Director’s Desk
Everywhere I look, the history of computing is becoming larger and more diverse, more expansive in its scope, and more important in the wider world. What a time this is for the field and for CBI!
Signs of these trends are literally all around us. In the reading room, we have a stream of visitors doing research on new as well as familiar topics. It’s likely the case that our heaviest research volume results from our collections of papers from corporations such as Burroughs and Control Data and professional associations such as DPMA and ACM (see Lora Bloom’s article on the ACM processing project in this newsletter). A walk-in visitor happened upon our periodical literature in home computing and spent a pleasant morning there. Researchers are also using CBI collections to help understand the corporate social responsibility movement in which Control Data’s Bill Norris and Bob Price played leading roles. Indeed, I’ve been drawing on our rich CDC archive in preparing a series of oral histories I’m conducting this spring with Bob Price, who started out programming on the ERA 1101 and retired as CEO of Control Data. The Burroughs papers were central to Bernardo Batiz-Lazo’s research on ATMs in the banking industry (reported in this newsletter).
Bernardo also notes the value of another new collection, the James (Jim) W. Cortada Papers—research files for his Digital Hand trilogy (2004-8). These papers present an unparalleled view of 16 manufacturing, transportation and retail industries (Digital Hand volume 1); 16 additional financial, telecommunication, media and entertainment industries (volume 2); as well as tax management, military applications, law enforcement, schools and higher education, and federal and local government (volume 3). Did I mention Jim’s case studies of Social Security, the Census Bureau, and the U.S. Post Office? We have a hunch that the Cortada collection, with its systematic examination of research materials for these industries, will be heavily used for years to come.
Hardware, software, networking, and services—these are familiar enough research topics. Then one day last month a scholar of American religious movements, not a computer historian at all, spent time with the correspondence of Bill Norris. It turns out that Norris had engaged in a decade-long conversation about the nature of the Cold War and the ethics of technology transfer. International standards-setting in software is another on-going research topic. CBI’s expanded shelves now have 200 books on Soviet computing and engineering. And with the recently acquired Carl Machover collection, CBI greatly extends its rich collections on computer graphics—of compelling interest to computer historians as well as art historians.
At CBI we are committed to broadening the history of computing. In an age when computing has become “pervasive,” we need to be collecting research materials on many new topics. At the same time, we are also committed to deepening our understanding of familiar topics in the history of computing. Just last week I talked with one of the engineers for the National Bureau of Standards’ SEAC, a pioneering effort in stored-program computing. He hopes to track down the logic diagrams for SEAC held in our Margaret Fox papers. As I mentioned, it’s a great time for the field and for CBI. Intrigued by how you might help? I cordially invite you to join the roster of our wonderful CBI Friends <www.cbi.umn.edu/about/friends.html>. The CBI Friends provide us with support for our core activities so that we can successfully solicit externally funded projects such as our NSF history of FastLane or our ACM headquarters archive project. Many thanks to our past, present, and future supporters!
Thomas J. Misa