July 28, 2014

by Andrew Russell

The Charles Babbage Institute oral history database now has transcripts available of oral histories with pioneers of European computer networking. These transcripts include several interviews conducted by Andrew Russell, as well as additional interviews conducted by Valérie Schafer and Tom Misa. As a collection, these interviews complement existing interviews with American pioneers of computer networks such as the Arpanet and Internet.

Insights from these oral history interviews have already been used in published work, including Russell’s 2014 book Open Standards and the Digital Age: History, Ideology, and Networks and an article by Russell and Schafer, “In the Shadow of Arpanet and Internet: Louis Pouzin and the Cyclades Network in the 1970s,” which will appear in the October 2014 issue of Technology & Culture. The travel and transcription costs of Russell’s and Schafer’s interviews were supported by a 2011 grant from the ACM History Committee.

Interview list (transcripts are available from http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/):

John Day (OH 422) http://purl.umn.edu/155070

Andre Danthine (OH 428) http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/162412

Rémi Després (OH 421) http://purl.umn.edu/155671

Gérard Le Lann (OH 420) http://purl.umn.edu/155670

Jean-Louis Grangé (OH 419) http://purl.umn.edu/155669

Michel Gien (OH 418) http://purl.umn.edu/155668

Louis Pouzin (OH 416) http://purl.umn.edu/155666

Najah Naffah (OH 415) http://purl.umn.edu/155665

Marc Levilion (OH 417) http://purl.umn.edu/155667

Tilly Bayard-Richard (OH 414) http://purl.umn.edu/155221