The Library of Congress recently acquired an extensive collection of celebrated astronomer Carl Sagan’s personal archives. Items from The Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive are beginning to be catalogued and digitised to be made available by the Library online.

Items include maps, photos, sound recordings, manuscripts, music and periodicals, broadly divided into three categories:

• Models of the cosmos throughout history.
• History of the possibility of life on other worlds.
• Carl Sagan’s life and contributions to science and society

Interestingly, the collection includes items from within a date range spanning 1499 to 2099! The Library’s presentation of the collection offers a few clues in how to orient a large and expansive personal archive for public re-use and exploration.

Find out more at… Finding Our Place in the Cosmos: From Galileo to Sagan and Beyond