About this Project

Creation

Alan Cooper was one of the pioneering staff at LOLA, joining at the start in 1970 as a Software Specialist / Database Administrator in the Applications Support department, until leaving in 1975.

In retirement and whilst disposing of a lifetime's accumulation of technical papers he came across some documents about LOLA. A web search found very little information about this cutting-edge organisation exists in the public domain. In 2021 he created this website about LOLA.

He was soon assisted by former LOLA employees who provided further information and documentation. About 200 former staff have been identified and they are listed on the Staff page along with the teams they were in.

Delivery

The aim is to deliver the artefacts, the Catalogue, and this website to the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge.

See the CfCH page where there is a photograph of the artifacts.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks must go to the people who have responded with information, documents and photographs. Over 200 documents and over 400 photographs have been provided. Former staff providing such material are listed on the Research Sources page.

Also thanks to those helping to publicise this project. They include Penny Horwood, Associate Editor, Computing for writing the article From the archive: What was LOLA? [⇗]. (that is a paywall - you can view the article here[⇗]).

Further thanks to those who helped to trace Derek Schartau , LOLA's first CEO. In particular to geneologist Katherine Kelly and to Tony Watts who handled Derek's estate, Derek having died in 2013.

References

1. Havant was IBM's disk drive manufacturing plant but Alan worked for IBM International Services Ltd (known internally as Respond). Whilst there he had access to the IBM Research articles and recalls reading one on databases - maybe Codd's papers on relational databases and SQL, or maybe on IMS. He knew this was the future and then saw the LOLA advert ....

2. For a brief history of Derek's unusual surname see the footnote and click view / hide.

   Click to view / hide.

   Schartau is a Swedish name. Schartau's were also very influential in the Swedish empire that historically included what is now Denmark, Norway, Finland and western Russia. One famous one is Henric Schartau (1757-1825), a Swedish Lutheran priest who influenced a revivalist movement known as Schartauanism.

   One day Derek called Alan Cooper to his office. Derek had received a book all about the Schartau dynasty. The problem was it was in Danish! But Derek knew my wife Kristina was Swedish. Could she translate it? Well she did translate the chapter about the UK link. One of the Schartau was a sea captain who married an English woman from Broadstairs, Kent. They lived in Lund in SE Sweden and on his death she returned to Broadstairs with 2 of her 6 children. It is from one of these 2 children that Derek is related. Derek subsequently made a number of visits to southern Sweden. He retired from LOLA to live in Dorset.

   Derek had a passion for the English caricaturist, water-colourist, engraver and draughtsman, Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827). He amassed quite a collection of his drawings and before he died donated them to Kent University where they are known as The collection of Derek Schartau.