A Few Comments on Recent History

Although the history of Silicon Valley is recent, it is  both rich and in jeopardy.  Irreplaceable documentation --  particularly the papers of individuals and enterprises --  are being lost, which is why the Stanford Silicon Valley  Archives are working to raise consciousness about the  importance of placing such papers in permanent,  professionally managed archives. At the same time, much of  the history of Silicon Valley is undocumented altogether,  in the form of recollections, opinions,  digressions and disagreements, personal narratives etc. on  the part of players and eyewitnesses, i.e., the stuff of  oral history. This information, too, is subject to  disappearance as individuals change, move, forget or pass  along.

Part of the role of a contemporary archives is to obtain  and record what is potentially undocumented, i.e., to  create as well as to preserve the record of the recent  past. We hope through the Symposium and through this web  site to solicit, record, and organize some of this  evanscent, but vital (in several senses of the word)  information.