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Datafying Museum Visitors: A Research Agenda Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
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The Case for a Digital World Heritage Label Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Carl Öhman
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No Incentives to Interact: A Case Study of Mobile Phone Interactions with Martin Luther King Jr. Memorials in Washington, DC Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Larissa Hugentobler
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Negotiating the Past Online: Holocaust Commemoration between Iran and Israel Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Aya Yadlin
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Datafication and Cultural Heritage: Critical Perspectives on Exhibition and Collection Practices Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Karin Hansson,Anna Näslund Dahlgren,Teresa Cerratto Pargman
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Open Source Religion: Spiritual Software and the Production and Ownership of Religious Data (1955–2010) Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Andrew Ventimiglia
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Structural, Referential, and Normative Information Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Liqian Zhou
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“The Little Strangers at Our Gate”: Toronto Public Library’s Experimentation with the Settlement House Movement, 1910s–1930s Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Elisa Sze
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Making and Debunking Myths about the Old West: A Case Study of Misinformation for Information Scholars Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 William Aspray
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Cards, Cabinets, and Compression in Early Stock Photography Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Diana Kamin
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Processing Mad Men: Media Studies, Legitimation, and Archival Description Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-07-01 Kate Cronin
Abstract Media scholars and historians are well aware of major gaps within the archival record, gaps that have fundamentally shaped the theories and methodologies of media studies as a discipline. ...
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Leveraging Secrets: Displaced Archives, Information Asymmetries, and Ba‘thist Chronophagy in Iraq Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-07-01 Michael Degerald
Abstract During ruptures in state power in both 1991 and 2003, varying groups and individuals seized many Iraqi state archival records, with some later taken outside of the country. Different Iraqi...
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Norms and Open Systems in Open Science Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-07-01 Johanna Cohoon,James Howison
Abstract Through a review of studies of open science and open behaviors (data sharing, open access publishing, open source software development) and editorial writing that promotes open science, we...
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Minding the Gap: Creating Meaning from Missing and Anomalous Data Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-07-01 Ciaran B. Trace,Yan Zhang
Abstract Complicating the notion that personal surveillance is always ubiquitous and pervasive, this article investigates the macro-, meso-, and microlevel “gaps” that confound the study of self-tr...
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What Documents Cannot Do: Revisiting Michael Polanyi and the Tacit Knowledge Dilemma Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-03-01 C. Sean Burns
Abstract Our culture is dominated by digital documents in ways that are easy to overlook. These documents have changed our worldviews about science and have raised our expectations of them as tools...
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Hegel and Knowledge Organization, or Why the Dewey Decimal Classification Is Not Hegelian Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Shachar Freddy Kislev
Abstract It has been argued that the Dewey Decimal Classification system—the DDC—is Hegelian, that the primary division of the system is based on Hegel’s philosophy. This article argues against thi...
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The Public Interest and the Information Superhighway: The Digital Future Coalition (1996–2002) and the Afterlife of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Bryan Bello,Patricia Aufderheide
Abstract The Digital Future Coalition (1996–2002) was an unprecedented public interest coalition on internet and copyright policy with much fartherranging effects than has been recognized previousl...
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Knowledge Organization in the Wild: The Propædia, Roget’s, and the DDC Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Jonathan Furner
Abstract Three popular knowledge organization systems (KOSs)—the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s “Outline of Knowledge,” Roget’s International Thesaurus’s “Synopsis of Categories,” and the Dewey Decimal ...
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Politics, Privilege, and the Records of the Presidency Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-11-01 Bradley J. Wiles
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Arguing against Graphic Ambivalence: What Earth Modeling Reveals about Visualization in Scientific Computing Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-11-01 Nicole Sansone Ruiz
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The Evolution of the Ethnographic Object Catalog of the Canadian Museum of History, Part 2: Systematizing, Communicating, and Reconciling Anthropological Knowledge in the Museum, ca. 1960–2018 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-11-01 Heather MacNeil,Jessica Lapp,Nadine Finlay
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Editor’s Note: It’s All about Information and Culture Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-11-01 Andrew Dillon
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Creating the Twentieth-Century Literary Archives: A Short History of the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-11-01 Alison Fraser
Abstract This article describes the unfolding idea of the literary archival collection through the early history of the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo (UB). The influence of founder...
