Computers, Information and Society, Division of (NMAH, SI). Search this
Container:
Box 55, Folder 2
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Reference copies do not exist for all of the audio. Use of these materials requires special arrangement with Archives Center staff.
Original audio tapes are stored offsite. Contact repository for details.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Computer Oral History Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Online transcripts for select oral history interviews were made possible by the Morton I. Bernstein Fund and the Association for Computing Machinery, the Special Interest Group on Management of Data (SIGMOD), and the Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN).
Folder 7 MOD I Atlas Guidance Computer, 1960, 1965. Includes Electronic Digital Automatic Data Processing and Computing System Survey Questionnaire from the Burroughs Corporation; scripts and drawings.
Collection Creator::
National Museum of American History. Division of Physical Sciences and Mathematics Search this
Container:
Box 17 of 24
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 332, National Museum of American History. Division of Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Curatorial Records
Folders 6-7 SELGEM, 1973, 1975-1980. Pertains to SELGEM computer program: standard subsystem functions, file space, transfer directions, and basic programmer documentation. Also includes Smithsonian Handbook for Automatic Data Processing, guide to the ...
Collection Creator::
National Museum of American History. Division of Physical Sciences and Mathematics Search this
Container:
Box 18 of 24
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 332, National Museum of American History. Division of Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Curatorial Records
These records are the official minutes of the Board. They are compiled at the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian, who is also secretary to the Board, after
approval by the Regents' Executive Committee and by the Regents themselves. The minutes are edited, not a verbatim account of proceedings. For reasons unknown, there are no
manuscript minutes for the period from 1857 through 1890; and researchers must rely on printed minutes published in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution instead.
Minutes are transferred regularly from the Secretary's Office to the Archives. Minutes less than 15 years old are closed to researchers. Indexes exist for the period from
1907 to 1946 and can be useful.
Historical Note:
The Smithsonian Institution was created by authority of an Act of Congress approved August 10, 1846. The Act entrusted direction of the Smithsonian to a body called
the Establishment, composed of the President; the Vice President; the Chief Justice of the United States; the secretaries of State, War, Navy, Interior, and Agriculture; the
Attorney General; and the Postmaster General. In fact, however, the Establishment last met in 1877, and control of the Smithsonian has always been exercised by its Board of
Regents. The membership of the Regents consists of the Vice President and the Chief Justice of the United States; three members each of the Senate and House of Representatives;
two citizens of the District of Columbia; and seven citizens of the several states, no two from the same state. (Prior to 1970 the category of Citizen Regents not residents
of Washington consisted of four members). By custom the Chief Justice is Chancellor. The office was at first held by the Vice President. However, when Millard Fillmore succeeded
to the presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor in 1851, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney was chosen in his stead. The office has always been filled by the Chief Justice
since that time.
The Regents of the Smithsonian have included distinguished Americans from many walks of life. Ex officio members (Vice President) have been: Spiro T. Agnew, Chester A.
Arthur, Allen W. Barkley, John C. Breckenridge, George Bush, Schuyler Colfax, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Curtis, George M. Dallas, Charles G. Dawes, Charles W. Fairbanks, Millard
Fillmore, Gerald R. Ford, John N. Garner, Hannibal Hamlin, Thomas A. Hendricks, Garret A. Hobart, Hubert H. Humphrey, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, William R. King, Thomas
R. Marshall, Walter F. Mondale, Levi P. Morton, Richard M. Nixon, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Theodore Roosevelt, James S. Sherman, Adlai E. Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Henry A.
Wallace, William A. Wheeler, Henry Wilson.
Ex officio members (Chief Justice) have been: Roger B. Taney, Salmon P. Chase, Nathan Clifford, Morrison R. Waite, Samuel F. Miller, Melville W. Fuller, Edward D. White,
William Howard Taft, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan F. Stone, Fred M. Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger.
