The project to create collection-level finding aids for our entire collection is continuing. Here are three more that were just added to the web:
Barry James Mailloux Collection on ALGOL 68
David Cavanagh Collection on Computer Security
James P. Cordes Collection of Sperry Univac Photographs and Publications
Our Fall 2009 newsletter is now available on our website. We have also added RSS capability to the newsletter: if you use an RSS reader, you can click on the XML link at the bottom of the page, and when we have a new newsletter you will see the articles appear in your feed reader. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Please see CBI's website here and here for announcements for CBI's upcoming awards. The Adelle and Erwin Tomash Graduate Fellowship is given each academic year to a graduate student working on a dissertation in the history of computing. We have also recently begun to award the Arthur L. Norberg Travel Fund, providing two short-term grants for researchers to travel to CBI for use of our archival collections.
A quick interview from CNN on what is possibly the first message transmitted via the Internet, forty years ago on October 29, 1969 (thanks to Minnesota HST student Jonathan for the link!).
I'm trying a new experiment by creating quick, collection-level finding aids for our unprocessed collections so that you have at least a minimal level of access to as many of our collections as possible (eventually, to all of them). Here are links to the first batch - please let me know if you think it's a worthwhile thing to do, or if you'd prefer to remain unaware of those that are unprocessed but have more detailed finding aids for those that are. (Note: some of these have minimal-level box lists, while some have no lists at all.)
Boole & Babbage Users Group Conference Proceedings, 1972-1975 (CBI 137)
Total Information for Educational Systems Records, 1966-1978 (CBI 138)
Charles W. Bradley Collection on the ENIAC Trial, 1930-1966 (CBI 140)
Earl Masterson Papers (CBI 143)
Center for Y2K and Society Records (CBI 155)
Computer Associates International Records, 1982-2001 (CBI 156)
Gordon B. Davis Collection of Photographs, 1966-1976 (CBI 214)
Keith W. Uncapher Papers (CBI 87)
Arthur L. Norberg and William Aspray DARPA Project Research Files, 1960-1989 (CBI 136)
CBI director Tom Misa presented "Organizing the History of Computing: 'Lessons Learned' at the Charles Babbage Institute" at the History of Nordic Computing conference in Turku, two summers ago. It is now published in a Springer conference volume and available electronically at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-3-642-03756-6.
CBI associate director Jeff Yost has just published "Manufacturing Mainframes: Component Fabrication and Component Procurement at IBM and Sperry Univac 1960-1975," part of a special issue of History and Technology 25 (Sept. 2009) on 'high tech manufacture'. Jeff's article deals with these two companies' radically differing strategies for securing supplies of semiconductor components, and is based in part on research Jeff did at the Hagley Museum and Library.
If you are in library science or museum studies and interested in computer history, one of these might be for you:
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View , CA is currently accepting applications for internships, including:
* Collections Management Intern, with emphasis on records reconciliation, old loans and a collections move
* Museum Registration Intern, with emphasis on processing new acquisitions and a collections move
* Document Archives Intern, with emphasis on processing text
* Software Archives Intern, with emphasis on processing software of all formats
CHM offers a stipend of $1,000 over 3 months for 12 hours/week worked or $1,500 over 3 months for 18 hours/week worked. Interested individuals must be recent graduates of or currently enrolled as graduate students in either Library and Information Sciences or Museum Studies programs, and applicants must follow application directions as specified in the announcements. Please visit http://www.computerhistory.org/jobs/ for more information.
I am very happy to announce that the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Records have been fully processed and are open for research.
The collection contains the official records of ACM from 1947 through 2007 and documents its administration, operations, projects and its Special Interest Groups (SIGs), which represent virtually every major area of computing.
Please see the finding aid for more details, and feel free to contact CBI with any research requests.
We have recently made available three new collections whose finding aids are available online:
John Day Papers (CBI 165): contains documentation on early networking standards
Ingrid Arneson Collection (CBI 209): Arneson's collection of IBM promotional videos from the early to mid-1990s
Russell K. Hobbie Computer Animation Films (CBI 203): a small collection of very early 16-mm single-concept films, thought to be some of the first examples of computer animation.
A CBI fan has added us to his "Geek Map" of the Twin Cities. Go take a look!
We've got some new collections available!
Two new collections of personal papers donated in the past year:
Carl A. Johnson Papers (CBI 208)
Warren G. Simmons Papers (CBI 204)
As well as our collection of reference files:
Charles Babbage Institute Reference Files (CBI 24). These are photographs and documentation that have been collected through the years on all imaginable topics in the history of computing. They are now searchable through our finding aid database. Note: Be sure to search for people's names as Lastname, Firstname (or, alternately, just the last name) or you may not find the individual you are looking for.
The Association for Computer Machinery's History Committee has
announced the two winners of its inaugural short-term fellowship in ACM
history, at least one of whom will be spending some time here at CBI:
Irina Nikiforova, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech's School of History,
Technology and Society, for her dissertation project entitled "ACM, Turing
Prize Scientists, and their Web of Affiliations." Nikiforova will examine
archival materials held at Stanford University, the University of Michigan,
and the Charles Babbage Institute as well as online ACM materials
concerning the Turing Award.
Bernard Geoghegan, a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University and Bauhaus
University--Weimar, for a specific project on "Staging the ACM Chess
Championships" which will draw on archival materials presently in private
hands. Geoghegan plans a journal article from this research as well as a
museum exhibit.
Spring is finally here in Minnesota, and that means finding aid updates! A new finding aid is available for the Arnold A. Cohen Papers, CBI 105. An additional accrual has also been added to CBI 103, the Bryan S. Kocher Papers. Enjoy! Please email me if you would like to use either of these collections for research.
CBI recently learned from the IEEE Computer Society that "Computing Then" was getting substantial Web traffic with the roll out of each new edition of its feature "Annals Through the Years." "Annals Through the Years" features an article and department piece from each year of Annals (starting from Annals' origin in 1979 and moving to the present) rolling out new content every few weeks. With each article/piece, it provides a brief introduction on historical context/significance. In addition to "Annals Through the Years," "Computing Then" features select content from the current issue of Annals, podcasts, and more.
Please check out "Computing Then" at http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/computingthen.