April 4, 2012, Updated July 27, 2012

A whopping 21 million hits have been recorded by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on its new, digitized Albert Einstein Archives website. 

The site contains a catalog of more than 80,000 Einstein-related documents, and a visual display of 2,000 documents up to the year 1921, with more digitized documents to follow.

The March 19 launch was covered by hundreds of news outlets across the globe and spent five consecutive days as a top story on Google News. More than 650,000 unique visitors from 160 countries navigated their browsers to the site in its first five days of operation.

The project was funded by the Polonsky Foundation UK, through which Dr. Leonard Polonsky has initiated the digitization of other important archives of historical significance. “Clearly, there is a pent-up demand for open access to these intellectual treasures,” said Dr. Polonsky.

The digitization project was a collaboration effort between The Albert Einstein Archives, the Hebrew University, the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and Princeton University Press.

The site enables easy navigation through the life and scientific career of the great scientist in five distinct categories: scientific activity, the Jewish people, the Hebrew University, public activities and private life. Einstein was a founder of the Hebrew University and he bequeathed all of his writings and intellectual heritage to the academic institution.

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