2010: SIGCIS's Year in Review
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@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
Of possible interest: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/race-debate-over-silico... -- Jonathan CoopersmithAssociate Professor Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4326 979.845.7151 979.862.4314 fax http://aggiegaijin.blogspot.com/ Secretary Section L, History & Philosophy of ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)www.aaas.org
Thanks for the link, Jonathan. Hank Williams, a black programmer and tech entrepreneur, had an interesting response to Arrington and the situation--particularly in his discussion of how TechCrunch covered the recent NewMe demo day and the importance that press has in constructing people's expectations and interactions: http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2011/10/arrington-race-and-silicon-valley-i... Marie _______________ Marie Hicks, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History of Technology Lewis Department of the Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, IL mhicks1@iit.edu www.mariehicks.net On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Coopersmith, Jonathan <j-coopersmith@neo.tamu.edu> wrote:
Of possible interest: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/race-debate-over-silico...
-- Jonathan CoopersmithAssociate Professor Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4326 979.845.7151 979.862.4314 fax http://aggiegaijin.blogspot.com/ Secretary Section L, History & Philosophy of ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)www.aaas.org _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
participants (3)
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Coopersmith, Jonathan -
Marie Hicks -
Thomas Haigh