[SIGCIS-Members] eBook and oral histories on Cornell computer services

[Thomas Haigh]

Hello everyone,

A chance Google hit just led me to http://hdl.handle.net/1813/82 from which
the text of a 2004 ebook called "The History of Computing at Cornell" by
John W. Rudan, a former manager there, can be downloaded. The book seems to
be a worthy and well documented institutionally oriented history, though the
intended audience is unclear as it devotes a lot of space to "industry
overview" sections recapping well known things like the rise of the PC.
Clearly of interest for those researching academic computing and its
relationship to computer science.

There's also a useful website, with more than 50 interview summaries. These
could be of broader use to historians, as they capture some user experiences
and give good insights into the challenges of the 1960s, particularly the
shift to timesharing. The later interviews cover things like early use of
the Web in the 1990s. http://www2.cit.cornell.edu/computer/history/

Tom