PELS History World Wide Web Site
Establishing the Internet World-Wide Web site, "History of the
IEEE Power Electronics Society" was my top priority and this
activity went quite well. The site was linked to the PELS Web site
from the beginning and will soon physically transfer to the
society server at VPI now that security issues have been resolved.
The advantage of this is that all members of the History Committee
who want to work on the history pages can have author (write)
access. If you have not visited the site, I encourage you to do
so. It can be accessed from the PELS home page.
http:/www.ieee.org/society/pels
Conference Material
During my first term as historian (1988 to 1989), historical
materials from all the PESC conferences from 1970 to 1989 were
collected and archived as well as all APEC conferences from 1986
to 1989. Few materials from early INTELEC® (started in 1978)
or from any conference since 1989 have been collected. (As can be
seen from the archive lists on the web site, there are some
materials from scattered conferences, especially through 1993.)
Knowing how hard it is to find materials after the fact, stemming
and reversing this trend was my second priority. Unfortunately,
this activity met with no success and is basically in the hands of
the conference committee. I wish Steve Freeland more success in
setting up a procedure with the conference committee to collect
and preserve these materials and to reclaim past materials to the
greatest extent possible. The problem is not with the conference
records, which are archived in many libraries, but with seminar
notes and miscellaneous materials, which, if not archived by the
Society will be lost to history. Including the conference records
is desirable so that a future researcher can find all the
materials in a single archive.
"As I Remember It"
This project is to collect short remembrances from people who
have been involved in matters significant to the Society. The
prototype is the letter from Henry Oman on the beginnings of the
IEEE Power Electronics Specialist Conference which can can be
viewed on the PELS History World Wide Web Site. As our pioneers,
both young and old, get older, collecting this information becomes
an increasing priority. You people know who you are. More often
than not, you have served on the PELS AdCom. Take a look at Henry
Oman's letter and see if you can write a similar remembrance. If
you know anyone who can, please encourage them to document their
experience and send it to the historian. There are one or two
things in the archives that fit this category and I hope to put up
on the Web. But, along with archiving missing conference
materials, this activity moved little during the year.
Future Goals
The incoming history chair, Steve Freeland, will set his goals
for 1997. I have asked to continue on the History Committee for
the purpose of working on the PELS History web site and to
continue archiving the documents and photos in my possession prior
to turning them over to a central archive location. Also, every
chance I get, I hope to bug anyone who can write an "As I Remember
It" memo to do so.
Jerrold Foutz
1996 IEEE PELS Historian
January 23, 1997.