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AVS: Science and Technology Virtual Museum Abstract

The American Vacuum Society (AVS) has a desire to create a “virtual museum” as a way to archive historical items. The items were used by vacuum technologists in the past for the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). The vacuum related equipment (e.g., pumps, gauges, and meters) represents important information regarding the history of the AVS. The AVS History Committee provided this project as a learning opportunity for a student in the Computer- Based Honors Program at The University of Alabama. The project required the student to create a professional web site with a user-friendly and visually-appealing interface to organize historical information about the relevant equipment. The student developed the web site using Drupal, an open-source web content management system (WCMS). The educational goals of this project include student proficiency using the Drupal software suite and implementation of full functionality to create a web site that meets the needs of the AVS. It is expected that the efforts exerted to give the web site a professional appearance will result in increased interest from members and guests with respect to the history of the technology that stimulated the formation of the AVS. This project is modeled after a similar effort at Harvard in which historical information of technological items is captured in the form of photographs and catalog data that are displayed in a rather passive format. In contrast, visitors to the AVS web site will be encouraged to comment on or to discuss the web content with other visitors. Thus, the project provides an opportunity for a society to archive important historical equipment and to give the virtual guest the experience of viewing historical items, learning about the equipment, and if desired, engaging in discussion. Finally, the endeavor proves to be a valuable learning experience in web site design as well as in acclimating to new tools that provide an innovative way to accomplish a task.

I. Introduction The AVS: Science and Technology Society, a non-profit organization, has a rich history. Established in 1953 as a Committee on Vacuum Techniques when fifty-six scientists and engineers determined a need for a community of scholars with knowledge centered around vacuum technology and corresponding applications.1 Understanding how to create, measure, and maintain a vacuum became something of a discipline in itself. The first symposium, held in 1954, attracted 295 participants from several countries.1 The American Vacuum Society (AVS) evolved from this original group, elected a Board of Directors, and established society by-laws. A unique feature of this initial group, which is still true of the AVS community today, is that symposium participants come from a variety of disciplines in both science and engineering. It is truly a multi-disciplinary society that addresses technological needs that are also quite varied. In addition to diversity in disciplines, the society members are diverse in their affiliations. Members, volunteers, and symposium registrants come from academic institutions, government agencies, national laboratories, and industry. The Industrial Physics Forum (IPF) associated with the AVS brings industry executives, researchers, and science-policy decision makers together to share business knowledge, to assess critical needs, and to determine future directions.2 Using vacuum technology for characterizing material surfaces and interfaces was a primary focus in the early days. Controlling the environment in a sample chamber allowed use of various beam technologies for materials characterization. With the invention of the integrated circuit in 1964,3 interest grew enormously in the use of vacuum techniques to deposit, pattern, and etch

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Patterson, C., & Kraft, N. A., & Burkett, S. (2010, June), Avs: Science And Technology Virtual Museum Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16173