LBSC 708T/INFM 718T - Transformational Information Technologies
Spring 2007 - Section 0101
Reading List
The goal of the readings is to give us a common basis for discussion
in the class. Think of them as a point of departure, not as the
destination. Readings for weeks 4-7 will be assigned at least one
week in advance by the team that will lead the discussion. Readings
after week 7 will usually be assigned two weeks in advance by the team
that will lead the discussion. See the Library Resources secion of
the Useful Resources page for details on
NetLib and e-reserve. E-reserve requires a password, which will be
distributed by email and in class.
Readings for Week 1:
- Janna Quitney Anderson and Lee Rainie, Pew
Internet Survey on the Future of the Internet, 2006.
Read the "Summary of Findings" section (pages i to viii) and
the full description for at least one scenario (whichever one
you find most interesting).
- Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of
the Twenty-First Century, Chapter 1 (While I Was Sleeping),
Pages 3-47, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2005.
Available (with password protection) through e-reserves
- Alvin Toffler, Book
TV "After Words" Interview, RealVideo, 54 minutes, C-SPAN,
June 3, 2006.
- Edward Cornish, An Overview of
Futuring Methods, Web page accompanying publication of
Futuring, Exploring the Future, World Future Society,
2005.
- David Stork, Interview
about 2001: A Space Odyssey at TheTech Museum of
Innovation, 2001. RealVideo. View segments 2 (How much
effort did Kubrick and Clarke put into getting the technology
in the film "right"?) and 4 (What are some of the technology
predictions that Kubrick and Clarke got wrong?), neither of
which is very long.
Readings for Week 2:
- John F. Healey, Reading the Past: The Early Alphabet,
Section 1 (Script, Language and the Alphabetic Principle),
pages 7-15, British Museum, London, 1990. Reprinted as pages
201-209 in Reading the Past, Barnes and Noble, 1998.
Available through e-reserve.
- Douglas C. McMurtrie, The Book: The Story of Printing and
Bookmaking, Third edition, Chapter IV, (Paper and Its
Origins), pages 61-75, Oxford University Press, London, 1943.
Available through e-reserve.
- Kotinos Publications, Libraries,
History section (leftmost link on top bar), Web site, undated.
Read the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Helenic, Roman, Byzantine and
Medieval (Western) sections (in each case, you need to click on
the subsection titles that are centered below the section title
to see each subsection).
- James Burke, The Day the Universe Changed, Program 4
(Printing Transforms Knowledge), videotape, 54 minute,
Churchill Media, 1986. Available for viewing Nonprint Media
Services (can not be checked out).
- Alternate if the videotape is unavailable: Neil Rhodes and
Jonathan Sawday, The Renaissance Computer, Chapter 1
(Introduction), pages 1-17, Routledge, London, 2000.
Available through e-reserve
- Stephen J. Gould, "The Panda's Thumb of Technology," Natural
History, 96(1)14-23, 1987. This was passed out during the
first class session.
Readings for Week 3:
- Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
Second edition, Chapter 6 (Anomaly and the Emergence of
Scientific Discoveries), pages 52-65, University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 1970. Available through E-Reserve.
- Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, Fifth Edition,
Chapter 1 (Elements of Diffusion), pages 1-38, Free Press,
2003. Available through E-Reserve.
- Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovators's Dilemma: When New
Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Chapter 1 (How Can
Great Firms Fail? Insights from the Hard Disk Industry), pages
3-28, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 1997. Available
through NetLibrary. Available through E-Reserve
and through NetLib (which does not allow printing).
- Robert Pool, Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes
Technology, Introduction (Understanding Technology), pages
3-15 (and associated notes on pages 307-309), Oxford University
Press, 1997. Available through E-Reserve.
Readings for Week 4:
Readings for Week 5:
Readings for Week 6:
Readings for Week 7:
Readings for Week 8:
Readings for Week 9:
Readings for Week 10:
Readings for Week 11:
Readings for Week 12:
Readings for Week 13:
Readings for Week 14:
Readings for Week 15:
Doug Oard