[SCC_Active_Members] FW: Doug Ross - Obit; CNC history sources

[Courtney, Lee]

Al, Allison, Paula et al,

> CHM as a repository for personal papers is an ongoing topic 
> in the Collections Strategy Committee.

My understanding is that we divide the potential acquisitions of this
type into personal libraries and personal papers. 

We have not collected generally or widely available books or other
matter (e.g. periodicals) as there are other institutions that do a
better job of collecting that material. For example, the ACM (in theory
- not always in practice) has complete collection of CACM. No need for
CHM to collect those. However, if offered a publication that has
significant value as would another class of artifact (e.g. one of a kind
or limited quantity by signficant practitioner) I believe that we'd
accept w/o question. 

Personal papers by a significant practitioner *OR* that offer a
historically significant view into computing history should always be
accepted. I think we should be more proactive in that area. A great
example are Ed Bryan's personal papers that the Museum accepted a couple
years ago (see attached). Ed was an early employee of SDS, and managed
system software development at SDS, thru the Xerox acquisition, and up
thru the Honeywell era. While Ed was a competent manager and made
significant technical contributions to mainframe operating system
technology, I doubt if anyone else here has heard of him. Yet he
designed a significant mainframe operating system (CP-V) and his
personal papers offer a unique and extremely valuable chronology of
mainframe OS development from the mid-1960s up thru the later 1980s.
Some very interesting items about the corporate dynamics between CP-V,
Multics, and GCOS within Honeywell.

So personal papers are a treasure trove of information tying together a
multitude of currents within our industry, and I'd assert the best
source of the little eddies that often offer huge insight into decisions
and outcomes which may otherwise may remain a mystery.

Bottom line - we should be getting more personal papers in addition to
manuals, brochures, reports, etc...

Lee Courtney

Product Line Manager - Linux for Consumer Devices

Wind River
500 Wind River Way
Alameda, California 94501

  Office: 510-749-2763
    Cell: 650-704-3934
Yahoo IM: charlesleecourtney 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org 
> [mailto:scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow
> Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 8:30 AM
> To: Barry Boehm
> Cc: scc_active at computerhistory.org; Jasik; 
> Steve at mail.computerhistory.org
> Subject: Re: [SCC_Active_Members] FW: Doug Ross - Obit; CNC 
> history sources
> 
> Barry Boehm wrote:
> > Doug was also a major contributor to the field of software 
> engineering.
> 
> Is there an appropriate channel to ask about personal papers, 
> at some point in the future?
> 
> Something to keep in mind for people not directly associated 
> with an institution with existing archives (though I would 
> think at least some of his would go to MIT).
> 
> CHM as a repository for personal papers is an ongoing topic 
> in the Collections Strategy Committee.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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