July 2011 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

2010: SIGCIS's Year in Review
by Thomas Haigh 03 Nov '11

03 Nov '11

Dear SIGCIS members, I hope this end of year message finds you all well and in a relaxed holiday mood. SIGCIS has had another good year, reaching new heights on every measurable aspect of our activities. The number of members reached a new high (over 250), the number and quality of contributions to the email list was greater than ever before, we raised more money at our annual lunch with our book auctions and small than ever before ($1,486) and gave out more travel grants (www.sigcis.org/travelaward) to participants than ever before ($2,400). Our second annual workshop received more submissions than the first, and more people attended. The Mahoney Fund (www.sigcis.org/mahoney) holds its highest balance to date (over $8,000) after its best year of donations so far (at least $2,850). So does our operating account (around $3,500). For the most part, then, it was a year of consolidation and incremental growth. If something can be done annually for several years then it becomes a tradition, and perhaps the most crucial stumbling block is doing something twice. SIGCIS made the second Computer History Museum award (http://www.sigcis.org/chmprize) to Atsushi Akera for his book Computing a Natural World. The second SIGCIS Workshop, http://www.sigcis.org/workshop10, was a great success. See the full report at http://www.sigcis.org/node/13. We are already planning for next year's. SHOT's 2011 meeting is collocated with the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing editorial board meeting, as well as with several scholarly societies, and so we anticipate a particularly good turnout among the field's best known scholars. Despite our focus on institutional sustainability the SIGCIS team did launch several new projects. These fit with our philosophy of looking for simple, easy and low cost ways to strengthen the international scholarly community in history of computing. This year's breakout hit was the syllabus repository (http://www.sigcis.org/syllabi) It now holds around forty syllabi showcasing a broad range of approaches to teaching in the area. (Here's a new year resolution: if you have a new syllabus and are willing to share it please send a copy now to secretary(a)sigcis.org) Our team of international vice presidents added new resource guides for the history of computing in Britain (http://www.sigcis.org/britain) and Japan (http://www.sigcis.org/japan) We also added a new edition of Anne Fitzpatrick's Pioneers of Soviet Computing to the Member Contributions area (http://www.sigcis.org/contributions) Next year we will be looking for new ways to strengthen this part of the website. Another new initiative is currently unfolding. Behind the scenes we updated the site this year to use a current release of Drupal, fixing some glitches that had accumulated over the years. Our platform includes blogging and comment capabilities, and we have been experimenting with the best way to use it. Chris McDonald of Princeton and Marie Hicks of Duke have recently joined the SIGCIS executive committee (http://www.sigcis.org/node/6) and have taken special responsibility for this. Dag Spicer will also be blogging to keep us up to date with events at the Computer History Museum. You can see the latest from them at http://www.sigcis.org/blog. All SIGCIS members can login to post comments. If you would like your own blog on the site them please contact us. In the future we will be experimenting with ways to use blogs, wikis, and the email list together - for example by asking a question by email and then having answers accumulate on a blog page. Another good new year resolution: check your entry in our member directory at http://www.sigcis.org/members and make any updates needed by logging in at http://www.sigcis.org/user. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to SIGCIS over the past year, whether as email posters, organizers, donors, syllabus providers, bidders in the book auction, workshop attendees, or readers of our website and messages. If you have ideas on how to make 2011 another record breaking year for the SIG, or would like to get involved as a volunteer, then please get in touch. Happy holidays, Tom Haigh, SIGCIS chair www.tomandmaria.com/tom

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Summer reading for historians of computing -- your suggestions
by Thomas Haigh 22 Jul '11

22 Jul '11

Hello SIGCIS members, Please consider helping the community sharpen its engagement with new ideas. Back in graduate school I read feverishly in labor history, business history, history of technology social history, organizational sociology, etc in preparation for my oral examinations. My classes covered still more eclectic topics, ranging from a "greatest hits" of literary theory to nonparametric methods. Over the ten years since I physically left Penn I've been focused on an ever more specialized set of literatures, primarily the burgeoning history of computing field, which I know in ever more depth. In general I've also been doing more writing and less reading. This is probably pretty typical of the intellectual career of a tenured academic, expressed in the cliché that we come to know "more and more about less and less," though as I don't have an opportunity to teach any courses related to my interests it may be a little more extreme. Last summer I finally read Latour's _Science in Action_ properly for the first time (lying outside a dacha on the outskirts of Kiev) and enjoyed it rather more than I'd expected. That hardly puts me on the cutting edge of intellectual fashion, but it did remind me of the pleasure of reading a really nicely constructed and provocative book of general interest. So, putting these two thoughts together I wondered what new work of equally broad interest might have appeared over the past ten years. I'm thinking of books of implicit rather than explicit relevance to the history of computing, either offering new intellectual perspectives or just serving as models of craft. Scholarly books that could be read for pleasure rather than duty. I'm sure suggestions would be of general interest to the SIGCIS community, as it heads to the beaches, lakes, mountains and dachas of the world. Suggestions should include the book and a short description of why it deserve to be read widely by historians of computing. I'd like to accumulate suggestions on our website, as comments to a blog post: http://www.sigcis.org/node/271. We just upgraded our site, so it's easy to post comments using our new WYSIWIG editor. You do need to login first, but accounts are free and you have probably already registered (if you forgot your password it can be reset online). While you are there, please also explore our latest posts from bloggers including Chris McDonald, Marie Hicks and Dave Walden. http://www.sigcis.org/blog However you could also just email a reply to the list if you have trouble logging in. Tom P.S. 64 people already liked us on Facebook -- go to http://www.facebook.com/SIGCIS to be the 65th.