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Deliberation or Manipulation? The Issue of Governmental Information in Sweden, 1969–1973 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-07-01 Fredrik Norén
abstract:As the first nation in the world to introduce a freedom of information policy, Sweden has attracted relatively little attention in the historiography of information. This article analyzes conflicting ideas of governmental information in public discussions in Sweden between 1969 and 1973. The purpose is to highlight alternative ideas that challenged the government's notion of governmental information
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From Programming to Products: Softalk Magazine and the Rise of the Personal Computer User Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-07-01 Laine Nooney, Kevin Driscoll, Kera Allen
abstract:In the 1980s, the user emerged as a distinct class of personal computer owner motivated by instrumental goals rather than the exploratory pleasures of hackers and hobbyists. To understand the changing values and concerns of microcomputer owners, we analyzed 1,285 reader letters published in Softalk magazine between 1980 and 1984. During this period, a preoccupation with programming was displaced
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The Evolution of the Ethnographic Object Catalog of the Canadian Museum of History, Part 1: Collecting, Ordering, and Transforming Anthropological Knowledge in the Museum, ca. 1879–1960 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-07-01 Heather MacNeil, Jessica Lapp, Nadine Finlay
abstract:This article reports on the first part of a two-part study that traces the evolution of the Canadian Museum of History's catalog of its ethnological collections from 1879 to the present day. Drawing on the insights of rhetorical genre studies, we examine how the catalog has been implicated in the formation and shaping of anthropological knowledge in the museum over the course of its history
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A History of Women in British Telecommunications: Introducing a Special Issue Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-03-01 Elizabeth Bruton, Mar Hicks
Abstract Women’s roles in telecommunications history remain underexplored despite a recent proliferation of work on women in the history of technology. This special issue seeks to correct that imba...
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“Uncertain at Present for Women, but May Increase”: Opportunities for Women in Wireless Telegraphy during the First World War Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-03-01 Elizabeth Bruton
Abstract The British General Post Office (GPO) was one of the leading employers of women in Britain between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, first as telegraph operators and later i...
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Embodying Telegraphy in Late Victorian London Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-03-01 Katie Hindmarch-Watson
Abstract Upon the nationalization of the British telegraph system in 1870, a set of processes at work inside London’s Central Telegraph Office that was dictated by the bodily and spatial ordering o...
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The Key Role Played by WAAC British Post Office Female Staff in Army Signal Units on the Western Front, 1917–1920 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-03-01 Barbara Walsh
Abstract There is a gaping void in the historiography of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), later called the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps QMAAC), brought about by the absence of an infor...
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“Maiden, Whom We Never See”: Cultural Representations of the “Lady Telephonist” in Britain ca. 1880–1930 and Institutional Responses Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-03-01 Helen Glew
This article examines attitudes to the female telephone operator in the British press and a range of literary and cultural sources. Perceptions of female telephonists were rooted in both reactions to the increasingly visible employment of women in white-collar work and uncertain responses to the telephone as a new communication medium. Such perceptions of the female telephonist became stereotyped and
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“Hemisphere Training”: Exporting the Psychological Self at the Inter-American Popular Information Program Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-11-01 Rob Aitken
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Collecting as Routine Human Behavior: Personal Identity and Control in the Material and Digital World Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-11-01 Andrew Dillon
Abstract The human desire to collect objects is long recognized in historical and cultural studies where emphasis has been placed on memory institutions and their role in public life. Individual co...
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The Literature of American Library History, 2016–2017 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-11-01 Edward A. Goedeken
Abstract This biennial review of the writings on the history of libraries, librarianship, and information surveys about two hundred publications that were published in 2016 and 2017. The essay is d...
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A Tale of Two Networks: The Bell Telephone System and the Meaning of “Information,” 1947–1968 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-11-01 Emily Goodmann
Abstract This article explores a discursive debate that occurred during the mid-twentieth century among telephone users, institutional actors at Bell Telephone and American Telephone & Telegraph, a...
