A trustworthy record is one that is both an accurate statement of facts and a genuine manifestation of those facts. Record trustworthiness thus has two qualitative dimensions: reliability and authenticity. Reliability means that the record is capable of standing for the facts to which it attests, while authenticity means that the record is what it claims to be. This study explores the evolution of the principles and methods for determining record trustworthiness from antiquity to the digit...

By Terry Eastwood This book reports the findings of a research project on the means of protecting the integrity of active and semi-active electronic records. The project, which is commonly referred to as "the UBC Project," was conceived by two of the authors of this book, Luciana Duranti and Terry Eastwood, and conducted between 1994 and 1997. The third author, Heather MacNeil, who worked formally as the principal research assistant on the project, acted as an equal in the research and in ...

The invention of writing was one of the most important technological, cultural, and sociological breakthroughs in human history. With the printed book, information and ideas could disseminate more widely and effectively than ever before -- and in some cases, affect and redirect the sway of history. Today, nearly one million books are published each year. But is the era of the book as we know it -- a codex of bound pages -- coming to an end? And if it is, should we celebrate its demise and ...

Publishing is in crisis. Publishing has always been in crisis, but today’s version, fuelled by the digital boom, has some frightening symptoms. Trade publishers see their mid-lists hollowed, academic customers face budgetary pressures from higher education spending cuts, and educational publishers encounter increased competition across their markets. But over the centuries, forced change has been the norm for publishers. Somehow, they continue to adapt.This ground-breaking study, t...

Rhetoric is often seen as a synonym for shallow, deceptive language, and therefore as something negative. But if we view rhetoric in more neutral terms, as the 'art of persuasion', it is clear that we are all forced to engage with it at some level, if only because we are constantly exposed to the rhetoric of others. In this Very Short Introduction, Richard Toye explores the purpose of rhetoric. Rather than presenting a defence of it, he considers it as the foundation-stone of civi...

Walter J. Ong’s classic work provides a fascinating insight into the social effects of oral, written, printed and electronic technologies, and their impact on philosophical, theological, scientific and literary thought.This thirtieth anniversary edition – coinciding with Ong’s centenary year – reproduces his best-known and most influential book in full and brings it up to date with two new exploratory essays by cultural writer and critic John Hartley.Hartley provides:

Studies in the culture and history of the book are a burgeoning academic specialty. Intriguing, rigorous, and vital, they are nevertheless rooted within three major academic disciplines - history, literary studies, and bibliography - that focus respectively upon the book as a cultural transaction, a literary text, and a material artefact. Old Books and New Histories serves as a guide to this rich but sometimes confusing territory, explaining how different scholarly approaches to w...

George Grant -- philosopher, conservative, Canadian nationalist -- was one of Canada's most significant thinkers and the author of Lament for a Nation. In Technology and Empire, Grant reflects on the extent to which technology has shaped our modern culture.

Here is a natural companion to Christopher Booker's bestselling The Seven Basic Plots (Continuum) and John Gross's seminal study The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters (Weidenfeld and Nicolson).The most eminent cultural and social historian Frank Furedi presents an eclectic and entirely original history of reading. The very act of reading and the choice of reading material endow individuals with an identity that possesses great symbolic significa...

Michel Foucault is recognized as one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers, however the authors in this volume contend that more use can be made of Foucault than has yet been done and that some of the uses to which Foucault has so far been put run the risk of and occasionally simply amount to misuse.This interdisciplinary volume brings together a group of esteemed scholars, recognized for their command of and insights into Foucault's oeuvre. They demonstrate the many...

Making Sense in History provides a guide for history students and teachers. This work provides descriptions and analysis of several approaches for writing history. While the focus is on how history has been written, the methods that are researched in the book are suitable as a reference work for college-level history students and teachers. It provides an overview of how research has been undertaken, and how authors throughout history have written history. Most works of this type deal with eit...

What does the Frankfurt School have to say about the creative industries? Does the spread of Google prove we now live in an information society? How is Madonna an example of postmodernism? How new is new media? Does the power of Facebook mean we're all media makers now?This groundbreaking volume – part reader, part textbook - helps you to engage thoroughly with some of the major voices that have come to define the landscape of theory in media studies, from the public sphere to post...