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CHM 2012 Fellows Awards - Nominations Open
by Dag Spicer 18 Jul '11

18 Jul '11

Dear friends, I am delighted to inform you that the nominations for the 2012 CHM Fellows Awards are now open. (Closing Aug 30). Now in its 25th year, the Awards recognize computing pioneers who have made a difference. Nominations, and more details about the Award, are available here: http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/nominations/ And you can see our current CHM Fellows here: http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/ Please consider submitting a nomination for someone you think is deserving. We are particularly eager to hear from the history of computing community! With best wishes, Dag -- Dag Spicer | Senior Curator | Computer History Museum Editorial Board | Annals of the History of Computing 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. | Mountain View CA 94043 Tel: +1 650 810 1035 | Fax: +1 650 810 1055 Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing Visit in person or online! http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/

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Elmer L. Andersen Research Scholars Program - University of Minnesota (CBI)
by Stephanie Crowe 11 Jul '11

11 Jul '11

Hi all, Feel free to share this announcement for the 2011-2012 Elmer L. Andersen Research Scholars Program travel fellowship. Awardees can use any of the collections in the University of Minnesota Department of Archives and Special Collections, which includes the Charles Babbage Institute. If you have any questions about our collections or about the award, you are welcome to contact me directly. *Program Description* The Elmer L. Andersen Research Scholars Program supports scholarly research projects using materials from the Libraries’ rare and special collections. Named for former governor and University of Minnesota regent Elmer L. Andersen, the new program honors the Governor’s passion for collecting and for expanding the use of the collections. The Research Scholars program is available to scholars including faculty, graduate, postgraduate, and independent researchers using the collections in the Department of Archives and Special Collections. This program is not available to currently enrolled University of Minnesota graduate or undergraduate students or UM faculty. The program will provide annual support for up to two research projects that require use of one or more of the collections. Awards range from $500 to $2,000 and provide funds for travel, housing and other research related costs. The final research product (e.g., journal article, documentary film) must acknowledge the Libraries’ support and be deposited with the University Libraries. *Applications should include the following:* • Cover letter that provides a detailed project description, placing the project in the context of its larger field of study and describing the anticipated result of the project (e.g. journal article, book, edited volume, etc.). The narrative should articulate the anticipated use of the University Libraries collections with reference to specific collections to be used and their relevance to the project. • The applicant’s curriculum vitae • Two letters of recommendation • A budget with estimates of related costs Application deadline: September 30, 2011 Award announcement: November 14, 2011 Research must be completed: December 30, 2012 *Send application to:* Director of Archives and Special Collections University of Minnesota Libraries 305 Elmer L. Andersen Library 222 21st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 -- Stephanie H. Crowe, Archivist Charles Babbage Institute 211 Elmer L. Andersen Library 222 21st Avenue South University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455 Phone: 612-625-9053 Fax: 612-625-8054 http://www.cbi.umn.edu

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The new SIGCIS Facebook page
by Chris McDonald 08 Jul '11

08 Jul '11

Dear SIGCIS members, SIGCIS has migrated its Facebook content from a group to its own page, which is the current standard for organizations on Facebook. Among the advantages of this move are 1) An automated feed of the blog posts at www.sigcis.org 2) A dedicated SIGCIS user name, which means you can now reach us at http://www.facebook.com/SIGCIS. If you have a Facebook account, please follow the link and "Like" the SIGCIS page to follow our updates. Sincerely, Chris McDonald SIGCIS Communications Officer

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4 July anniversary for British banking and computing
by I.Martin 07 Jul '11

