History of the ISTC
The ISTC is the oldest society of its kind in the World.
A founder of the International Council for Technical Communication (INTECOM) and TCeurope (for European technical communication societies), it is at the heart of technical communication.
The Institute started in 1948 when Professor Reginald Otto Kapp founded the Presentation of Technical Information Group. Initially it concentrated on the academic aspects of technical writing.
Note - Professor Kapp's acclaimed book The Presentation of Technical Information (1948) is still available today.
Other organisations arose to take into account the needs for documentation within industry:
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Technical Publications Association, 1953
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Institute of Technical Authors & Illustrators
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Institute of Technical Publication & Publicity
and in 1972, these merged to form the ISTC.
Presidents
The following is a list of ISTC Presidents:
2007-date: Simon Butler
2002-2007: Gavin Ireland
2000-2002: Iain Wright
1998-2000: Anke Harris
1996-1998: Gerry Gentle
1995-1996: Dave Griffiths
1993-1995: Peter Greenfield
1991-1993: Ray Green
1988-1991: Dennis Reeder
1985-1988: Ray Burgess
1982-1985: Ted (E N) White
1980-1982: J D McIntosh
1978-1980: Allen Finch
1976-1978: Graham (R G) Martyr
1972-1976: Major Horace Hockley
The following dates (courtesy of Cyril Windust)
1971-1972: D R Charles
1970-1971: E R Stables
1969-1970: E A Bowles
1968-1969: A J Wheeldon
1967-1968: E A Bowles
1965-1966: B C Brookes
1948-1965: R O Kapp
ISTC History Project
"A serious professional society without a sense of its history is only half a society." (Robert Beck, FISTC)
It has been a long-held ambition of the ISTC to produce a history of our organisation, and over the years work has been done to document the past. In 2005 ambitions towards documenting the past of the ISTC were rekindled, and work is now under way to produce as comprehensive a history as possible of the ISTC, but also of its amalgamating constituents:
- the Presentation of Technical Information (PTI) Group,
- the Technical Publications Association (TPA), and
- the Institute of Technical Publicity and Publications (ITPP).
The history project includes publishing scanned copies of various publications, as well as an historic account of events and achievements. It is an ongoing, or "living", project.
Membership input is crucial to the ISTC History Project. If you have anything that you believe could be of interest, please feel free to contact the ISTC to make your contribution.
Emma Bayne, ISTC Historian |
