The handwritten numbers evoke the painstaking diligence in collecting data during the AASHO Road Test. Penciled into small boxes, the numbers fill columns that march across pages so wide they must be folded back to fit into the binder. Nearly a dozen performance variables for two pavement types, 836 test sections, and 1.1 million test load applications over 2 years produce a lot of data. Recorded in the field and in labs, the numbers fill many pages in many binders. The intention of preserving the data is evident from the trail of technology through the decades: field notebooks and data maps, microfilm, 9-track computer tape, punch cards, and recently a digital version. Images also were preserved: five boxes of photographs, glass slides, and color transparencies of pavement sections and test procedures, of trucks and the soldiers who drove them, and of white-shirted men in fedoras posing for mouse-eared motion picture cameras. Several generations of research managers have wondered how to safeguard access to the data and artifacts. An answer is at hand. The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History will house the AASHO Road Test collection in its Archives Center in Washington, D.C. The materials will be included in the Smithsonian's online catalog and will be available for scholarly research by request at the Center. The collection could become part of a future exhibit. Access to the collection is important because many of the data maps were lost in converting from one technology to another. As a result, the raw data from the tests must be matched up again with the column headings--a time-consuming project for which funding is not available. The Smithsonian will keep the collection intact and accessible, so that the opportunity to complete the restoration will not be lost. (Entire Article)
Abstract