Department of Special Collections and University Archives
McFarlin Library. University of Tulsa.  2933 E. 6th St.  Tulsa, OK.  74104-3123 (OKT - OkTU)

ABSEL business games and exercises archive

Collection 2002.006

Dates:  1955-2003, ongoing.

Extent:  417 items.

Level of Description:  Item level.

Name of creator(s):  Unknown.

Date of creation:  Undetermined.

Scope and Content:  The ABSEL Business Games and Exercises Archive is a collection dedicated to preserving business games and experiential exercises.

Administrative/Biographical History:  This collection includes a large assortment of materials gathered and published by Erwin Rausch and Didactic Systems over his firm's 34 year history. Erwin became interested in the potential for training and development via the experiential approach after seeing a demonstration of the IBM business game in the early 1960s. He immediately began to develop short exercises that were soon published by Science Research Associates of Chicago. His work was a "moonlighting" operation until 1968 when Didactic Systems was incorporated, became a full-time occupation for him while the new firm began its own publishing activities.

Over the company's lifetime, Didactic Systems created over 50 games, many of which were adapted for high school education purposes. Many were also often disseminated in various foreign languages. One of Didactic Systems' other tasks was that of distributing and publishing the works of others such as the Robert E. Horn et. al. guides to simulations/games for education and training.

The ABSEL Archive now wishes to retain, for historical and research purposes, as many business games and experiential exercises as possible before they disappear into oblivion or the paper shredder.

Access and Copyright:  Open, with the signing of the Reader's Application form.

Language and Scripts:  English.

Finding aid/Inventory:   This collection has no finding aid, but can be searched through the library's Innopac system using the subject heading "ABSEL Business Games and Exercises Archive".

Provenance/Source of Acquisition:  --

Date(s) of description:  Lori Curtis, 2000.

Access Points:

Subject Headings
ABSEL Business Games and Exercises Archive.