A Bibliographic Guide to the History of Computer Applications, 1950-1990

Covering over 40 industries and dozens of applications, this is the first bibliography on the history of computer applications. After an introductory essay on the history of applications, the volume is divided into two time periods and includes over 1,600 entries, arranged by application and industry. Users will find sections on such fields as higher education, manufacturing, law enforcement, accounting, space travel, ATMs, artificial intelligence, banking, and trucking. Entries are annotated to describe their content and, when appropriate, their historical significance.

Compiled by a historian for other historians and economists, the bibliography draws on the entire spectrum of contemporary and historical literature: books, user's guides, trade journals, industry publications, technology and scholarly magazines and journals, and newsletters, including both American and European sources. As the author of several books on information processing and a member of the IBM Corporation, Cortada is in a good position to pick the historically significant literature for inclusion in this bibliography.

JAMES W. CORTADA is Senior Consultant for IBM. He is the author of over a dozen books on the management of information technology and the history of data processing. His earlier books include the 3-volume Historical Dictionary of Data Processing (Greenwood, 1987), Before the Computer, The Computer in the United States, and three other bibliographies on the history of computing. The Second Bibliographic Guide to the History of Computing, Computers, and the Information Processing Industry will be published by Greenwood early in 1996.