Current Bibliography in the History of Technology (1996-1997)

The following compilation is the thirty-fifth annual bibliography of current publications in the history of technology. Previous bibliographies in this series have appeared in Technology and Culture since 1964. The reader is also referred to the fifth publication of the SHOT Monograph Series, Eugene S. Ferguson’s Bibliography of the History of Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1968).

This year’s compilation marks a few changes for the bibliography. First, it combines coverage for two years of publication in the history of technology, 1996 and 1997. The advantage of combining these years is in catching up to current publication and thus increasing the timeliness of future issues of the Current Bibliography. By combining these two years, we are also offering the largest Current Bibliography yet, with more than 3,300 entries. The disadvantage of squeezing two years of bibliography into one year of work is reduced coverage of the literature, though this will be only a one-time occurrence.

Second, the change in publishers of Technology and Culture provided impetus for a review of the format of this bibliography, as well as a significant and long overdue upgrade in the software used to produce it. As a result, the bibliography has acquired a new look in some respects. The most visible change is in the use of numbered references, which simplifies the referencing scheme from the name and subject indexes. The bibliography itself continues to be organized by subject classifications; fortunately, the bibliography’s own Y2K problem remains a few years off, when it will be time to reorganize the chronological divisions to reflect the advent of a new century.

Last, the team of contributors to the bibliography has changed, as well. After many years of service, Stephen Cutcliffe is stepping back from his role as contributor. As regular users of the Current Bibliography remember, Stephen served as editor of the bibliography before me, and he has been a great help throughout my years as editor. His annual stack of contributions will be missed, though I will not be surprised if he cannot resist submitting the occasional reference.

The bibliography has been available to scholars in electronic form since March 1992 on the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) as part of the HST (History of Science and Technology) file. It provides on-line access to Current Bibliography in the History of Technology for the years 1987 through 1997, and it is possible to query it from your personal computer using a variety of indexes, assuming that you have a modem or access to the Internet. Members of the Society for the History of Technology now have free access to this database; for instructions, please consult the SHOT homepage <http://shot.press.jhu.edu> on the World Wide Web. For more information on personal or institutional RLIN accounts, please contact the RLIN Information Center at 800-537-7546 (U.S. and Canada) or consult the homepage of the Research Libraries Group <http://www.rlg.org>. The Current Bibliography of the History of Science and the Bibliografia Italiana di Storia della Scienza are also available in the HST file, and it is planned that more bibliographic files in the history of science, technology and medicine will be added to the file. Users of the HST file can obtain from me a copy of the working thesaurus for the Current Bibliography in the History of Technology, which should prove useful in working with this database.

I would like to thank the other contributors to the bibliography: Guillaume de Syon, Katalin Harkányi, Patrick Harshbarger, and Ian Winship. Readers willing to scan a selected set of journals or keep track of publications in one of the subfields of the history of technology should contact me, as additional contributors are welcome and needed. I hope that a few members of the Society for the History of Technology will step forward to increase the number of contributors. Improved coverage of Eastern European, Asian, and Latin American publications remains a desideratum, and help in these areas from correspondents would be welcome. Institutions or individuals aware of a journal or publication series that has been neglected in...