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Published Research Papers & Book Chapters"Sources for ACM History: What, Where, Why" (with Elizabeth Kaplan and Carrie Seib), Communications of the ACM 50:5 (May 2007):36-41. (online) The paper is an outgrowth of my work with the ACM History Committee to advise the association on its historical initiatives. The historians and archivists involved labored mightily to convince the association that preserving and archiving its records was far and away the most useful thing it could do to support historical work. We used this experience to craft a broader appeal, explaining how historians work and why we need archival sources. "Remembering the Office of the Future: Word Processing and Office Automation before the Personal Computer," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 28:4 (October-December 2006):6-31. This is the first real historical exploration of word processing in the days before the personal computing. It includes the origins of text processing techniques, the introduction of the word processing concept, use and application of early word processing, the development of the computerized word processing industry and the creation in the late-1970s of a broader concept of office automation. (online) "'A Veritable Bucket of Facts:' Origins of the Data Base Management System," ACM SIGMOD Record 35:2 (June 2006). A new and improved version of the conference paper mentioned below, including illustrations, corrections and new material from archival research and an oral history interview. (online) "ADAPSO, Timesharing Firms and Software Companies, 1968-1975" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 27:1 (January-March 2005): 67-73. The article continues the series of publications on the computer software and services trade association ADAPSO and its more active members, looking at the expansion of the association during the early 1970s to encompass software product and timesharing companies. It accompanies biographies of Rick Crandall and Larry Welke published (for reasons of space) in the previous issue. Read it online here. "ADAPSO, Regulated Competition, and Professional Services: 1976-1986" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 27:2 (April-June 2005): 89-93. This short article, really a continuation of the one above separated for space reasons, concludes my series on ADAPSO. It includes a biography of Larry Schoenberg. Here it is as published. “A Veritable Bucket of Facts: Origins of the Database Management System” in The History and Heritage of Scientific and Technological Information Systems: Proceedings of the 2002 Conference eds. W. Boyd Rayward & Mary Ellen Bowden (New Jersey: Information Today, 2004):73-78. I presented this at the second major conference on the History and Heritage of Scientific and Technical Information Systems sponsored by ASIS&T and the Chemical Heritage Foundation. This is about the emergence of the data base concept and its entry into the corporate world. Here it is as published in the conference book. “The History of Computing: An Introduction for the Computer Scientist” in
Using History to Teach Computer Science and Related Disciplines ed.
Atsushi Akera & William Aspray (Washington, D.C.: Computing Research
Association, 2004):5-26. Based on a talk I prepared for a 2001 NSF funded
workshop
organized by the
Computing
Research Association which was intended to bring historians and computer
scientists together to work out how history could improve the teaching of
computing. My talk was on "Tools
and Methods in the History of Computing" and introduced the audience of
computer scientists to the history of computing field, its main questions, key
resources and the differences between historians and scientists. You can read it
as an on-line PowerPoint presentation.
Then in 2004, I took part in two follow-on workshops for speakers at the earlier
event, intended to help us further develop our ideas into published form. The
article has a fairly informal tone and includes three main parts: an
introduction to the current state of the history of computing and its key
institutions, an explanation of what historians do and how they are different
from computer scientists, and a personal stab at suggesting ways in which
history might be of instructional value.
Here it is as published. The
entire book resulting
from the workshops is also available online. "ADAPSO and the Service Bureau Industry: 1961-1968" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 25:1 (January-March 2004): 78-93. This article outlines the foundation and early history of the computer software and services trade association ADAPSO, the Association of Data Processing Service Organizations. During this period, ADAPSO's membership was dominated by service bureaus, and the article also discusses the service bureau business and its development. It accompanies biographies of Frank Lautenberg and Bernard Goldstein (also listed below). *Not formally peer reviewed* Here it is as published. “Software in the 1960s as Concept, Service, and Product" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 24:1 (January-March 2002):5-13. (Click here for the issue contents page). Chosen as the leading article for a special issue on the early history of application software, this article surveys the origins and early ambiguities of the term "software", the origins of packaged application programs and their relationship to the concerns of data processing managers. Here it is as published. "The Chromium-Plated Tabulator: Institutionalizing an Electronic Revolution, 1954-1958" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 23 (October-December 2001): 75-104. (Click here for the issue contents page) The computer promised business of the 1950s an administrative revolution. What it delivered was data processing—a hybrid of new technology and existing punched card machines, people, and attitudes. This paper examines how first-generation computers were sold and purchased, and describes the occupations (analyst, programmer, and operator) and departments that emerged around them. It appears in a special issue celebrating the Charles Babbage Institute and the scholarship it has nurtured. Here it is as published. “Inventing Information Systems: The Systems Men and the Computer, 1950-1968” Business History Review 75 (Spring 2001): 15-61. This was chosen as the leading article for a special 75th anniversary issue on the theme of computers and networking. The abstract is on-line. You can read the paper here on my site (note that this may differ slightly from the published version) or download a scanned acrobat (.pdf) version. Harvard Business School prepared a very short version called "Birth of the Systems Men" as a featured article on the Business History section of its Working Knowledge