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Archival Automation in the United Kingdom and the Relationship between Standardization and Computerization Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-07-01 Jenny Bunn
Abstract:Continuing in a tradition of looking back at the history of the archival profession’s engagement with and response to computers, a story is told of early archival computerization and the development of standards in the UK from the mid-1960s to roughly the mid-1980s. Standardization and computerization initially emerged as separate threads, but these threads started to coalesce in the mid-1970s
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Innovation in Search of a Context: The Early History of Lexis Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-07-01 Xiaohua Zhu
Abstract:Lexis, the first commercial online full-text legal information service, illustrates how the purpose of and the audience for a system were configured by distinct relevant social groups with different goals and perspectives. This article traces the early history of Lexis in light of the social construction of the system and the mutual shaping that resulted from the reciprocal interactions of
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Information in an Industrial Culture: Walter A. Shewhart and the Evolution of the Control Chart, 1917–1954 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-07-01 Phillip G. Bradford, Paul J. Miranti
Abstract:This study analyzes the factors that shaped Walter Shewhart’s 1924 development of the control chart at Bell Telephone Laboratories. The control chart is a graphical construct that uses probability theory to analyze deviations from expected levels of performance within systems of repetitive action. Although Shewhart’s innovative use of probabilistic information focused on monitoring conformity
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Making Messages Private: The Formation of Postal Privacy and Its Relevance for Digital Surveillance Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-07-01 Efrat Nechushtai
Abstract:This article examines the establishment of privacy in mediated communications in the United States. The Post Office Act of 1792, which transformed the informational environment by formalizing a nationwide communications network, banned letter opening, a norm that became the cornerstone of American privacy law. The article analyzes the circumstances that led to the articulation of this norm
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Still Breathing: History in Education for Librarianship / History in the Library and Information Science Curriculum: Outline of a Debate Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Christine Pawley
Abstract Only a small minority of library and information science (LIS) schools now schedule courses with a historical focus, and LIS faculty whose research specialty is history seem to be a vanish...
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Information History: Searching for Identity / The History of Information Science and Other Traditional Information Domains: Models for Future Research Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-03-01 William Aspray
Abstract This article provides guides to scholars of libraries, archives, museums, conservation, and information science about how to enhance the richness of the work on the history of their field....
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Revisiting “Shaping Information History as an Intellectual Discipline” / Shaping Information History as an Intellectual Discipline Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-03-01 James W. Cortada
Abstract Information is an emerging field of interest and concern to citizens, public officials, and scholars in many disciplines. This article acknowledges that problems exist in defining the subj...
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Curated Issue of Information & Culture: A Journal of History Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Ciaran B. Trace
This special issue of Information & Culture brings together a curated set of previously published articles from the last two decades of the journal’s more than fifty-year history. These articles represent the wide scope of actors, disciplines, and viewpoints that have helped make the journal the space in which to frame and debate the nature of the information domain from a historical perspective. In
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Back to the Future of Library History / Alternative Futures for Library History Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Jonathan Rose
Abstract In response to a recent article by Donald Davis and John Aho, “Whither Library History?,” Jonathan Rose discusses six possible alternatives for the future of library history. Library histo...
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Revisiting Archival History / The Failure or Future of American Archival History: A Somewhat Unorthodox View Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Richard J. Cox
Abstract:The quality of research on American archival history has been uneven and the quantity not very impressive. This essay reviews some of the highlights of American archival history research, especially the growing interest in cultural and public history that has produced some studies of interest to scholars curious about the history of archives. The essay also focuses more on why such research
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Parallel Expansions: The Role of Information during the Formative Years of the English East India Company (1600–1623) Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-11-01 Gabor Szommer
Abstract:This article examines the role of information in the early years of the English East India Company (EIC). It examines different aspects of the organizational behavior of the EIC between the years 1600 and 1623 and shows the interplay between physical expansion and the transformation of information-handling practices from several perspectives. Although the focus is on a single organization
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The Weather Privateers: Meteorology and Commercial Satellite Data Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-11-01 Gemma Cirac-Claveras
Abstract:This article examines the changing framework for producing satellite weather data in the United States since the 2000s, from a government function to one increasingly carried out by the private sector. It explores the controversial attempts to commercialize the production of a particular data source (atmospheric profiles obtained with radio occultation) from the perspective of executives of
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Rethinking the Call for a US National Data Center in the 1960s: Privacy, Social Science Research, and Data Fragmentation Viewed from the Perspective of Contemporary Archival Theory Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-05-01 Christopher Loughnane, William Aspray
Abstract:This article reconsiders from current archival perspectives the debate surrounding the failed proposal for a national data center in the 1960s. Whereas most accounts of the 1960s effort to construct a national data center in the United States focus on privacy issues, this account focuses more broadly on contextualizing the concerns of the social science community regarding the fragmented state
