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Dear Victor, Your post this morning addresses two issues. One involves a broad field of inquiry - "data capture, sorting, and organization." the other involves a specific use of data, surveillance. Over the years, I have given serious thought to issues in data capture, sorting, and organization. This is a core question in several fields, including social informatics and information economics. (While surveillance technology concerns me as a citizen, I have not given it much thought as research problem.) Several excellent books give a large-scale overview of how human beings developed and design different kinds of information systems to capture, sort, and organize data. The best broad historical survey with a focus on what we now call information systems is probably James Beniger's (1986) The Control Revolution. Beniger explores the relations between technology and economics, showing how specific forms of technology brought about and evolved from specific social and economic problems, situations, and contexts. Michael Hobart and Zachary Schiffman (1998) wrote a book with far broader scope, spanning human time from Homer's Troy and Mesopotamian accounting to the modern age of digital computing. One great feature of this book is a useful bibliographic essay that traces topics and themes book by book for the reader who wishes to go deeper. Two of the best writers on these issues were economists, Harold Innis and Fritz Machlup. Innis (1951, 1980, 1995) examined many aspects of the relations between information, geography, technology, and social economics. He also helped to inspire Marshall McLuhan's work on communication and culture. Machlup (1982a, 1982b, 1984) was a pioneer of information economics. He was writing a comprehensive, several-volume study of information economics when he died in 1983. There are some extraordinarily good books that investigate specific aspects of these topics. One of my favorites is a book by Patrice Flichy (1995) that shows how the way we organize information and the ways we organize social life and work life are always related in intimate and often surprising ways. He starts with the first proposal for a telegraph in the 1600s through the semaphore telegraph up to the telephone and television of our own era. This topic is filled with interesting angles. A study on early Mesopotamian accounting by Hans Nissen, Peter Damerow, and Robert Englund (1993) is a typical example of this. It shows how accounting practices and organization of data helped to structure societies and their economies. This has always been evident to reflective political leaders. I recall some fascinating discussions in Winston Churchill's history of England in which Churchill discussed the role of the exchequer and accounting practices in the organization and formation of the early modern English nation as a political unit. Then there was the Domesday Book. Of course, that brings us back to surveillance. A tour through Beniger's Control Revolution and Hobart and Schiffman's Information Ages will be especially rewarding for anyone who wishes to get a broad overview of these issues. From there, one can drill down to how these intersect with design and design research. Yours, Ken -- References Beniger, James R. 1986. The Control Revolution. Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Nissen, Hans J., Peter Damerow, and Robert K. Englund. 1993. Archaic Bookkeeping: Early Writing and Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Flichy, Patrice. 1995. Dynamics of Modern Communication. The Shaping and Impact of New Communication Technologies. London: Sage Publications. Hobart, Michael E., and Zachary S. Schiffman. 1998. Information Ages. Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Innis, Harold. 1951. The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Reprinted with an introduction by Paul Heyer and David Crowley. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.) Innis, Harold. 1980. The Idea File of Harold Adams Innis. William Christian, editor. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Innis, Harold. 1995. Staples, Markets, and Cultural Change. D. Drache, editor. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. Machlup, Fritz. 1982a. Knowledge, Its Creation, Distribution, and Economic Significance. Vol. 1. Knowledge and Knowledge Production. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Machlup, Fritz. 1982b. Knowledge, Its Creation, Distribution, and Economic Significance. Vol. 2. The Branches of Learning. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Machlup, Fritz. 1984. Knowledge, Its Creation, Distribution, and Economic Significance. Vol. 3. The Economics of Information and Human Capital. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. -- Victor Margolin wrote: i would like to introduce a new copy to the list: the design of equipment for surveillance and data capture, sorting, and organization. I am interested in exploring the history of a host of devices that have been invented for producing and organizing data: these include credit card machines, fingerprinting machines, facial technology machines, credit cards, swipe cards, toll booth machines that register swipe cards, chip implants, identity cards, airport scanning machines. I'd be interested to know of any other machines that anyone can think of and where one might find information about them. Along with the machines, I'd like to begin to chronicle the history of software programs that relate to data capture, data protection etc. This would include the history of cookies, spyware, firewalls, and in general the whole world of electronic data security. Any books or articles on this subject would be helpful. My long term project is a complex diagram of data production and data use, including ways that data is bought and sold and then reused for commercial or surveillance purposes. I'd like to suggest that the design of data devices and data collection, documentation, and storage systems is a useful product for design researchers. Is anyone interested in this topic? -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Center for Design Research Denmark's Design School +47 46.41.06.76 Tlf NSM +47 33.40.10.95 Tlf Privat email: [log in to unmask]