The Clinton B. Ford Astronomical Data and Research Center

Clinton B. Ford

For more information on the 75th Anniversary of the AAVSO and the inauguration of the headquarters order a copy of Volume 15, Number 2 of the AAVSO Journal.

Outside the AAVSO

We are located on a small side street and have the luxury of owning 6 parking spaces in the adjoining lot that are reserved for AAVSO employees and visitors. We also have access to the public parking spaces that line Birch Street. Astronomically speaking, our office is uniquely located right next to those of the Sky Publishing Corporation, which neighbors us on two sides. At the end of our street there is a large, well-kept park that is perfect for taking a walk or eating lunch when the weather is nice.

First Stop: The Big Room

The main area of AAVSO headquarters is affectionately referred to as "the big room" because, well, you guessed it, it is the biggest room in the building. This is the room where most office activity occurs since it is the work home to five staff members, most of the phone calls are answered here, and you have to pass through it to get anywhere upstairs. Elizabeth, Kerri, Matt and Travis have their desks in this room.

Just off of the big room is the copy room where we also have an in-office postal machine (very convenient!).

Next Stop: The Library

     

Through the big room and past the water cooler, you will enter the C.Y. McAteer Library. The library, first organized in 1918, is a unique collection of more than 3,500 titles of astronomical books, serials, journals, star catalogues and star atlases, as well as publications in related areas of mathematics and the physical sciences. Along with the complete sets of Harvard Annals, Sky and Telescope, and Popular Astronomy, one wall is devoted entirely to variable stars while other sections hold astronomical catalogs, atlases, books on historical and biographical subjects, and general astronomy texts. The library is where we have staff meetings, formal discussions, and put together large postal mailings. The large conference table makes it convenient for these purposes.

It would be hard to walk into the library and not notice the two staff members working there. Both Kate and Gamze work in the library and believe that with any credence to the "learning through osmosis" theory, they should be getting close to genius status.

Next Stop: The Computer Room

          

This aptly—, albeit not very creatively— named room is also located off of the big room and is usually five degrees hotter than the rest of the office due to all the "hot" computer activity that takes place here. This is where the servers are kept as well as other various hardware and software for the computers at HQ. Aaron, whose office is here, keeps track of the computer ins and outs, wire thingamajiggies, and disc doohickies so that you and I don't have to. Also in this room is Rebecca's desk, however do not be alarmed if you can't see her, she is currently telecommuting to work part-time from the New York City area.

Next Stop: The Director's Office

Passing through the big room again and to one corner is the door to the Director's Office. This is a spacious office with a large window on one wall that faces Birch St. There is also a wall made of shelves convenient for many things as well as a lot of additional cabinet and counter space. There is also a table with chairs for more personal conferencing.

Next Stop: Downstairs

The downstairs of the AAVSO is used partly as a storage area and partly as office space for staff. The first area you encounter is filled with stocks of publications and stellar gifts/souveneirs. This room also holds some of the obsolete, yet valuable, punch cards from the days when data was entered into the computer via cards with holes. The next room downstairs holds more storage of publications and HOA materials as well as thousands of paper observer reports. These reports are often consulted when there is a question about the quality of the data from an observer.

The staff break area is downstairs and consists mainly of a refridgerator, table, chairs, and a microwave. The staff sometimes eat lunch here, however, the big conference table upstairs is a more popular destination. It is unanimous, however, that the most popular destination for a lunch-break would be a roof deck, however this deck has yet to materialize.

The accounting room is to your right and is where Jane works when she comes into the office. This is where most of the banking and finanacial tasks take place. Records of past financial activities are also kept in this room.

Next Stop: The Archival Room

The next room on the downstairs tour is the archival room and —as the AAVSO's "attic"— is perhaps the most interesting room in the whole building. This is the place to go when you would like to peruse the history of the organization. Here are kept old correspondance, memorobilia, old charts, and roughly 1.8 million observations submitted by paper to the AAVSO from 1902 to 1965. 1965 is the year that the AAVSO started to computerize all of the observations, including these archival ones which are now part of the AAVSO International Database. These records are consulted when there is a question about the authenticity of a data point prior to 1965. There are also thousands of hand-plotted light curves in this room that were created before computers were able to do that task automatically. Additionally, there are special collections kept in this room which include materials bequeathed to the AAVSO from members. Some of the archival papers in this room go as far back as 1872.

Last Stop: The Big Downstairs Room

The last room on the tour is the biggest room downstairs and is home to five workstations. One is an open computer and is used for any scanning needs we may have. Sara Beck sits at another workstation (you can recognize it by the beautiful ship calendar nearby). The next two stations are used only for data-entry. This is where Barbara and Gloria enter the observational data into the database. The last computer workstation belongs to Mike and is surrounded by the boxes of archival materials for the project on which he is working. Lining the walls of this room are periodicals, journals, and newsletters, both professional and amateur, from around the world that are organized geographically. In this room is also an old variable star bibliography once kept by Annie Jump Cannon, donated by HCO, that has recorded each instance of a variable star mentioned in the literature at the time. Although it is not current, it is sometimes used to see which historical articles were written on which variable stars.

And that concludes the tour AAVSO HQ. We hope you have enjoyed it!