The American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) was an umbrella organization of professional societies established on May 10, 1961 and dissolved in 1990. Its mission was to advance knowledge in the field of information science

Information science

-Introduction:Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information...

, and to represent its member societies in international forums.

History

AFIPS grew out of the National Joint Computer Committee, an organization formed in 1951, which held two major computer conferences - the Eastern and Western Joint Computer Conferences (EJCC, WJCC). The three founding societies of AFIPS were the Association for Computing Machinery

Association for Computing Machinery

The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...

, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers

American Institute of Electrical Engineers

The American Institute of Electrical Engineers was a United States based organization of electrical engineers that existed between 1884 and 1963, when it merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers .- History :The 1884 founders of the...

, and the Institute of Radio Engineers

Institute of Radio Engineers

The Institute of Radio Engineers was a professional organization which existed from 1912 until January 1, 1963, when it merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers .-Founding:Following several attempts to form a...

. AFIPS represented these societies in the International Federation for Information Processing

International Federation for Information Processing

The International Federation for Information Processing is an umbrella organization for national societies working in the field of information technology. It is a non-governmental, non-profit organization with offices in Laxenburg, Austria...

 (IFIP), formed a year earlier under the auspices of UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

.

In 1962, AFIPS took over sponsorship of the EJCC and WJCC and renamed them the Spring and Fall Joint Computer Conferences. In 1973, the two were merged in the National Computer Conference (NCC), which ran annually until it was discontinued in 1987.

AFIPS also sponsored smaller conferences such as the Office Automation Conference, published the Annals of the History of Computing and other magazines, and presented an annual award -- the Harry Goode Memorial Award -- recognizing outstanding achievement in information processing

Information processing

Information processing is the change of information in any manner detectable by an observer. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens in the universe, from the falling of a rock to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system...

.

AFIPS was dissolved in 1990. The IEEE Computer Society

IEEE Computer Society

The IEEE Computer Society is a professional society of IEEE. Its purpose and scope is “to advance the theory, practice, and application of computer and information processing science and technology” and the “professional standing of its members.” The CS is the largest of 38 technical societies...

(IEEE-CS) became the sponsor of the Goode Award, and took over publication of Annals (renamed the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing). The IEEE-CS also joined the ACM to form the Federation on Computing in the United States (FOCUS) in 1991, to take the place of AFIPS as the United States’ representative in IFIP. In 1999, IFIP accepted separate membership for both IEEE-CS and ACM, and FOCUS was dissolved.

Structure

AFIPS was managed by a board of directors, originally called the "Governing Board." Each member society had one to three directors on the board depending on the size of the society; each affiliated member had one director. Under this board were various committees including the executive committee, the education committee, the finance committee, and the awards committee. The conferences were managed by a conference board, which set the overall direction and policies of the conferences, coordinated the actions of the Conference Steering Committee and the National Computer Conference Committee, and referred problems to appropriate committees such as the finance and executive committees of AFIPS. The conferences featured technical sessions and exhibits relating to the field of information processing.