The Bell Labs archivist, Ed Eckert, ed.eckert@nokia-bell-labs.com, played a big role in the Labs' Unix50 celebration in 2019. The archives had not only documents, but also memorabilia from the Unix Room. I obtained a 1970s TM from him more recently, probably 2022.

An important organizer of Unix50 was martin.carroll@nokia-bell-labs.com. He also was the inside lead on the release of post-v7 Unix source.

Doug

On Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 9:23 PM Ed Bradford <egbegb2@gmail.com> wrote:
Who is/was the professional archivist and where is/was the collection last seen?
Do you have any ideas?

Ed


On Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 9:12 AM Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> I wonder what happened to the amazing library at Murray Hill.

Last I knew, the Bell Labs archives were intact under supervision of a professional archivist. Formally speaking, the archives and the library were distinct entities. The library, which was open to self service 24 hours a day, declined rapidly after the bean counters decreed that it should henceforth support itself on rental fees. Departments immediately turned to buying books rather than borrowing them. It's very likely that this was bad for the Labs' bottom line, but the cost (both monetary and intellectual) was not visible as a budgetary line item.

The 24-hour library contributed to one of Ken's programming feats. Spurred by a lunchtime remark that it would be nice to have a unit-conversion program, Ken announced units(1) the next morning. Right from the start, the program knew more than 200 units, thanks to a book Ken grabbed from the library in the middle of the night.

Doug


--
Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.
  Cicero