I will interpret this question a bit freely: 

There is a long history of humans performing computational tasks (not mathematics) as a profession, and the technical tools and tables they had. 


The [Computer History Museum][1] has among many other things some nice pictures of mechannical devices used to that end online, see in particular http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/calculators/1

There is also a recent book [When Computer Were Human][2] by D.A. Grier on the people doing this (starting quite a bit earlier than beginning of this century) and with the same title one can find a video taped talk online (on youtube for instance). 
[Disclaimer: I did not watch the video and have no detailed knwoledge on the content of the book, but it clearly seems relevant.] 


ps: the justification for interpreting this so freely is that I think the question for some desks at the Univerity of Edinburgh is 'too localized' as long as there is no clear evidence they are in any sense special or of historical significance. 

  [1]: http://www.computerhistory.org/
  [2]: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7999.html