Abstract
Part of the scientific knowledge has been preserved until our days thanks to its oral and written transmission. Manuscripts, including the "painted books" and prints, are an example of it. However, since studying the history of science constitutes such a wide investigation field, it requires the consulting of publications and manuscripts, often dispersed, deteriorated and inaccessible. Just as important as the compilation of a bibliographic repertory of Alexander von Humboldt's works, is the approach to their physical preservation and diffusion. The new information technologies —the second Gutenberg revolution— provide a way to protect, in a long term, the electronic documentation and the materials contained in it. The modern standards applied to the scientific documentation, the text and multimedia databases, and their simultaneous disposition through the Internet make up the space in which a preservation and diffusion project of Alexander von Humboldt's legacy to the world could be developed.