Community Memory - People

People

Community Memory was created by Efrem Lipkin, Mark Szpakowski, and Lee Felsenstein, acting as The Community Memory Project within the Resource One computer center at Project One in San Francisco. This group of computer savvy friends and partners wanted to create a simple system that could function as a source of community information. Felsenstein took care of hardware, Lipkin software, and Szpakowski user interface and information husbandry. Community Memory (CM) in its first phase (1973–1975) was an experiment to see how people would react to using a computer to exchange information. At that time few people had any direct contact with computers. CM was conceived as a tool to help strengthen the Berkeley community. Their brochure states that "strong, free, non-hierarchical channels of communication--whether by computer and modem, pen and ink, telephone, or face-to-face--are the front line of reclaiming and revitalizing our communities.".

The creators and founders of Community Memory shared the values of northern California counter-culture of the 1960s, which included the celebration of free speech and the anti-war movement. They were also supporters of ecological, low cost, decentralized, and user-friendly technology.

CM had a presence in Vancouver starting in July, 1974, led by Andrew Clement. A second incarnation of Community Memory, aimed at creating a global information network, appeared in the later seventies. Its major players were Efrem Lipkin and Ken Colstad.

In his book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy described how the founders of Community Memory began the organization. Some of the founders were involved in the Homebrew Computer Club, an organization credited with significant impact in the development of the personal computer.