Emanuel Goldberg and His Knowledge Machine Information, Invention, and Political Forces

Subjects:

• Library & Information Science » Digital Technologies
• Library & Information Science » Issues & Trends

Reviews:

• More than a tribute or a history of a technology, this book is perhaps best read as a cultural history of sorts: the life story of a man and the technologies he helped to create and how both were profoundly shaped by the political and social forces of the time. The lesson implicit in Buckland's revealing narrative is that the man himself can be understood only in the context in which he was forgotten-and it is a story well worth remembering.
  —Libraries & the Cultural Record 2007
• The story of Emanuel Goldberg offers insights into ways of handling documentary information, and still more insights into the tragic effects that social and political developments can have on our lives. We can now honour him as he deserves. And thank Michael Buckland for making this possible.
  —Journal of Librarianship and Information Science June 2008
• [P]rofessor Buckland's enormous achievement in bringing to light the career of a great scientist who, like many of his German and foreign colleagues, fell victim to the nationalistic madness that virtually destroyed German culture and science between 1933 and 1945. Emanuel Goldberg has at last received the understanding and recognition that his inventive genius deserved but were not possible in his lifetime. Recommended for the libraries of schools of library and information science, for schools with graduate programs in photographic technology, and for all scholars and students of the history of library technology.
  —College & Research Libraries January 2007
• [P]rovides a detailed history of the development of the film industry in Germany and in Europe as it pertains to photography, cinema, and microfilm. In particular, it covers much of the history of Zeiss Ikon, which Goldberg helped to found and where he worked until forced to flee Nazi Germany. The book provides a detailed picture of the major figures in the industry and extensive discussion of how many film technologies were developed and how they function. With more than 100 pages of reference sources listed, it is an invaluable resource on the history of film technology. It is an easy read and is impressively researched.
  —Choice 9/1/2006

Table of Contents:

• Preface
  Origins
  University Studies
  Berlin
  Sophie Posniak
  Graphics
  The Goldberg Wedge
  The Great War
  Ice and the Kinamo
  The Goldberg Condition
  Microdots
  Zeiss Ikon and the Contax
  Television
  The 1931 Congress
  The Statistical Machine
  Ludwig, Killinger and Mutschmann
  Paris
  Palestine
  Military Needs
  The Microfilm Rapid Selector
  Finale
  After Goldberg
  Goldberg in Retrospect
  Appendix A: Texts in German
  Appendix B: Biographical Sources
  Appendix C: Goldberg Patents
  Bibliography of Emanuel Goldberg's Writings
  General Bibliography
  Index