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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 03 Jul '11

03 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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50th anniversary of CTSS
by Dave Walden 27 Jun '11

27 Jun '11

In the spring of fifty years ago this year, work started on MIT's highly influential Compatible Time Sharing System. The system then was first demonstrated in November of that year. Some of you may be interested in a CTSS commemorative document that a couple of us of recently compiled; see item #5 at <http://www.computer.org/portal/web/volunteercenter/history>http://www.computer.org/portal/web/volunteercenter/history This commemorative document is intended to be popular overview of the history of CTSS, not a scholarly report. We may put out an update with new information we receive post initial publication. (We certainly will update the PDF to fix any typos that anyone spots.) If you have any comments on this document, perhaps send them off list to my email address below so other list members don't have to see messages in which they are not interested. Sincerely, Dave Walden dave.walden.family(a)gmail.com

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Possible job opportunity?
by Evan Koblentz 26 Jun '11

26 Jun '11

Hello all, I stumbled upon this Craigslist advertisement today: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wri/2458335496.html. Does anybody know what this might be? I replied to the message, so hopefully I will hear back soon. It sounds like a potentially interesting opportunity for a non-Ph.D. (like me) to get a paying job in science history. I'm very interested in hearing about similar opportunities.

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Errol Morris series on the history of Email
by Dave Walden 23 Jun '11

23 Jun '11

This excellent series continues on the Times website today: <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/did-my-brother-invent-e-mai…>http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/did-my-brother-invent-e-mai… Having started with email, the series has now touched on other early computer developments coming out of MIT in the early 1960s. It is fun to see what a slick (and I mean that in a good sense of the word) history presentation a professional documentary film maker can create with a blog (and an assistant to help with research). -- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 508-280-0446 email address: dave(a)walden-family.com; website(s): http://www.walden-family.com/

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history of email, part 2
by Dave Walden 21 Jun '11

21 Jun '11

The second part of the series on CTSS email by Errol Morris (that I noted yesterday) is at <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/errol-morris/>http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/errol-morris/ Apparently, there will be one part per day on the Times website this week. [By the way, I managed yesterday, with help from Chris McDonald, to make my first blog entry at sigcis.org. Several more blog entries will be posted in coming days as I muse about some topics that are important to me relating to how computer history is collected and archived (in case anyone is interested).]

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history of email
by Dave Walden 20 Jun '11

20 Jun '11

It is well known that Ray Tomlinson's email system at BBN was the first instance of networked email but not the first instance of (intra-)computer email. The famous documentary film director, Errol Morris, has posted the beginning of a 5-part series about his brother's involvement in the earlier email system CTSS at MIT: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/did-my-brother-invent-e-mai… -- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 508-280-0446 email address: dave(a)walden-family.com; website(s): http://www.walden-family.com/

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