Regents on the part of the Senate have been: Clinton P. Anderson, Newton Booth, Sidney Breese, Lewis Cass, Robert Milledge Charlton, Bennet Champ Clark, Francis M. Cockrell,
Shelby Moore Cullom, Garrett Davis, Jefferson Davis, George Franklin Edmunds, George Evans, Edwin J. Garn, Walter F. George, Barry Goldwater, George Gray, Hannibal Hamlin,
Nathaniel Peter Hill, George Frisbie Hoar, Henry French Hollis, Henry M. Jackson, William Lindsay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Medill McCormick, James Murray Mason, Samuel Bell Maxey,
Robert B. Morgan, Frank E. Moss, Claiborne Pell, George Wharton Pepper, David A. Reed, Leverett Saltonstall, Hugh Scott, Alexander H. Smith, Robert A. Taft, Lyman Trumbull,
Wallace H. White, Jr., Robert Enoch Withers.
Regents on the part of the House of Representatives have included: Edward P. Boland, Frank T. Bow, William Campbell Breckenridge, Overton Brooks, Benjamin Butterworth,
Clarence Cannon, Lucius Cartrell, Hiester Clymer, William Colcock, William P. Cole, Jr., Maurice Connolly, Silvio O. Conte, Edward E. Cox, Edward H. Crump, John Dalzell, Nathaniel
Deering, Hugh A. Dinsmore, William English, John Farnsworth, Scott Ferris, Graham Fitch, James Garfield, Charles L. Gifford, T. Alan Goldsborough, Frank L. Greene, Gerry Hazleton,
Benjamin Hill, Henry Hilliard, Ebenezer Hoar, William Hough, William M. Howard, Albert Johnson, Leroy Johnson, Joseph Johnston, Michael Kirwan, James T. Lloyd, Robert Luce,
Robert McClelland, Samuel K. McConnell, Jr., George H. Mahon, George McCrary, Edward McPherson, James R. Mann, George Perkins Marsh, Norman Y. Mineta, A. J. Monteague, R.
Walton Moore, Walter H. Newton, Robert Dale Owen, James Patterson, William Phelps, Luke Poland, John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn, B. Carroll Reece, Ernest W. Roberts, Otho Robards
Singleton, Frank Thompson, Jr., John M. Vorys, Hiram Warner, Joseph Wheeler.
Citizen Regents have been: David C. Acheson, Louis Agassiz, James B. Angell, Anne L. Armstrong, William Backhouse Astor, J. Paul Austin, Alexander Dallas Bache, George
Edmund Badger, George Bancroft, Alexander Graham Bell, James Gabriel Berrett, John McPherson Berrien, Robert W. Bingham, Sayles Jenks Bowen, William G. Bowen, Robert S. Brookings,
John Nicholas Brown, William A. M. Burden, Vannevar Bush, Charles F. Choate, Jr., Rufus Choate, Arthur H. Compton, Henry David Cooke, Henry Coppee, Samuel Sullivan Cox, Edward
H. Crump, James Dwight Dana, Harvey N. Davis, William Lewis Dayton, Everette Lee Degolyer, Richard Delafield, Frederic A. Delano, Charles Devens, Matthew Gault Emery, Cornelius
Conway Felton, Robert V. Fleming, Murray Gell-Mann, Robert F. Goheen, Asa Gray, George Gray, Crawford Hallock Greenwalt, Nancy Hanks, Caryl Parker Haskins, Gideon Hawley,
John B. Henderson, John B. Henderson, Jr., A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Gardner Greene Hubbard, Charles Evans Hughes, Carlisle H. Humelsine, Jerome C. Hunsaker, William Preston
Johnston, Irwin B. Laughlin, Walter Lenox, Augustus P. Loring, John Maclean, William Beans Magruder, John Walker Maury, Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, John C. Merriam, R. Walton
Moore, Roland S. Morris, Dwight W. Morrow, Richard Olney, Peter Parker, Noah Porter, William Campbell Preston, Owen Josephus Roberts, Richard Rush, William Winston Seaton,
Alexander Roby Shepherd, William Tecumseh Sherman, Otho Robards Singleton, Joseph Gilbert Totten, John Thomas Towers, Frederic C. Walcott, Richard Wallach, Thomas J. Watson,
Jr., James E. Webb, James Clarke Welling, Andrew Dickson White, Henry White, Theodore Dwight Woolsey.
