science (through Dean Dick Howe); the Philosophy of Science Association (John Earman, President); and, through the intervention of Lance Lugar, the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh (directed by Rush Miller).

PhilSci-Archive was the University Library System's first electronic self-publishing initiative. The task of designing and implementing the archive was undertaken by a team from the ULS Department of Information Systems including Brian Gregg, who was responsible for extensive customizations to the EPrints 1.0 software, Fern Brody, Timothy Deliyannides, Delvon Anderson and Jeff Wisniewski.

Preparatory work for the archive was undertaken in the Fall of 2000. The archive was officially opened for submissions on January 26, 2001.

Academic and minor operational matters were the responsibility of Kevin Davey (Department of Philosophy) as part of his responsibilities as Editorial Assistant in the journal offices of Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. This position of Archive Manager was supported through the journal offices until the journal relocated to Utrecht in August 2003. At that time, support for the Archive Manager continued through an allocation to the Department of History and Philosophy of Science by the Dean of Arts and Sciences. That allocation was discontinued in August 2009 and support is now provided for this position by the Center for Philosophy of Science.

The archive software was upgraded and adapted to EPrints version 2.2.1 by Brian Gregg and Demetrios Ioannides in May 2003, and is fully compliant with the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting v. 2.0.

On October 7, 2010, PhilSci-Archive was relaunched with a new user interface running Eprints 3.2. The project was initiated by the University Library Systems (ULS) team at the University of Pittsburgh, in consultation with the Executive Committee: Zvi Biener, John Earman, John Norton, Bryan Roberts, and Justin Sytsma. The ULS team was led by Timothy Deliyannides, and supported by Electronic Publications Associate Vanessa Gabler. Solutions Architect Brian Gregg developed and implemented many of the Eprints customizations, assisted by Systems Analyst Delvon Anderson. Kari Johnston did the new Web design and development.

In November of 2011, an international Advisory Board was created for PhilSci-Archive, in order to advise operations from a broader perspective.

In June of 2012, PhilSci-Archive added software conceived by John Norton and Bryan Roberts and developed by Michael Miller for automatically collecting preprints in a conference section and turning them into a single PDF volume, which can be freely requested by conference organizers.

Executive Committee

Rob Clifton (Dept. of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh) 2001-2002
John Earman (Dept. of HPS, University of Pittsburgh) January, 2001-
John D. Norton (Dept. of HPS, University of Pittsburgh) January, 2001-
Zvi Biener (Dept. of Philosophy, University of Cincinnati) April, 2008 - April, 2014
Justin Sytsma (Dept. of Philosophy, East Tennessee State University) August 2009 - August 2015
Bryan W. Roberts (Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics) August 2012 - August 2015

The committee members were known as "Academic Consultants" until a renaming in March 2009

Archive Manager

Kevin Davey (Department of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh) January 2001- August 2002
Tracy Lupher (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh) August 2002 - December 2003
Zvi Biener (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh) January 2004 - April 2005
Justin Sytsma (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh) in May 2005 - August 2009
Bryan Roberts (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh) August 2009 - August 2012
Michael Miller (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh) August 2012 - May 2013
Thomas Pashby (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh) May 2013 -

Advisory Board

Jeffrey A. Barrett (Editor-in-Chief, Philosophy of Science, ex officio; University of California, Irvine) 2011-
William Bechtel (Dept. of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego) 2011-2014
Roberta Millstein (Governing Board, Philosophy of Science Association, ex officio; University of California, Davis) 2011-
C. Kenneth Waters (Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Minnesota) 2011-2014
Michela Massimi (Dep. of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh) 2012-2015

Past Advisory Board Members

John Worrall (Dept. of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics) 2011-2012