Cards, Cabinets, and Compression in Early Stock Photography
by Diana Kamin
p. 229-250
Abstract
Using the case study of 1920s stock photography pioneer H. Armstrong Roberts, this article argues for a historical perspective on the iconomy, or the cultural condition in which images circulate according to market logics. The article argues that compression is a predigital cultural technique that coordinates physical, technical, and narrative structures. Using custom-cut cards, contact prints, a ready-made card catalog system, and an original subject-based alphanumeric ordering system, Roberts produced an analog image database that compressed his visual inventory into discrete bits of information, reflecting a broader conception of the image as alienable content and creating a new commercial aesthetic.
Diana Kamin, an advanced lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, holds a PhD in media, culture, and communication from New York University. Her research explores the circulation of photography and large-scale image collections in historical and contemporary contexts.
Making and Debunking Myths about the Old West: A Case Study of Misinformation for Information Scholars
by William Aspray
p. 251-278
Abstract
This article, which draws from an extensive historical, literary, and cultural study of the Old West, identifies the main creators and debunkers of myths about the West in order to provide a case study to information scholars about misinformation. Myth creators include novels, dime westerns, magazines, films, television shows, painting, sculpture, photography, music, and the tourist industry. Myth debunkers include academic historians, professional societies, public historians, research centers, libraries, museums, teachers, and postwestern film and literature.
William Aspray is senior research fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He publishes primarily in the areas of history of computing, history of information, everyday information behavior, information policy, history and philosophy of mathematics, and food studies.
Open Source Religion: Spiritual Software and the Production and Ownership of Religious Data (1955–2010)
by Andrew Ventimiglia
p. 279-302
Abstract
From Father Roberto Busa's innovative use of computing in the humanities to the Reverend John Ellison's creation of the first electronic Bible concordance, religion and religious texts played a formative role in the development of data analytics. Yet the subsequent development of spiritual software and the management of religious data have been underexplored. The production, collection, and ownership of religious data—whether Bible translation, sermons, commentaries, or scholarship—resulted in the development of unique digital tools designed for religious purposes. Pastoral research programs, sermon databases, and Bible software turned prior religious media into data accessible through novel digital infrastructures designed for Christian professionals and practitioners alike. A historical account of spiritual software highlights the ways that these emerging systems of information gathering and retrieval shape and are shaped by long-standing strategies for the production, analysis, authorship, and ownership of religious texts.
Andrew Ventimiglia is an assistant professor of mass media in Illinois State University's School of Communication. His research explores the history and cultural effects of intellectual property law. His recent book, Copyrighting God (Cambridge University Press, 2019), examines the role of copyright in American religion.
Structural, Referential, and Normative Information
by Liqian Zhou
p. 303-322
Abstract
This article provides a comprehensive conceptual analysis of information. It begins with a folk notion that information is a tripartite phenomenon: information is something carried by signals about something for some use. This suggests that information has three main aspects: structural, referential, and normative. I analyze the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for defining these aspects of information and consider formal theories relating to each aspect as well. The analysis reveals that structural, referential, and normative aspects of information are hierarchically nested and that the normative depends on the referential, which in turn depends on the structural.
Liqian Zhou is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. His research focuses mainly on the philosophy of information, the philosophy of mind and cognition, the philosophy of biology (biosemiotics), and general philosophies of science.
"The Little Strangers at Our Gate": Toronto Public Library's Experimentation with the Settlement House Movement, 1910s–1930s
by Elisa Sze
p. 323-349
Abstract
This article is a case study of Toronto Public Library's (TPL) early collaboration with social workers through its participation in the settlement house movement from the 1910s through the 1930s. While the image of the public library as a social equalizer is often attributed to its origins in the free libraries movement, and while the first chairman of its board characterized TPL as a "literary park" for "the rich and poor alike," historical efforts to extend the public library into social work–like activities remained short-term, ad hoc experiments that failed to generate transformational change. This article presents the challenges faced by a large Canadian urban public library as it attempted to position itself not only as an educational institution but also as a social service. TPL's activities in settlement neighborhoods reinforced rather than subverted the cultural status quo largely because it had no intentions to make radical program departures.
Elisa Sze is a metadata librarian at the University of Toronto Libraries, where she cofounded a special interest group on library history research. She also serves as a sessional instructor at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Information (iSchool), teaching a cataloging course for its Master of Information Program.
Note from the Senior Book Review Editor
by James A. Hodges
p. 350
Ideology and Libraries: California, Diplomacy, and Occupied Japan, 1945–1952 by Michael K. Buckland, with the assistance of Masaya Takayama (review)
Noah Lenstra
p. 351-353
Ideology and Libraries: California, Diplomacy, and Occupied Japan, 1945–1952
by Michael K. Buckland, with the assistance of Masaya Takayama
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD, 2021. 170 PP.
HARDCOVER, $75.00, EBOOK, $45.00
ISBN: 978-1-538-14314-8
Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition, and History by Stephen Chrisomalis (review)
Andrew Dillon
p. 354-355
Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition, and History
by Stephen Chrisomalis
MIT PRESS, 2020. 264 PP.
HARDCOVER, $35.00
ISBN 978-0-262-04463-9
Artificial Whiteness: Politics and Ideology in Artificial Intelligence by Yarden Katz (review)
Gregory Laynor
p. 356-357
Artificial Whiteness: Politics and Ideology in Artificial Intelligence
by Yarden Katz
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2020. 352 PP.
PAPERBACK, $28.00
ISBN: 978-0-231-19491-4
Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge by Richard Ovenden (review)
Miriam Intrator
p. 358-359
Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge
by Richard Ovenden
BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2020. 308 PP.
HARDCOVER, $29.95
ISBN: 978-0-674-24120-6
The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information by Craig Robertson (review)
James Lowry
p. 360-361
The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information
by Craig Robertson
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, 2021. 312 PP.
PAPERBACK, $34.95 ISBN: 978-1-517-90946-8
Book Traces: Nineteenth-Century Readers and the Future of the Library by Andrew M. Stauffer (review)
Tracy Bonfitto
p. 362-363