National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing Search this
Extent:
14.5 cu. ft. (14 record storage boxes) (1 document box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Books
Brochures
Clippings
Manuscripts
Electronic records
Architectural drawings
Black-and-white photographs
Audiotapes
Date:
1965-1990
Descriptive Entry:
These records document the development of automated data management systems for the collections of NMNH and other museums, the establishment of data handling and storage
standards, and the consolidation of administrative structures to control automation policy at the Smithsonian. They include documentation of the Health, Education and Welfare
(HEW) Project, consisting of contract notes, quarterly technical progress reports from October 1967 through the interim report in January 1969, and the final report, issued
in July 1970. The records also contain files of correspondence, memoranda, meetings, and reports created by Mello from 1968 through 1973, and as recently as 1983. The materials
document Mello's involvement with several projects, including Flora North America (FNA), a tracking system for botanical loans and exchanges among institutions; and the Systematic
Biology Collections Questionnaire, many of which were completed and returned to Mello in 1968.
The records also describe the evolution of the ADP Program through administrative files dating from 1971 through 1987; budget files for 1980, 1986, and 1987; memoranda
files for 1981, 1982, 1988, and 1989; correspondence files from 1977 to 1980; and chronologic files from 1980 to 1985. In addition, the records contain collections inventory
documentation dating from 1972 to 1982, which includes files and reports on data management in the different departments and divisions of NMNH, and files on techniques and
procedures. The records also include subject and project files dating from 1967 to 1990, which document the development of SELGEM from 1970 to 1978; planning for the Smithsonian
Institution Network (SINET); ADP's involvement with the Museum Computer Network (MCN); planning materials for data processing space at the Museum Support Center (MSC), 1979
to 1986; and ADP's interaction with OCS, later the Office of Information Resource Technology (OIRM).
The records also contain files on a project done in cooperation with the Rocky Mountain Laboratory (RML) in Hamilton, Montana, during which data on a tick collection belonging
to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was stored on a Smithsonian database. These materials, dating from 1976 to 1980, include program codes and microfiche. In addition,
the records contain Museum Data Standards files from 1967 through 1977; the "Museum Data Bank Research Report," numbers 1 through 12, November 1974 through November 1976;
the NMNH Records Manual, dated 1969; unidentified slides; and undated reel to reel recordings of speakers at various symposia.
Historical Note:
In 1963 the Director of the National Museum of Natural History formed a committee to explore the possibilities of data processing in a museum context. In July 1967
the museum received a three-year grant from the Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and with the assistance of the Smithsonian's Information
Systems Division, later renamed the Office of Computer Services (OCS), it began developing the Smithsonian Institution Information Retrieval System (SIIRS), also known as
the Natural History Information Retrieval system (NHIR). By December 1969 several thousand records from representative collections in NMNH had been entered, and groundwork
had been laid for the establishment of data standards.
After the grant ended in 1970 a central organization named the Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Program was formed at NMNH under the direction of James F. Mello to develop
and coordinate permanent data-processing services for the museum. Soon after the Program was established it began working closely with OCS to develop a new system to replace
SIIRS. Named SELGEM, for "SElf GEnerating Master," it became the basic data processing system at NMNH and at several other museums, universities, and government agencies.
In January 1973 Mello was appointed Assistant Director of the museum, but he remained in charge of the ADP Program until May, when T. Gary Gautier became Acting Chief. Gautier
was later named Chief, and by 1980 he was the Museum's Information Systems Manager in charge of the ADP Program. In 1985 he was named Assistant Director in charge of the ADP
Office.
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 95-169, National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing, Program Records
Association of Systematics Collections - B (T. G. Gautier)
Collection Creator::
National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing Search this
Container:
Box 2 of 15
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 95-169, National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing, Program Records
National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing Search this
Container:
Box 2 of 15
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 95-169, National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing, Program Records
National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing Search this
Container:
Box 2 of 15
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 95-169, National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing, Program Records
National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing Search this
Container:
Box 2 of 15
Type:
Archival materials
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 95-169, National Museum of Natural History. Assistant Director for Automatic Data Processing, Program Records
