Libraries, Museums, Archives and Conservation Groups

Discovery

Discovery is the catalogue database of the UK National Archives in Kew. It holds more than 37 million descriptions of records held by The National Archives and more than 3,500 archives across the country. Archives of IT is on Discovery’s Archon database as an archive repository, and our catalogue can be accessed here.

The Archives Hub

Our website has been catalogued on the Archives Hub, run by JISC. The Archives Hub brings together descriptions of thousands of the UK’s archive collections. Representing over 350 institutions across the country. AIT’s catalogue can be accessed here.

The Centre for Computing History is much more than a museum. Based in Cambridge, it hosts hands-on exhibitions, educational workshops and a wide range of activities and events.

Visit the CCH

The CCS is a co-operative venture between the British Computer Society, the Science Museum of London, the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, the National Museum of Computing and the Bletchley Park Trust.
The CCS was constituted in September 1989 as a Specialist Group of the BCS. It is thus covered by the Royal Charter and the charitable status of the BCS.

The aims of the CCS

• To promote the conservation, restoration and reconstruction of historic computers and to identify existing computers which may need to be archived in the future.
• To develop awareness of the importance of historic computers.
• To develop expertise in the conservation, restoration and reconstruction of historic computers.
• To represent the interests of Computer Conservation Society members with other bodies.
• To promote the study of historic computers, their use and the history of the computer industry.
• To publish information of relevance to these objectives for the information of Computer Conservation Society members and the wider public.

Visit the CCS website

The museum at IBM Hursley Park exists to help preserve IBM’s historical heritage. The museum contains artefacts from the Hursley Park location as well as hardware from the company’s beginnings through to many of the products developed at Hursley over the years. Staff on-site can visit the museum at any time. Customer groups are often shown around the Museum during visits to the Executive Briefing Centre but due to its location in the IBM development laboratory the Museum is not open to the general public. However visits by organised groups can be, and are, arranged. Recent visitors have included several branches of the University of the Third Age (U3A), Chichester College,OGLE, the Computer Conservation Society and the National Museum of Computing (Bletchley Park). Applications for such visits should be made to uklabscomms@uk.ibm.com.

Visit the IBM Museum website

BT Group’s Archives are based at the Holborn Telephone Exchange building in London, England. The story of the company BT begins in 1846 with the world’s first telegraph company and continues with BT Group today. Their Archives don’t just contain records from BT Group but also the Post Office, private telegraph companies, and a complete set of historical telephone directories for the whole UK including from predecessors of BT. More can be found on their website, including a searchable catalogue and database of digitised photographs, films and documents.

BT Group Archives – Our history – About BT | BT Plc

Their reading room is open by appointment, contact details on their website.

The LEO Computers Society website celebrates the World’s first business computer.
Membership of the Society is open to:
• all ex-employees of LEO Computers and its succeeding companies;
• anyone who worked with a LEO computer;
• and anyone who has a specific interest in the history of LEO Computers.
They encourage those who have an interest in LEO, as specified above, to join the Society
Membership is currently free of charge.

Visit the Leo Society Website

The Mobile Phone Museum project was conceived by Ben Wood in 2004. In 2019 he joined forces with fellow mobile phone collector, Matt Chatterley and a year later they worked with a small team to create a not-for-profit entity which is now a registered charity. This is designed to safeguard this important collection of mobile technology heritage and help fund further growth.

Click here to visit

The National Museum of Computing, located on Bletchley Park, is an independent charity housing the world’s largest collection of functional historic computers, including the rebuilt Colossus, the world’s first electronic computer, and the WITCH, the world’s oldest working digital computer. The museum enables visitors to follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s and beyond.

Girls into Computing gives links to many organisations that aim to increase the numbers of girls going into computing.

TNMOC Archive

The Science Museum has a vast collection on computer history, only some of which is available digitally. Below are links to some areas that you may find useful:

Search Results for Computer History

This will take you to a page where you can look through all the items returned by searching “Computer History”

Pioneers of Computing

The University’s History of Computing Collection contains equipment, software, archives, ephemera, oral histories, and videos. It was founded, in Autumn 2007, in order to study historically technological development and innovation and, especially, the relationship between computing technologies and people and society.

One important focus is the development of computing in Wales. They have found that by investigating the local history of computing they are better able to see and try to understand the complicated interplay of technical, social, economic and cultural “causes and effects”.

The Collection is also interested in certain specialist areas of computing. The choice of these subjects reflects the interests of members of Swansea University and friends of the Collection. For example, they have an archive of L J Comrie, FRS (1893-1950), a pioneer of numerical methods, which contains notes and his collection of mathematical tables; and they have archives charting the development of theoretical computer science and formal methods for software engineering.

Visit their website 

Until April 2024 the exhibition Makers and Machines: creativity in the computer age is running at the Birmingham Science Museum. The exhibition includes contributions from local people involved with programming and computers, including AIT interviewee Dame Stephanie Shirley. Find out more in our news article.

Based in Leigh, the North West Computer Museum showcases video game classics from the 1970s to the present day.

The Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick holds a selection of records documenting the history of the early computer industry in the UK. Links below are to their online catalogue

• Interviews with John Daines and Ray Shaw, pioneers of LEO computers and members of LEO Computers Society https://mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/LEO
• Papers of John Simmons relating to the LEO computer https://mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/SIS
• Digitised collection of images relating to the development of LEO https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/leo
• Records of the Institute of Administrative Management, earlier the Office Machinery Users’ Association https://mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/IAM.

Hosted by the  UKRI Science and Technology Facilities Council, the Chilton Computing Heritage Archive is a collection of over 3000 photographs, videos and other heritage artefacts and archives relating to the Atlas Computer and Rutherford (Appleton) Laboratories and the technology and the staff who worked there. Digitised archive photographs can be found on the website, alongside photographs of objects and blogs.

Chilton::Chilton Computing heritage archive (chilton-computing.org.uk)

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, known as IMechE, has an extensive archive on the history of mechanical engineering, including the application of computers to engineering. They have digitised some of their holdings and created the iMeche Virtual Archive, which can be searched here:

Institution of Mechanical Engineers (imeche.org)

The CBI Archives collects, preserves and provides access to rich archival collections and rare publications documenting the history of technology, from the era of tabulators and electromechanical calculators in the period prior to World War II, through the development of the electronic digital computer, mainframes, mini and microcomputers, software and networking. Oral histories, photographs, journal and serial publications and a reference library complement the archival and special collections holdings.

Visit the CBI Archive

The mission of the Computer History Museum is to preserve and present for posterity the artifacts and stories of the Information Age.

The Computer History Museum is a nonprofit organization with a four-decade history as the world’s leading institution exploring the history of computing and its ongoing impact on society. The Museum is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computer history and is home to the largest international collection of computing artifacts in the world, encompassing computer hardware, software, documentation, ephemera, photographs, oral histories, and moving images.

The Museum brings computer history to life through large-scale exhibits, an acclaimed speaker series, a dynamic website, docent-led tours and an award-winning education program.

Visit the CHM Oral History Collection

The IT History Society (ITHS) is an international group of over 700 members working together to document, preserve, catalog, and research the history of Information Technology (IT). Comprised of individuals, academicians, corporate archivists, curators of public institutions, and hobbyists, their online resources include:

• A global network of IT historians and archivists
• Our exclusive International Database of Historical and Archival Sites
• IT Honor Roll of people who have made a noteworthy contribution to the industry
• Records of Hardware, Software, and Companies databases
• Technology Quotes
• Calendar of upcoming events
• An active Blog

Visit the ITHS website