How HP Started an Archives
 Quick!
You want to mark a major anniversary of your company’s
founding but realize that you have very little in the way of
historical documentation charting where the company came from
and how it has grown and changed. What do you do?
This was the situation in which Hewlett-Packard Company found
itself two years before its fiftieth anniversary in 1989. Its
solution? Start an archives.
“At some point, they assembled all this stuff in a room,
boxes and boxes of it. On some boxes there was a yellow post-it
marked ‘Might Be Historical,’” laughed Anna
Mancini, Corporate Archivist at HP. “That was the beginning
of the archives.”
Anna Mancini
Corporate Archivist,
Corporate Marketing,
Hewlett-Packard Company
A pair of archivists was hired on a consulting basis to bring
some order to the chaos, and today the Hewlett-Packard Corporate
Archives contains photographs, annual reports, company magazines,
and videos that together help to document the now seventy-plus-year
history of this technology giant.
The marketing department uses materials from the archives to
tie the company’s work today to its long history of innovation.
Internal and external communications groups draw on archival
material for blogs, presentations, executive speeches, and websites.
The legal department has used materials to support the company
in patent litigation. Mancini explains. “My job is to use
the archives for the good of HP.”
She points to another advantage of archival materials: they
help to build a corporate culture. “Employees love history!
It is a way for people around the world to connect to HP,” she
says, citing employees’ pride in the Palo Alto garage where
founders William Hewlett and David Packard launched the company.
She adds, “Archives stories are happy stories.”
For any company considering starting an archives, Ms. Mancini
offers very simple advice. “Hire a professional archivist
to consult on how to proceed. Professional archivists know how
to prioritize and how to build a collection that captures the
whole picture that is a company.”
She notes, “An archives can be a very small investment,
but its impact can be huge.”
Interview conducted by Leslie Berlin, The
Stanford Silicon Valley Archives
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