Walter Isaacson, a biographer of Einstein (and of Steve Jobs and of Benjamin Franklin) has some interesting commentary[1] on posting archival materials online. "My initial joy about the project was tempered, however, by a pinch of sadness. I realized that most future Einstein researchers would no longer have to make the journey to the cozy house on the edge of the Caltech campus where the scholars of the Einstein Papers Project were eager to embrace their rare visitors and ply them with guidance, insights and tea. They wouldn’t likely spend delightful days there—as I did for my biography of Einstein—with the science historian Diana Kormos-Buchwald and her colleagues as they debated such issues as how to explain what Einstein meant when he referred to quanta as 'spatial' or his fellow Jews as Stammesgenossen (tribal comrades)." On the whole, Isaacson thinks it will be a benefit to scholarship to have Einstein's papers and other archives available online, but this will change the process of historical and biographical research.

[1] "What Could Be Lost As Einstein's Papers Go Online," Wall Street Journal 5 December 2014.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/what-could-be-lost-as-einstei...