[SIGCIS-Members] Email Book

[Esther Milne]

Hi all,

I just wanted to say thanks for the suggestions about the history of email and mailing list culture.

A number of people have referenced Douglas Engelbart. I know that mail functionality was included in the NLS/Augment system but I can't find explanations about the commercialised aspect that’s mentioned below.

In Abbate and Partridge his email contribution is acknowledged but, as I say, not pursued in detail. Thierry Bardini does have some great material in Bootstrapping which I'm interested in supplementing.

The Computer History Museum catalogue entry is very useful, thanks. Tho it is 200 plus boxes so that's why I'm after any detail.

By way of context my first book (Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence - Routledge 2010) also dealt with email history and in fact draws from the work of many on this list. What I’m now attempting is to bring into dialogue the historical focus with other social, cultural and political lines of inquiry.

So I look at early email development, in particular the RFC series and the memo template. Then I consider contemporary issues such as research ethics in relation to the Enron data set. As you’d know, this enduring email corpus is accessed by a wide range of scholars. What goes less remarked is the impact on the people whose emails suddenly become public domain.

Thanks again and if anything occurs about email generally or Engelbart in particular please do get in touch.

Cheers,
Esther





________________________________
From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Henry E Lowood <lowood at stanford.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, 13 December 2016 4:36 AM
To: Al Kossow; members at lists.sigcis.org
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Email Book

For the Engelbart aspect, you will also want to check the Engelbart papers at Stanford, which includes the Journal and much of the SRI/ARC and Tymshare materials.
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ft3n39n626/
Henry

Henry Lowood, PhD
Curator for History of Science & Technology; Film & Media Collections
HSSG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford, California 94305-6066
Phone: + 650-723-4602
Web: https://people.stanford.edu/lowood/


-----Original Message-----
From: Members [mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2016 6:46 AM
To: members at lists.sigcis.org
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Email Book


On 12/11/16 7:55 PM, Esther Milne wrote:

> Of course there are many journal articles, conference presentations
> and research projects that examine email communication. And the
> leading internet histories all discuss email but there is not the sustained analysis we've seen with other technologies and media forms.
>

Hopefully, you will be covering Englebart and the SRI ARC Journal, and the subsequent spinoff from SRI to Tymshare of the commercialized mailing list product that was part of Augment? The Computer History Museum has a pretty deep archive of material on this subject.

http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102706170


> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been an archive lurker for a couple of months so I thought it was time to introduce myself.
>
> I'm an academic writing a book commissioned by MIT called 'Email and the Everyday: Homes, Institutions, Markets'. Despite its 45 year history, surprisingly there have been no monographs dedicated to email.
>
> Of course there are many journal articles, conference presentations and research projects that examine email communication. And the leading internet histories all discuss email but there is not the sustained analysis we've seen with other technologies and media forms.
>
> So I'm getting in touch with a few questions. Keen to hear your views! Currently, I'm writing about mailing list culture and moderation. What would you say are the key mailing lists for IT/email/computer history? And do you think mailing lists still have a role to play despite the popularity of alternatives offered by social media?
>
> The other topic I'm researching at the moment is the email provider sector. So, both commercial and open source email client programmers or providers. If anyone is working in this area I'd be keen to talk.
>
> Thanks for listening - email me off list if that's easier. Like I say, I would love to hear from you!
>
> cheers,
> Esther
>
> Associate Professor Esther Milne
> Department of Media and Communication
> Swinburne University, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
> emilne at swin.edu.au ||| @esthermilne |||
<https://swin.academia.edu/EstherMilne>

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