[TUHS] Re: Fwd: Trove of CSTR's

[Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>]

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The Bell Labs archivist, Ed Eckert, ed.eckert@nokia-bell-labs.com, played a
big role in the Labs' Unix50 celebration in 2019. The archives had not only
documents, but also memorabilia from the Unix Room. I obtained a 1970s TM
from him more recently, probably 2022.

An important organizer of Unix50 was martin.carroll@nokia-bell-labs.com. He
also was the inside lead on the release of post-v7 Unix source.

Doug

On Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 9:23 PM Ed Bradford <egbegb2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Who is/was the professional archivist and where is/was the collection last
> seen?
> Do you have any ideas?
>
> Ed
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 9:12 AM Douglas McIlroy <
> douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
>> > I wonder what happened to the amazing library at Murray Hill.
>>
>> Last I knew, the Bell Labs archives were intact under supervision of a
>> professional archivist. Formally speaking, the archives and the library
>> were distinct entities. The library, which was open to self service 24
>> hours a day, declined rapidly after the bean counters decreed that it
>> should henceforth support itself on rental fees. Departments immediately
>> turned to buying books rather than borrowing them. It's very likely that
>> this was bad for the Labs' bottom line, but the cost (both monetary and
>> intellectual) was not visible as a budgetary line item.
>>
>> The 24-hour library contributed to one of Ken's programming feats.
>> Spurred by a lunchtime remark that it would be nice to have a
>> unit-conversion program, Ken announced units(1) the next morning. Right
>> from the start, the program knew more than 200 units, thanks to a book Ken
>> grabbed from the library in the middle of the night.
>>
>> Doug
>>
>
>
> --
> Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.
>   Cicero
>
>

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