More About the ITSP & SiliconBase

• History of the Information Technology & Society Project (ITSP)
  
• ITSP Collaborators
  • Individuals
  • Organizations
    
• ITSP Staff
  
• Future Directions
  
  

Phase I: Building the Archive. The ITSP (originally called the Silicon Valley Project) was initiated in 1993 by Prof. Timothy Lenoir, Chair of Stanford's Program in History & Philosophy of Science, with seed money from the Stanford University Libraries, the Provost for Research, the Dean of Humanities & Sciences, and the Peter Bing Foundation. Working with graduate students and the Libraries' Academic Software Development group (ASD), Prof. Lenoir assembled an online archive comprising some 2,000 documents, including text, images, videos, and sound recordings. Lenoir and ASD also developed a variety of experimental interfaces and cataloguing tools. The project uses ASD's proprietary MediaWeaver multimedia distributed database management software to allow storage, retrieval, and searching of documents of any size, type, or data format with equal ease.

Phase II: Providing Universal WWW Access. In 1995 Prof. Paul N. Edwards of the Program in Science, Technology, & Society (STS) joined the Project as its new Director. He has guided development of a state-of-the-art World Wide Web site to allow widespread, seamless access to SiliconBase materials. In addition to document access, in Phase II SiliconBase added complete bibliographic information on its entire collection and the first "guided tours" of the database.

Phase III: Outreach, Extension, and Teaching. In Phase III -- beginning in Winter, 1995-96 -- the ITSP has engaged in public outreach. We have begun actively to solicit donations of individual and corporate archives beyond those currently available through Stanford University Special Collections. In addition we have sought to build research collaborations with groups outside Stanford, encouraging others to participate with us in better defining the archive for purposes of analysis and experimentation. One such experimental activity has been support for "electronic course reserves": using Stanford's computer network to deliver electronic course readers for students.Profs. Lenoir and Edwards have each used SiliconBase electronic readers in their courses.

Collaborators

Individual Collaborators

• Dr. Cuthbert Hurd (computer pioneer and former head, IBM Applied Sciences Dept.)
• Gwen Bell (co-founder, Computer Museum; former president, Association for Computing Machinery)
• Gordon Bell (computer pioneer; Computer Museum co-founder)
• Howard Rheingold (journalist; author of Tools for Thought)
• Prof. William F. Miller (Stanford Business School; Director, Stanford Computer Industry Project)
• Prof. Terry Winograd (Stanford Computer Science Dept.; Co-Director, Digital Libraries Project)
• Prof. Carey Heckman (Stanford Law & Technology Policy Center)
• Dr. Henry Lowood (Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections, Stanford Libraries)
• Michael Malone (journalist, filmmaker, pioneer historian of Silicon Valley)
  

Collaborating Organizations

The Computer Museum (Boston)	The London Science Museum
Stanford Digital Libraries Project	CalTech Beckman Center Project
Stanford Computer Forum	The Stanford and the Silicon Valley Project (SSVP)
Stanford Computer Industry Project (SCIP)	Stanford Law and Technology Policy Center (LTPC)
Computer History Association of California	Stanford Science, Technology & Economics Group (STEG)
Stanford Symbolic Systems Program	The Prologue Group (corporate historians)

Staff

Faculty and Staff Researchers

	Paul N. Edwards Director, Information Technology & Society Project Acting Asst. Prof., Program in Science, Technology & Society E-mail:pedwards@pcd.stanford.edu Phone: 723-6817
	Timothy Lenoir Founder, Information Technology & Society Project Professor of History Director, Program in History and Philosophy of Science E-mail:tlenoir@leland.stanford.edu Phone: 723-2993
	Michael Winnick Designer and Manager of SiliconBase E-mail:hammer@leland.stanford.edu Phone: 723-5418
	Henry Lowood ITSP archivist and library consultant Curator, Germanic Collections, University Libraries E-mail:lowood@leland.stanford.edu

Previous Staff and Researchers

Christophe M.P. Lecuyer
Weston Parker Headley
Phillip Stevens Thurtle

Student Assistants

Previous:
Khoi Tran, Assistant Editor emeritus
Monica Zema Lam
Soojin Lee
Alys May Shanti
James Michael Reinhold
Kevin Martin Knestrick
Paul-Charles Archimede Pietranico

Future Directions

We will continue to add materials on the history and sociology of computers, as well as important new video material being gathered on Silicon Valley pioneers. Secondly, we will develop additional "guided tours," drawing elements of our digital library into useful synopses on various topics. A third focus of our project will be to provide an automated "course reader builder" for on-line courseware development. As new information infrastructures allow, we plan to establish an on-line video forum, conduct collaborative on-line classes, and increase the capability of our Web interface.