[SIGCIS-Members] Company archives of 1980s-1990s computer game companies?

[Deborah Douglas]

The Library of Congress has a strong collection as well.

Debbie Douglas

Deborah G. Douglas, Ph.D., Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum, Cambridge, MA - from my mobile device

On Sep 9, 2018, at 5:11 PM, Brian Berg <brianberg at gmail.com<mailto:brianberg at gmail.com>> wrote:

Al Alcorn, co-founder of Atari, informs me that the Stanford University Libraries has a collection of documents of Silicon Valley game companies.  Leslie Berlin<https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/berlin.html> or Henry Lowood<https://people.stanford.edu/lowood/> may be good contacts re: this.
_________________________
Brian A. Berg / bberg at StanfordAlumni.org<mailto:bberg at StanfordAlumni.org>
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IEEE Silicon Valley Tech History Committee<http://www.SiliconValleyHistory.com/> Chair
[https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BziWcipiMNJkZV9CdXg2YjJhQUk&export=download]


On Sat, Sep 8, 2018 at 9:53 PM Gleb J. Albert <gleb.albert at uzh.ch<mailto:gleb.albert at uzh.ch>> wrote:

Dear colleagues and list members,

This is a question that has kept me busy for quite some time, yet I am
afraid I might have missed some crucial bit of information, and this is
why I would like to address it to you.

Are there any preservation institutions (archives, museums etc., apart
from The Strong Museum / National Museum of Play in Rochester/NY) that
host either company archives of computer game companies or personal
papers of people involved in the production and marketing of home
computer games in the 1980s and early 1990s?

As I already mentioned on this list back in February, I am doing a
post-doc research project on the transnational history of
(non-commercial, low scale) home computer games piracy before the mass
availability of the Internet, and, of course, the perspective of the
back-then games industry is crucial in this question. Of course, the
industry back then was extremely volatile - when companies went
bankrupt, the last thing they thought about was preserving their
archives (in the case of Psygnosis, for example, as far as I know
everything was simply dumped). And those very few 1980s companies which
are still active are very seclusive about their archives (which is
sort-of understandable, given the retromania of today and their possible
hopes of reviving/porting old titles).

Nevertheless, the papers of Broderbund, Sierra On-Line, and a couple of
other companies luckily ended up at The Strong - and to my knowledge,
this is the only public institution that hosts materials like these. But
maybe I missed some essential info? Are there any other holdings I am
not aware of, particularly concerning the European games industry?

I would be very thankful for any hints (as well as for contacts to
former game studio and/or publisher/distributor folks who still might
have kept their business papers).

Best wishes,
Gleb

--
Dr. Gleb J. Albert
Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich
Forschergruppe "Medien und Mimesis"

Universität Zürich
Historisches Seminar
Culmannstr. 1
CH-8006 Zürich
Switzerland

Tel. +41-446346187
<http://uzh.academia.edu/GlebJAlbert>
<http://www.fg-mimesis.de>

Review editor: H-Soz-Kult, review team "History of Knowledge" -
<http://www.hsozkult.de>
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