HP’s lost archive: Rebuilding begins

December 22, 2017

Efforts are being made to reconstruct the history of the company, which was destroyed by fire in October. Following the Californian wildfires that destroyed much of HP’s archives earlier this year, the company’s archivist has pledged to rebuild as much as she can, reports IEEE Spectrum. Over 100 boxes of correspondence, memos and other documents and artefacts were lost to the blaze, which in total claimed 22 lives and destroyed thousands of buildings and properties. The collection had originally been indexed by Karen Lewis, who was originally hired by HP in 1987 to archive a small collection of unorganised boxes in time for the company’s 50th anniversary. Lewis ended up spending more than two decades with the OEM, organising and cataloguing documents, with the result she is able to know exactly what was lost in the fire. Lewis says perhaps the most heartbreaking loss was the carbon copies of all of David Packard’s outgoing correspondence and accompanying replies, about which Lewis says he was “obsessive.” “He had copies of everything,” she explains. “As a result, we could see his strategic thinking, for example, his correspondence with Leon Sullivan discussing the Sullivan principles” – the 1997 code of conduct used to apply pressure on South Africa to end apartheid. These epistles, and many others which trace the development of Packard’s thoughts various subjects, were never digitised. “Many archives of that age and size don’t get digitised because the papers are of different sizes and thicknesses,” continues Lewis. “It is expensive and it is difficult to make sure you have the necessary accuracy. So it’s not uncommon to just store them safely and securely in the proper environment for preservation.” Whilst historians and enthusiasts across Silicon Valley and the wider tech world were distraught at the archive’s destruction, Lewis is now focussing on rebuilding it as best she can. Although many original documents have been incinerated, she has “a full text” of oral histories on her computer, and also a “full-text inputting of Packard’s speeches”. Additionally, Lewis has the benefit of annotated indexes of the archive, box by box and folder by folder, even if not the archives themselves, with copies spread across a variety of both personal and corporate computers. “I have some stuff on my computer,” says Lewis, “and other people have copied things.” The task now is to rebuild what was lost using this skeletal starting point, using the help and contributions of other archivists, and those who may have documents to share. Already, people who formerly researched HP’s archive and copied papers and letters have started coming forwards. Lewis plans to “get together with people at Agilent” to “put together what remains and get it to a safe and secure place that is open to researchers, like Stanford or the Smithsonian.” “I don’t have funding at this point, but that’s okay,” says Lewis, who describes the process as a “labour of love.” “I had a whole career as an archivist – at Harvard, at HP, at Agilent, at Apple. It’s time for me to give back.” If you have copies of any documents as described above and can help Karen, she can be contacted at karenrlewis@gmail.com