website (bits of which get syndicated around the internet). “Research Interactions Between University and Industry in Computer Science in the United States and United Kingdom”, 1995 technical report UMCS-95-8-1, University of Manchester (UK) Department of Computer Science. Seemingly a lifetime ago, Manchester University published my M.Eng. thesis as a technical report. Its based on interviews with technology transfer and industrial liaison people, computer scientists and industrial sponsors. Back in 1995, posting something on the web seemed so exciting. It's available on paper, but you'd probably prefer the hypertext version. Research Articles In ProgressEngineering the Progressive Office: Technical Claims to Administrative Authority, 1917-1931. Accepted for publication by Enterprise and Society, but I won't put the draft version online as this might conflict with the journal's prior publication policy. "How the Computer Became Information Technology: Constructing Information in Corporate America, 1950-2000." A much revised and extended version of the Hagley conference paper "The Fix is Information, Now What Was the Problem?" available below. The draft version is now online here. Lost in Translation: Total Systems and Operations Research from War Room to Board Room, 1950-1975. A paper exploring the relationship between the military-academic-aerospace "systems" culture of the 1950s cold war elite (systems engineering, the RAND Corporation, much operations research work) and the administratively oriented "systems men" discussed in my BHR paper. Includes the most detailed look yet at the early application of operations research to corporate management and its relationship to other "systems based" approaches. A draft is currently in progress. Other Planned Papers:
Book ReviewsReview essay on "Structuring the Information Age: Life Insurance and Technology in the Twentieth Century" by JoAnne Yates, EH-Net, 2007 (online). Review of "Computers and Commerce: A Study of Technology and Management at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, Engineering Research Associates, and Remington Rand, 1946-1957" by Arthur Norberg, Business History Review, Winter 2006. (online) Review of "The Second Information Revolution" by Gerald W. Brock, Business History Review 78:2 (Summer 2004):316-318. (online) Review of “From 0 to 1: An Authoritative History of Modern Computing”, edited by Atsushi Akera and Frederik Nebeker (Oxford University Press, 2002), Technology and Culture 44:4 (October 2003):841-842. (online) Review of "Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics," by David A Mindell, Business History Review 77:3 (Autumn 2003):358-360. (online) Review of "Anytime, Anywhere: Entrepreneurship and the Creation of a Wireless World," by Louis Galambos and Eric John Abrahamson, Business History Review 77:1 (Spring 2003). (online) Review Essay, “Multicians.Org and the History of Operating Systems”, Iterations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Software History 1 (2002). (online) Biographies and Obituaries"Biography: Lawrence Schoenberg" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 27:2 (April-June 2005), 92-94. (online) "Biography: Larry A. Welke" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 26:4 (October-December 2004), 85-91. (online) "Biography: Rick Crandall" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 26:4 (October-December 2004), 79-85. (online) "Biography: Bernard (Bernie) Goldstein," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 26:1 (January-March 2004): 85-90. (online) "Biography: Frank Lautenberg," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 26:1 (January-March 2004): 90-93. (online) "Obituary: I. Bernard Cohen," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 25:4 (October-December 2003): 89-92. (online) "Obituary: Rob Kling," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 25:3 (July-September 2003): 92-94. (online) "Biography: Per Brinch Hansen," (with JAN Lee), IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 25:1 (January-March 2003):80-83 (online). Unpublished Conference PapersI don't usually write out the exact text of conference papers, since this can make for a rather dull presentation. I do often use PowerPoint, with a combination of key bullet points, quotes and pictures. Slides and abstracts for most of my talks are available from the links on my vita, so there is no reason to duplicate them here. However, there are a couple of exceptions to this, where I had to write out the whole thing roughly as delivered for the benefit of session commentator. Because there are written to be read, rather than published, they mostly lack citations and other academic niceties. I gave a paper at the October 2002 Toronto meeting of the Society of the History of Technology. When writing my Business History Review paper "Inventing Information Systems" I had to cut out a lot of interesting material on the ties between the world of administrative systems work and the elite cold-war systems engineering with which it shared some ideas and jargon. I developed this angle more extensively in my dissertation, and gave one part of it in a public presentation in my paper, “Lost In Translation: Total Systems from War Room to Board Room, 1954-1968,” which sets this administrative systems work in the broader cold war context, building on my preliminary work presented at the Science and the Cold War conference. The text I delivered is available here, and the pretty pictures are here. Many of my papers address, in one way or another, the construction of information as a managerial panacea. My paper, “The Fix is Information, Now What Was the Problem?” presented at the Hagley Museum and Library conference on the Technical Fix in October 2002 was my first public attempt to communicate the overall findings of my dissertation research, exploring the startling commonalities from the office managers of the 1910s to the chief information officers of the 1990s in their uneasy attempts to combine managerial and technical claims to authority by invoking the power of information systems. Here is the abstract, here is the text as delivered, and here are the pretty pictures. I gave a paper called "From Machine Man to Information Manager: Class Formation and Group Mobility in Corporate Computing, 1953-1964" at the North American Labor History conference in Detroit in the Fall of 2000. It was about on the attempts of punched card machine operators and supervisors of the 1950s to transform themselves into professional and/or managers. In this case I have the abstract and the actual paper as read. Much of this material found its way into my "Chromium-Plated Tabulator" paper, the rest can be found in more detail in the dissertation itself. |
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