Infodoc : Sciences, Techniques et Culture

The way we record knowledge, and the web of technical, formal, and social practices that surrounds it, inevitably affects the knowledge that we record. The ways we hold knowledge about the past - in handwritten manuscripts, in printed books, in file folders, in databases- shape the kind of stories we tell about that past. In this lively and erudite look at the relation of our inofmration infrastructures to our information, G.Bowker examins how, over the past two hundred years, information technology has cnooverged with the nature and production of scientific knowledge. His story weaves a path between the social and political work of creating an explicit, indexical memory for science- the making of infrastructures-and the variety of ways we continually reconfigure, lose, and regain the[...]

The way we record knowledge, and the web of technical, formal, and social practices that surrounds it, inevitably affects the knowledge that we record. The ways we hold knowledge about the past - in handwritten manuscripts, in printed books, in file folders, in databases- shape the kind of stories we tell about that past. In this lively and erudite look at the relation of our inofmration infrastructures to our information, G.Bowker examins how, over the past two hundred years, information technology has cnooverged with the nature and production of scientific knowledge. His story weaves a path between the social and political work of creating an explicit, indexical memory for science- the making of infrastructures-and the variety of ways we continually reconfigure, lose, and regain the past.