At the 1991 General Assembly in Buenos Aires a Resolution was adopted to establish a register of the whereabouts of all extant astronomical archives of historical interest. The Archives WG was established to further the objectives of this Resolution. Two archival Resolutions proposed by Commission 41 were adopted at the 1994 General Assembly in The Hague, and a further archival Resolution was adopted at the 1997 General Assembly in Kyoto. At the 2000 General Assembly in Manchester a half-day Special Session on Inventory and Preservation of Astronomical Archives, Records and Artifacts was organised, and a Resolution was adopted recommending that the sites of previous transit of Venus expeditions be inventoried, marked and preserved, as well as the instrumentation and documents associated with these expeditions. The Transits of Venus WG was not only called into existence to prepare a bibliography, but ``to inventory, mark and preserve the sites of previous transit of Venus expeditions, as well as instrumentation and documents associated with these expeditions''.
International Astronomical Union Commission 41 (History of Astronomy) was formed in 1948, but it was only in 1991 that the Commission's first Working Group -on Astronomical Archives - was formed. These Proceedings contain a selection of presentations and research papers emanating from meetings of the Astronomical Archives} and Transits of Venus Working Groups of Commission 41, and from presentations at the last three IAU General Assemblies. Some additional reports related to the topic of this book have also been added.
The first part of the book deals with archives, the second part with facts related to historical transits of Venus - although there is substantial overlap since some archive papers deal with Transits of Venus as well.
The compilation deals with many wonderful and even rare sources of information, such as official documents and reports, private letters, astronomical instruments and telescopes, national inventories, photographic plates, etc. A lot of documentation described in this book is available only on national level, and the combination of this material in one single volume looks like a cross-cultural study dealing with art and science, and almost can serve as a travel guide in time and space.
The Editors thank Dr. Wayne Orchiston for help and support in collecting the papers.
Christiaan Sterken and Hilmar W. Duerbeck
Manuscript title pages, Preface and Table of contents jad10_7.pdf
Author Index: index.pdf
Note: papers in these Proceedings have not been refereed