A Bibliographic Guide to the History of Computer Applications, 19501990

(Hardback)

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Description

Covering over 40 industries and dozens of applications, this is the first bibliography on the history of computer applications. After an introductory essay on the history of applications, the volume is divided into two time periods and includes over 1,600 entries, arranged by application and industry. Users will find sections on such fields as higher education, manufacturing, law enforcement, accounting, space travel, ATMs, artificial intelligence, banking, and trucking. Entries are annotated to describe their content and, when appropriate, their historical significance. Compiled by a historian for other historians and economists, the bibliography draws on the entire spectrum of contemporary and historical literature: books, user's guides, trade journals, industry publications, technology and scholarly magazines and journals, and newsletters, including both American and European sources. As the author of several books on information processing and a member of the IBM Corporation, Cortada is in a good position to pick the historically significant literature for inclusion in this bibliography.

Reviews

Cortada's superb bibliography is organized in two periods, 195065 and 196690. In the 1950s, computers were first being introduced to business and by the early 1960s were going through the first stages of implementationHistorians of computers and technology would find this an excellent research guide. * Choice *
Much has been written on the history of specific computer models and the companies that produced them. This bibliography goes beyond the mechanics of computers and focuses entirely on the history of how computers were used in the United States.[it] is well suited for large public and academic libraries. * ^X^BALR^R *

Author Bio

JAMES W. CORTADA is Senior Consultant for IBM. He is the author of over a dozen books on the management of information technology and the history of data processing. His earlier books include the 3-volume Historical Dictionary of Data Processing (Greenwood, 1987), Before the Computer, The Computer in the United States, and three other bibliographies on the history of computing. The Second Bibliographic Guide to the History of Computing, Computers, and the Information Processing Industry will be published by Greenwood early in 1996.