The AHQP project was started in 1961 by the Joint Committee of the American Philosophical Society and the American Physical Society. Behind the initiation of this project was the death of many distinguished physicists including Albert Einstein in 1955, Johann Ludwig von Neumann in 1957 and Erwin Schrödinger in 1961, which raised concerns among scientists that the important memories and records would be lost unless something was done at once. Being aware of the deficiency of the published papers that would give hints about how ideas had started and how they had been developed, the Committee decided to assemble private manuscripts related to the history of quantum physics and record recollections by leaders in the development of quantum physics.

A catalog of this collection titled "Sources for the History of Quantum Physics" published in 1967 covering the materials acquired from 1961 to 1964 describes in detail how this collection has been developed; how the project was started, why Dr. Thomas S. Kuhn was chosen as Director of the project, strategies for fruitful interviews, the methods of collecting private documents, and so on. (The content of this catalog is available on the website of the American Philosophical Society at http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/guides/ahqp .)  The committee continued to collect documents and interviews even after the publication of the catalog, and the whole project was completed in 1972.

The National Diet Library is one of the nineteen Libraries of Deposit for the AHQP collection located in twelve countries. The collection is available in the Business, Science and Technology Room in the Tokyo Main Library. 
 

Materials available at the Business, Science and Technology Room

• 289 rolls of microfilm including unpublished manuscripts (letters, drafts of papers, laboratory notebooks, etc.) of approximately 280 people closely connected with the history of quantum physics
• 5 rolls of microfilm of transcriptions of 175 interviews with about 95 people involved in the development of quantum physics 
• 6 rolls of microfilm of records of the project

The Business, Science and Technology Room 
(2F of the Main Building, Tokyo Main Library)

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1. Sources for History of Quantum Physics. An Inventory and Report. (SHQP). Th. S. Kuhn et al. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1967 
   --The basic catalog of the AHQP collection. As mentioned above, it includes the detailed report of the project itself. It also provides information on the location of unpublished materials not included in the collection. 
2. Archives for the History of Quantum Physics. Inventory of Microfilms of Manuscript Materials. Joan N. Warnow, Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics. 1986.
   --A comprehensive inventory of the collection. It covers the materials acquired both before and after the publication of the SHQP, but it does not provide as detailed information as the SHQP.

Please note that access to these materials is restricted to "bona fide scholars and students working under their supervision," for the collection contains so many private documents that special care needs to be taken to protect the privacy of the authors. Students need to present a letter of reference from their university supervisor. 

1. Those who wishes to use the collection are required to sign a statement that they understand and agree to the conditions specified, such as that they will not quote from it without prior permission of the proprietors of the literary rights in the materials to be quoted.

2. Users need to submit an application to obtain a permit to use the collection. The permit will be valid for a year from the date of issue.