The University of Illinois Archives has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to develop a prototype web-portal and analysis-engine to provide access to archival material related to the development of the iconic, multi-disciplinary field of cybernetics. Continue reading “University of Illinois Archives Awarded NEH Grant to Digitize “The Cybernetics Thought Collective””
Since its establishment in 1963, the University of Illinois Archives has served as the steward of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s institutional memory. Through the preservation of the administrative records that document the development of the University’s colleges, departments, and programs; of faculty papers that shed light on the fascinating twists and turns of research and the light-bulb moments in which ideas emerge; and of the papers of alumni and student groups that allow us to understand the legacy of the University and student life, the materials in the University Archives’ holdings chronicle the achievements, activities, and impact of the University of Illinois’ administrators, faculty, and students over the past 150 years. Continue reading “University of Illinois Archives Celebrates Sesquicentennial”
What do the study of the computational principles in living organisms, the end of the world, and a counterculture student-produced guide to the university all have in common? These subjects are all documented in the personal papers of electrical engineering professor Heinz von Foerster (1911-2002), whose work and laboratory at the University of Illinois transformed a generation of scientists, engineers, and humanists and the interdisciplinary approaches they employed to answer questions about behavior. “Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory: A Cybernetics Odyssey”–a new exhibit in the University Archives, room 146–contains selections from the Heinz von Foerster Papers, the Biological Computer Laboratory Publications, and the Biological Computer Laboratory Contract and Conference File, which highlight the genesis and evolution of the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) as well as von Foerster’s cybernetics research and role as an educator. Continue reading “Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory: A Cybernetics Odyssey”
The University Archives has a new online exhibit featuring the papers of Watson F. Lewis, who signed up to be an international secretary for the YMCA at the end of World War I. The papers were donated by Marjorie L. Lewis, Watson Lewis’s daughter, who earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University. These papers include letters from Lewis to his wife describing his travels and work in Russia and China between 1918 and 1921, as well as souvenirs from his travels, books, YMCA dispatches, and many photographs.
The new exhibit introduces this collection, particularly the letters, which are a rare example of a first-person account in English about this area of the world in the early 20th century.
As the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the Visual Resources Association (VRA) begin their third-ever joint conference, we look back at the 12th Summer Educational Institute for Visual Resources and Image Management (SEI), co-sponsored by ARLIS/NA and the VRA Foundation, which took place June 9-12, 2015, on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. It provided the opportunity to highlight some of the holdings of the ARLIS/NA Archives, which are held by the University of Illinois Archives.
Missed the live exhibit? See it online here!