News from the Archives, Spring 2022

Building Back

The 2021-2022 school year here at the University of Minnesota has been one of rebuilding and restoring. Finding our stride again in today’s new normal. Much has changed, while much has (surprisingly!) remained the same.

Over the course of this year, we’ve begun to restore our research services to pre-pandemic levels–bringing in more off-campus researchers and conducting slightly less digital delivery of services. Teaching has also returned to in-person methods and we recently welcomed students from Macalester College’s Russian Studies program to Andersen Library.

As we rebuild and restore our services and efficiency, I would like to thank you for your continued support and patience. This has been a difficult few years for all of us and CBI’s wonderful supporters has meant the world to us!

Research in Focus

It was a busy fall for new researchers at CBI. We had the opportunity to welcome several international visitors from Germany and Israel, as well as a number of local researchers and those from far-flung points in the U.S. A range of our collections have been used – including the Gartner Group records (CBI 228), our very strong Soviet, Russian, and Eastern Bloc collection (CBI 148), Sperry Rand Corporation Univac records (CBI 129), Engineering Research Associates (ERA)-Remington Rand-Sperry Rand records (CBI 176), the Edmund Berkeley papers (CBI 50), the Margaret R. Fox papers (CBI 45), the Mark P. McCahill papers (CBI 195), and various aspects of the Control Data Corporation records (CBI 80) and the Burroughs Corporation records (CBI 90).

Donations and Development    

Collection development is slowly returning to a new normal, with many logistics issues still complicating our ability to take in new collections. Despite this, we’re working to acquire a few extraordinary collections from around the world and I look forward to sharing more as we come closer to bringing them to campus.

I would also like to thank recent donors Ben Shneiderman and Edward Miller for their generous donations over the course of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 – look for these finding aids in the summer.

Finally, I had the opportunity to present at the Archives and Special Collections Department’s First Friday seminar series on May 6th, 2022. The topic of my talk was a brief history of CBI and the “firsts” of Minnesota computing. Please look for a link to the virtual lecture to come out later this spring. 

Amanda Wick

Interim CBI Curator

 

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