The records were given to the Charles Babbage Institute by the Data Processing Management Association in 1991, Georgia Blair Miller in 1996, and Rhonda Mattson in 1998.
Access to the collection is unrestricted.
The Charles Babbage Institute holds the copyright to all materials in the collection, except for items covered by a prior copyright (such as published materials). Researchers may quote from the collection under the fair use provisions of the copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).
Data Processing Management Association Records (CBI 88), Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
The Data Processing Management Organization (DPMA) began in 1949 as the National Machine Accountants Association (NMAA). NMAA was incorporated in late 1951 and held its first convention in 1952 in Minneapolis, MN. Ten years later, NMAA changed its name to expand its membership beyond finance and accounting professionals. The change to DPMA enabled the organization to encompass the broadening spectrum of data processing users in the 1960s. DPMA retained the organizational structure of NMAA with numerous chapters placed in geographic divisions. Later these divisions were replaced with regions. Each region had a representative on the Executive Council who served with several executive officers and implemented policy decisions from the International Board of Directors.
DPMA continued NMAA’s commitment to promoting increased education and professionalism in information processing activities and management, and became one of the largest information processing management professional associations. DPMA produced numerous publications and extended educational offerings to the association's members and the information processing community, and involved itself with the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) from 1974 until AFIPS's demise in 1990. To aid professionalism, DPMA developed the first Certificate in Data Processing (CDP) and the examination for it in 1962. DPMA augmented the CDP with the Registered Business Programmer examination in 1970.
In 1997, DPMA was renamed the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP), to better reflect its broad membership.
The records of the Data Processing Management Association (DPMA) document the administration of the association and the services it provided to its membership. Most heavily documented are the actions of governing boards and committees, and publications. An extensive subject file was created in the 1960s during the tenure of Executive Director R. Calvin Elliott. Unfortunately, the subject file was not maintained with any regularity after the late 1960s.
An initiative to preserve DPMA's history through the creation of the DPMA Archives under the presidency of Eddie Ashmore in the mid-1980s provided some records that were not otherwise retained. Eventually support for the archives waned and the materials were stored at headquarters. When Georgia Blair Miller, former DPMA president, donated her collection to CBI, some publications and subject files were transferred to this collection.
When the records were received, they were organized roughly as an immense subject file. In large part, this organization has been retained, although some segmentation into the following groups has been done to provide greater access or for preservation purposes:
CBI 167, Data Processing Management Association, Northwest Chapter Records
CBI 128, Georgia Miller Blair Collection of DPMA, OSRA, and AMS Records
CBI 46, John K Swearingen Papers
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.
Records include: verbatim minutes, summary minutes, committee reports, background materials on agenda items, executive director's reports, and background material related to arrangements for meeting by headquarters staff, all of which are organized into subseries. Individual corporate bodies are arranged alphabetically in each subseries.
Folders in this series include the word "minutes" if the folder contains minutes and attachments exclusively, and "meeting" or the phrase "meeting material" if the folders contain background material assembled for members of specific committees or boards or for staff in preparation of a specific meeting. Section 1 of most Executive Council meeting material contains the summary minutes of the previous meeting.
Researchers should note that neither summary nor verbatim minutes have been prepared for all meetings and, undoubtedly, some minutes that were created are no longer extant. Also note that bound annual or semi-annual reports prepared for boards or committees by the DPMA administrative staff have been filed by title under the publications series.
Some material filed under Board of Directors may be misfiled since exact titles of the body in question were not always clear. Under the Illinois General Not-for-Profit Corporation Act, a corporation is governed by a single board of directors. In early 1972, DPMA secured legal opinions that noted the use of multiple boards was illegal under the provisions of this act. At the meeting of the Executive Committee, the Executive Board of Directors, and the International Board of Directors in June, changes in the governance were discussed and the Executive Council replaced the Executive Board of Directors and the Executive Committee. With a few exceptions in the early 1970s the minutes of the Board of Directors meetings appear to be those of the International Board of Directors although in many of the minutes the body is simply referred to as the Board of Directors.
See also: DPMA-USA National Board of Directors, Executive Board of Directors, International Board of Directors
See also: Board of Directors, Executive Board of Directors, International Board of Directors.
See also: Board of Directors, DPMA-USA National Board of Directors, International Board of Directors
See also: Executive Board of Directors, Board of Directors, DPMA-USA National Board of Directors.
Continued by Executive Council.
Continues Executive Committee.