The collection contains biographical information about Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) students, faculty, staff, and other individuals associated with SIO or with the history of oceanography.
SIO Biographical Files, 1850-2013 (bulk 1910-2011) (SAC 5)
OFF-SITE STORAGE: COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. ALLOW TWO TO THREE (2-3) WEEKS FOR RETRIEVAL OF MATERIALS.
Extent: 31 Linear feet (78 archives boxes)
Digital Content
One item from this collection has been digitized and can be viewed through the link provided in the container list.
The SIO Biographical Files were created and maintained by SIO Archives staff from the 1970s until 2013, and consist of two distinct sections that were previously cataloged as separate collections. Elizabeth Shor, the original acting SIO archivist and historian, started the first SIO Biographical Files collection in the late 1970s, organizing all material acquired by the SIO Archives into subject and biographical files. Correspondence was filed under the name of main correspondents in the Biographical Files, while papers determined to be pertinent to specific subjects were placed in the Subject Files (SAC 6). Shor maintained this system until her departure in 1981. Deborah Day, the second SIO archivist, closed Shor's Biographical Files in 1981 and launched her own, separately conceived Biographical Files collection, modelled on the first but no longer comprised of segments from individual's personal papers. Day's portion of the Biographical Files, collected primarily from 1981 to 2009, but containing material up through 2013, contains mostly published information about individuals associated with SIO.
The Library no longer adds material to SAC 5.
The collection contains biographical information about Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) faculty, staff, students, and other individuals associated with SIO or with the history of oceanography, collected by SIO Archives staff. The files include biographies, obituaries, bibliographies, correspondence, photographs, memoirs, oral histories, newspaper clippings, press releases, articles, and other sources of information.
The collection is arranged in two separate series: materials collected before 1981, and materials collected from 1981 to 2013. The Library no longer adds to the biographical information files.
MATERIALS COLLECTED PRE-1981: This section of the collection contains biographical materials, including personal papers and correspondence, gathered by Elizabeth Shor, the acting SIO archivist, from the 1970s to 1981. Shor arranged materials alphabetically by the surname of the subject. The bulk of the files contain correspondence and the personal and professional papers of individual SIO faculty and staff who transferred their materials to the Archives. Accordingly, the files are an important source of documention on early SIO faculty and administrative history, including the Marine Biological Association of San Diego. This portion of the collection also includes items such as oral history transcripts for Sir Edward Bullard and Carl Eckart, and a draft of Denis Fox's 1977 memoir, "My Yesteryears and Later Days in La Jolla, California."
MATERIALS COLLECTED 1981-2013: This section contains biographical information including obituaries, memoirs, oral histories, press releases, biographies, articles, curriculum vitae, and newspaper clippings actively collected by Deborah Day, the subsequent SIO archivist. From 1981 on, the contents of donated personal or faculty papers were no longer incorporated into the Biographical Files. Materials in this section include published reference information, clippings/papers, or website printouts. Day continued the organizational method of filing documents alphabetically by the surname of the subject, and this order has been maintained.
The Biographical Files received major processing attention twice: first in 1981, and next in 2015.
In 1981, SIO archivist Deborah Day closed the first part of the collection, which had been organized by Elizabeth Shor, and gave it the collection number AC 5 (now SAC 5). Day sorted through the files and attempted to isolate papers that would be more suitably preserved as independent collections of personal papers. Accordingly, Day removed materials from the Biographical Files belonging to the papers of Carl Leavitt Hubbs, William E. Ritter, Conrad Limbaugh, and the records of the Office of the Director from the Vaughan and Revelle periods, and reunited them with their respective main collections. The bulk of the material, where provenance could not be determined, was kept in SAC 5. As part of this work, Day created an extensive correspondence cross-referencing index to make the collection easier to use. The index listed names of individuals referenced in the contents of individual folders, including correspondents, signatories, or persons mentioned in letters or documents. This list was preserved and integrated into the newest version of the finding aid in 2015 to facilitate key-word searching. Every cross-referenced name has been added to the folder description where it was originally linked in the paper index.
From 1981 to 2013, a second artificial collection of biographical files was collected and maintained by SIO Archives staff. The foundation of this second collection was ephemera, published obituaries, memoirs, press releases, biographical directories, and clippings that Day culled from the first portion of Shor's Biographical Files. Other materials were as added as Archives staff found relevant content in published sources. This second collection remained separate from SAC 5, though there was topical overlap, as an individual could have file(s) in both sections.
To increase searchability and ease of use, the two Biographical Files collections were integrated in 2015 under one collection number, SAC 5. The historically separate sections of the Biographical Files are now represented in the current finding aid as two major sub-collections, yet are key-word searchable in one document.
The general notes of the first major sub-collection were reviewed for accuracy in 2019.