IT History Society - An IT Teaching and Research Resource

By Jeffery D. Stein, Chairman, IT History Society

Formed in 2007, the IT History Society is dedicated to informing IT companies about the value in preserving their history, helping archivists to be more effective in their work in preserving IT history and, most importantly, being a reference point for the many international places of computing history information.

The Society wants to assist educators, students of information technology, and researchers in learning more about the history and background of the information technology industry, an industry that has had a significant effect on mankind in the past seven decades.

It has nearly 700 international institutional and individual members (no charge to be a member). Institutional members include IBM, HP, Intel, the Smithsonian Institution, Computer History Museum, Charles Babbage Institute, MIT, Caltech, Hans Nixdorf Museum, British Library, Stanford Silicon Valley Museum, Deutsches Museum, IEEE History Center, UK National Archive, Hagley Museum, and more. Individual members include historians, computer scientists, and people who have worked in the industry from various countries.

Currently the Society has many online databases; but two, in particular, may be of great value for teaching information technology and research:

1. IT Historical Resource Sites Database - over 400 and growing every day, sites that have historical information about the information industry. This entire database is completely indexed and searchable, which can be a beneficial aid in targeted search and research.

2. IT Honor Roll - a database of over 800 names and growing, discussing individuals who have made a noteworthy contribution to the information technology industry.

Other information technology resources from the IT History Society are:

• Calendar of upcoming IT Historical and Archival events
• Research links and tools to aid in the preservation of IT history
• Over 1,000 Technology Quotes
• An active Blog with discussions about historical IT events and the people behind them
• A Social Network of IT history professionals, archivists, and hobbyists.

The Society is also in the process of creating three more databases:

• All information technology companies both past and present
• All information technology software created, both past and present
• All information technology hardware created, both past and present

The Society feels that these valuable resources can be of great benefit to information technology professors, teachers, assistants, researchers, and students. All databases are works in progress and each database has links for the IT community to add and grow the entries of each database.

The Society is a non-profit educational and research organization. It does not charge for membership or the use of its information. The IT community supports the Society's operations through donations to its 501 (c) (3) non-profit foundation. For additional information, see: http://ithistory.org/educators/