My area of interest has been new technologies and the internet, but when it really got interesting is when I started looking at the history of communication technologies from writing to printing to electronic communications like the telegraph, then the radio, TV, etc. Each of these was once new and it’s interesting to see the similarities between the “old new” and the “new new.”

I’d like to highlight a couple books that I’ve found interesting lately on this subject.

When Old Technologies Were New (link to worldcat) by Carolyn Marvin, 1988 is a fascinating and detailed look at the new media in the late 19th century from a social standpoint; for an academic book it’s very readable.

New Media 1740-1915 – an edited collection, Gitelman & Pingree eds., 2003. I wanted to cite the article “Scissoring and Scrapbooks: Nineteenth-Century Reading, Remaking and Recirculating” by Ellen Gruber Garvey in my blog paper – but it didn’t quite fit in – although it may make it into the next version. I had a good time reading about Zograscopes and other old new media. I actually bought this book, and I’m very selective these days. I usually read it first from the library then decide.

Hope someone finds this interesting & if you’ve read something along these lines let me know.