07 Jul '11

List members may be interested to know that there was another anniversary to celebrate on 4 July this week. Monday marked 50 years of British banking's dependency on computers. I wrote a blog entry (with pictures) to celebrate: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/sirg/2011/07/barclayscomputercentre/ All the best, Ian -- Ian Martin Lecturer, Department of Communication & Systems Open University Milton Keynes, UK, MK7 6AA http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/sirg/membership/ian-martin -- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

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Request from Warren Toomey
by Al Kossow 05 Jul '11

05 Jul '11

Does anyone know if CBI has the original recordings, or might know if they still exist? -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [TUHS] Audio of Mike Mahoney's oral history interviews? Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2011 10:46:01 +1000 From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)tuhs.org> To: The Unix Heritage Society <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> All, several years back Mike Mahoney interviewed several of the original Unix players for a Unix oral history. The transcripts are at: http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/mike/transcripts/ At the time AT&T were going to release these in audio format, but it seems to have fizzled out. Does anybody know if the audio interviews ever got out? The transcripts are fine, but in places they show "(unclear)" when a word or name is used, and of course it's exactly that name you want to find out. Many thanks for any leads. Warren _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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Science Fiction and Computing
by David Ferro 04 Jul '11

04 Jul '11

All, SIGCIS members David Ferro and Eric Swedin have published an edited volume for McFarland & Company entitled *Science Fiction and Computing: Essays on Interlinked Domains.* You will recognize many of the authors as many are also members of SIGCIS, including Thomas Haigh<http://tomandmaria.com/tom/default.htm>, Janet Abbate <http://www.womenincomputing.net/>, Paul Ceruzzi<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_E._Ceruzzi>, David A. Kirby <http://www.davidakirby.com/>, Rafael Alvarado<http://transducer.ontoligent.com/>, Theirry Bardini <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Bardini>, Joshua Cuneo<http://joshuacuneo.com/index.php>, David Ferro <http://www.weber.edu/CS/Ferro_Dr_David.html> (ed.), Richard McKinney <http://www.lysator.liu.se/lsff/confuse00/Richard_McKinney.html>, Graham Murphy <http://www.trentu.ca/culturalstudies/faculty_murphy.php>, Lisa Nocks<http://njit.academia.edu/LisaNocks> , Chris Pak <http://www.chrispak.webs.com/>, Jaakko Suominen<http://www.tuug.fi/%7Ejaakko/>, Alfredo Suppia<http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualizacv.jsp?id=K4772138J6>, Eric Swedin <http://faculty.weber.edu/eswedin/index.html> (ed.), Howard Tayler <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Tayler>, David Toomey<http://www.umass.edu/english/faculty/Toomey.html>, and Gary Westfahl <http://www.sfsite.com/gary/intro.htm>. That the book succeeds is a testament to the passion, skill, and creativity of the contributors. These voices from numerous disciplines came together to broadly explore the importance of science fiction as a body of literature that has, through various means, facilitated invention and discovery in computing. We discover that science (or speculative) fiction acts as a source of inspiration for invention and participation. It supplies metaphors and analogies. It facilitates communication within and outside a community of practitioners. It helps create world views and shape critical and reflective thinking. It plays a role in defining social relations and helps to determine who is inside and outside of the community of the creators of digital culture. It assists in imagining the implications of computing on society and ourselves, or, vice versa, the needs of a society that promotes computer development. The book lists for $40 and is found through Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http://www.amazon.c…>, or directly from McFarland<http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-4565-3>, or elsewhere (ISBN: 978-0-7864-4565-3) Last year, Thomas Haigh, David Ferro, Eric Swedin, and Janet Abbate had a successful session in support of this book in the 2010 SHOT SIGCIS workshop: *Examining the Interaction of Speculative Literature and Computing: Toward a Research Agenda* (http://www.sigcis.org/workshop10) Now, at this year's, 2011, joint SHOT/4S/HSS conference in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov 2 - 6, there are two sessions connected with the book: one at the joint INES/Prometheans Workshop on Nov 2 concerning science fiction in the role of STEM camps. A second is at a Friday 4S session, where authors and guests David Kirby, David Ferro, Joseph Pitt, Paul Ceruzzi, Julian Bleecker, and David Toomey will present *The Fiction in the Science: The Intersection of Fiction and STS*. We invite you to both or either sessions. The discussions around this topic tend to be fun, yet relevant. We hope you can join us in reading and discussing with us this year. Sincerely, David L. Ferro, PhD (Science and Technology Studies, Virginia Tech) Associate Professor of Computer Science Dean (as of August 1st) of the College of Applied Science and Technology Weber State University dferro(a)weber.edu<mailto:dferro@weber.edu>

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