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 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 > >