Subject: SIGMOD History Committee

From: Richard Snodgrass <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:16:44 -0700

To the SIGMOD EC,

At the meeting in Phoenix in February was the following action item.

- History of databases and SIGMOD

Important to preserve SIGMOD's legacy

*******************************
Action item Rick: Form committee on "database history project" and make
proposal to EC
*******************************

My view of the charge of this committee is to encourage research and
information dissemination on the history of databases and supporting
technologies (e.g., disk drives).

This charge is consistent with the SIGMOD brand, "premier database
community for innovative dissemination of knowledge".

As a first step, the following is a list of people who may be
appropriate for such a committee.

Charles Bachman
Phil Bernstein (goes back to CCA)
Jim Gray
David Lomet (goes back to DEC's RDB)
Paul McJones (helped get the System R and Codd papers for the Anthology)
Pat Selinger
Toby Teorey (about to retire from UMichigan, but still active)
Jeff Ullman (retired from Stanford)
Gio Wiederhold (retired from Stanford)

My guess is that not all would agree to serve on this committee (I
have only mentioned this committee to Toby; the rest I haven't
contacted yet). I'd like to have about six on the committee, including
the chair. I'd also like to include one or two from the SIGMOD EC, but
I'd like to deal with that later.

One potential problem is that for some of the above people we may want to
commission oral histories, which would make it a little awkward that
they were on the committee. But then again, that might be true for
almost anyone we consider for the committee.

My conception is that this committee would meet primarily by
conference call and email, though it might be useful at some point to
have a face-to-face meeting, perhaps at SIGMOD (for which we would
go to the EC for travel funds). So initially all we would need would
be money for say six conference calls a year.

Of course, as the committee did its work, it would want to come back to
the EC with requests for funding (e.g., oral histories, digitization
projects). I suggest an initial allocation of $3K per year, as a placeholder
in the budget.

I would appreciate feedback from the EC on (a) the committee's charge,
(b)  who might be appropriate to invite (additions to and deletions from
the above list), (c) funding of the committee, and (d) any other advice.

Thanks in advance,

Rick