The History of Computing Collection at Swansea University has been a base for exploring the history of Human-Computer Interaction since 2007.
Recently, the collection has been supporting the Archives for IT and Dr Elisabetta Mori in a project mapping British HCI over the past 75 years or so.
Some of the first fruits of this have now been published.
Dr Elisabetta Mori, From Punch Cards to Brain Computer Interfaces: 75 Years of Human Computer Interaction and its Impact on Society
The report looks at the subject through the unique knowledge repository of interviews of the Archives of IT (AIT), produced since 2015, and with six new interviews of senior figures between late 2022 and early 2023, including Alan Dix and Harold Thimbleby. This report brings the testimonies of pioneers together, giving us a more comprehensive, up-to-date and yet personal account of this life-changing aspect of social and industrial history.
One of the aims of the centre is to advance this study of the area in the coming years. Computer Science at Swansea already embeds the history of computing in the curriculum at Swansea and has since the 1980s. The History of Computing Collection also has a critical role in preserving (in particular local) computing history, as well as the various academic and educational purposes that it serves.