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<p class=MsoNormal>Hello SIGCIS members,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Today we launch the SIGCIS Mahoney Fund. Please read on for
a chance to help our graduate student members, honor a great historian and have
your tax free donations matched 100%<span style='color:#1F497D'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>At the 2007 lunch meeting SIGCIS held its first auction of
donated books as a fundraising tool to support our initiatives and bring some
fun to the event. Mike Mahoney served as the auctioneer, doing great job in
driving up prices and generating a relaxed and festive atmosphere. <span
style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As you all know, Mike died unexpectedly over the summer.
(See <a href="https://blogs.princeton.edu/mahoney/">https://blogs.princeton.edu/mahoney/</a>
for the official tribute page). So this year when we met in Lisbon last month
David Anderson took up Mike’s (virtual) gavel and did an equally fine job
auctioning the impressive volume of books donated by our members. This included
an entire suitcase of in-demand books personally transported to Lisbon by
Marguerite Avery, the MIT press editor responsible for its history of computing
series. Between the auction and an appeal for donations in Mike’s memory we
raised more than $700 at the Lisbon meeting, even as the global financial
system collapsed around us. We made the first presentation of our new graduate
student travel award to Honghong Tinn of Cornell University, as the Michael S.
Mahoney/MIT Press Graduate Student Travel Award.<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><br>
After the meeting I was relaxing and enjoying the prospect of making two
partial awards for student travel costs for the 2009 Pittsburgh meeting when
Ann Johnson, one of Mike’s former Ph.D. students, did something that
challenged me to shift my ambitions for the program into a higher gear. Ann
made an annual giving pledge of up to $500 to match 100% of online and postal
contributions received by SIGCIS. The money will be used to establish a capital
pool for SIGCIS known as the Mahoney Fund. This is intended primarily to
provide ongoing support for the new Michael S. Mahoney/MIT Press Graduate
Student Travel Awards. Money held in the fund will grow proportionally with
SHOT’s own endowment.<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mike’s name sits very well on this award. He gave his
time generously to SIGCIS, chairing our session on “50 Years of Computer
Use” at last year’s meeting and presenting his paper on “The
Many Histories of Computing” in another session on “50 Years of
Computing Historiography.” When the graduate-student dominated SIGCIS
panel proposal that included Mike as a commentator was rejected for the 2008
meeting he sent to the participants a message that “It was an interesting
set of papers, and I would have enjoyed the opportunity to comment on them, and
indeed to meet the authors. There'll be another opportunity, I'm
sure.” Sadly this was not to be, but just before his death he did perform
one final act of service to the SIG as a member of the ad-hoc committee set up
to establish policies and procedures for our forthcoming book prize (more on
this soon). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><br>
Mike was an important influence on the development of our field and on my own
growth as a scholar. While a graduate student at Penn I was lucky enough to be
able to enroll as a visiting student at Princeton solely for the purpose of
making the journey up to Princeton once a week to take the “Computers and
Organisms” course taught by Mike and his newly arrived colleague Angela
Creager. (Princeton’s alumni mail has followed me over five moves since
then). In the years that followed I served with Mike on the IEEE Annals
board and the ACM History committee. About three times a year we would see each
other at one event or another and I always learned something from Mike’s
presentations or contributions to the discussion. While his training and
instincts differed from my own in almost every respect he was always curious
about the latest work in the history of computing. He sometimes shocked me by
praising work or calling attention to topics far outside the boundaries of his
personal interest in the intellectual history of computer science. This is
because Mike was one of very few senior historians with prestigious academic
appointments deeply committed to the evolution of the history of computing as a
field with its own scholarly agenda and identity. He grappled with the
scholarly shape and challenges of the field, ultimately producing what I think
will be an influential call for its reconstitution not as “THE History of
Computing” but as “The Histories of Computing(s).” <a
href="http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/histories/kingscch.htm">http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/histories/kingscch.htm</a>
<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><br>
We hope to celebrate Mike’s intellectual legacy with a special day of
supplementary programming at the next SHOT meeting. In the meantime this is
your opportunity to recognize and honor his exemplary contribution to the SIG
and his inspiring commitment to the discovery of new scholarship in our field
by matching part of Ann’s challenge.<br>
<br>
Donations can be made online at <a
href="https://associations.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/shot/shot_donation.cgi">https://associations.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/shot/shot_donation.cgi</a>.
Online donations will receive an online confirmation for your tax records
– as a non profit organization donations to SHOT are tax deductible for
US tax payers (subject to the usual disclaimers). <b>On the online form please
select “Other” in the section “Designate a Priority”
and enter “SIGCIS Mahoney Fund” in the adjacent box marked
“Please Specify”.</b> SHOT’s treasurer has confirmed that all
donations marked in this way will be placed in our account. If you are able to
follow Ann in making this an annual pledge rather than a one-off donation then
please check the “Make this an annual contribution for X years”
box.<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><br>
I am starting the ball rolling with a $100 annual pledge for each of the next
five years. So that leaves at least $400 we need to find from other SIGCIS
members to ensure that we rise collectively to Ann’s challenge. In this
time of academic cutbacks and rising travel costs, making it possible for
graduate students to present at our annual meeting is a highly effective
investment in the future of the field. In the meantime all of us could profit
from another look at the articles and syllabi on Mike’s own web page: <a
href="http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/">http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/</a> and
particularly <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/computing.html">http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/computing.html</a>.
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Best wishes,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Tom Haigh<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom">www.tomandmaria.com/tom</a>
<o:p></o:p></p>
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