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“Crises” in Scholarly Communications? Maturity and Transfer of the Journal of Library History to the University of Texas, 1968–1976 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-05-01 Maria E. Gonzalez, Patricia Galloway
Abstract:The story of the Journal of Library History, now known as Information & Culture: A Journal of History, continues with the buildout at Florida under Dean Harold Goldstein and the transfer of the Journal to the University of Texas at Austin under the aegis of the University of Texas Press and the editorship of Donald Davis. Historical perspectives are used to frame continuing crises in scholarly
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Media Prophylaxis: Night Modes and the Politics of Preventing Harm Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-05-01 Dylan Mulvin
Abstract:This article develops the term "media prophylaxis" to analyze the ways technologies are applied to challenges of calibrating one's body with its environment and as defenses against endemic, human-made harms. In recent years, self-illuminated screens (like those of computers, phones, and tablets) have been identified by scientists, journalists, and concerned individuals as particularly pernicious
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“Save the Cross Campus”: Library Planning and Protests at Yale, 1968–1969 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-05-01 Geoffrey Robert Little
Abstract:In 1968 students and faculty at Yale University protested against plans for a new underground library. The protests reflected and refracted increased student and faculty campus activism, anxieties generated by urban renewal projects in New Haven, and concerns about the university's place in the city. This study challenges the assumption that the academic library was a passive spectator to
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“Crises” in Scholarly Communications? Insights from the Emergence of the Journal of Library History, 1947–1966 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-02-01 Maria E. Gonzalez, Patricia Galloway
Abstract:This study examines the first ten years of the journal now known as Information & Culture. Founded in 1966 as the Journal of Library History, the Journal has been shaped according to the values, habits, and competencies that its contributors brought to changing circumstances so as to transform the Journal into an erudite interdisciplinary publication distant from its beginnings as a compendium
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Reading the Minor Forest Products Bulletins of the Philippine Bureau of Forestry: A Case Study of the Role of Reference Works in the American Empire of the Early Twentieth Century Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-02-01 Brendan Luyt
Abstract:Empires are built around the control of information, with an often-overlooked aspect of empire building being the construction of tools of reference. These tools incorporate in summary form the multiplicity of inscriptions that are a product of the empire's epistemological operations. In order to shed some light on this face of empire, this article focuses on three readings of the minor forest
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Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency and the Information Work of the Nineteenth-Century Surveillance State Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-02-01 Alan Bilansky
Abstract:A private security contractor for business and government, Allan Pinkerton acted centrally in early chapters of the history of the security state. The operative and the report, Pinkerton's principal surveillance technologies, are analyzed here in relation to each other and in their historical development as information technology, drawing on Pinkerton's fictionalized accounts of cases, secret
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The Literature of American Library History, 2014–2015 Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2018-02-01 Edward A. Goedeken
Abstract:This biennial review of the writings on the history of libraries, librarianship, and information surveys about two hundred publications that were published in 2014 and 2015. The essay is divided into a number of specific sections, including academic and public libraries, biography, technical services, and the history of reading and publishing. It also contains a brief list of theses and dissertations
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Erich Salomon’s Candid Camera and the Framing of Political Authority Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2017-11-01 Annie Rudd
This essay examines the cultural, technological, and political significance of the candid camera in the interwar press. Concentrating on Erich Salomon's photojournalism, as well as discussions of the work of the photo journalist and the relationship between the press and politics, it contends that the candid camera signaled a reframing of political authority in terms readers were encouraged to understand
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Changing Course on Freedom of Information: The 1911 Typhoid Records Case Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2017-11-01 David Ress
Abstract:A request for information about New York City's typhoid outbreak of 1911 prompted one of the first court rulings to reverse the nineteenth-century trend of opening access to government information. In the background was a fundamental shift in the political theory of American local government and a clash of two different approaches to reform of municipal government: that of the outside gadfly
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Disinfecting the Mail: Disease, Panic, and the Post Office Department in Nineteenth-Century America Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2017-11-01 Ryan Ellis
Abstract:The 1878 Mississippi Valley yellow fever outbreak was one of the worst disasters in US history. During the epidemic, quarantines attempted to thwart the spread of the disease. Quarantines, however, not only limited the movement of people and goods but also threatened the flow of information. This article explores the epidemic's impact on postal communication. A close examination of the outbreak
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“As Popular as Pin-Up Girls”: The Armed Services Editions, Masculinity, and Middlebrow Print Culture in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2017-11-01 Alex H. Poole
Abstract:Produced between 1943 and 1947, the Armed Services Editions comprised 1,322 titles and 122,951,031 books. A central part of middle-brow culture's institutionalization, they democratized reading for servicemen, setting the stage for a massive consumption of middlebrow print culture postwar. Further, the Editions illuminate the ways in which this culture dovetailed with anxieties about masculinity
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“Governmentalities” of Conservation Science at the Advent of Drones: Situating an Emerging Technology Information & Culture (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2017-08-01 Lisa Avron
Abstract Conservation scientists are looking to widen their lens on the landscapes they seek to protect. Using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) fitted with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), ecolog...