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Papers by colin burke

Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2016

EDITOR'S SUMMARYBefore the field of bioinformatics was imagined, zoologist Herbert Haviland F... more EDITOR'S SUMMARYBefore the field of bioinformatics was imagined, zoologist Herbert Haviland Field advanced the Concilium Bibliographicum, a comprehensive bibliographic resource for zoology. Born in New York to a wealthy family, Field pursued his early interest in science and earned multiple degrees but was frustrated by the difficulty of searching publications. Field developed a vision and plan for the Concilium, garnering financial support from donors and his family's resources and implementing the young Universal Decimal Classification for the project. Despite contacts with scientists throughout Europe, reliable funding for the Concilium eluded him. At the start of World War I, Field shifted his attention to relief missions, eventually using his international social position and language skills in commerce, the intelligence field and ultimately peace efforts. Attempts to rebuild the Concilium after the war failed, and Field died of influenza in 1921 at age 53, falling shor...

The American Historical Review, 1980

1. Education and social change: Massachusetts as a case study 2. Trends in school attendance in n... more 1. Education and social change: Massachusetts as a case study 2. Trends in school attendance in nineteenth-century Massachusetts 3. From apron strings to ABCs: school entry in nineteenth-century Massachusetts 4. The prospects of youth: school leaving in eight Essex County towns 5. From one room to one system: the importance of rural-urban differences in nineteenth-century Massachusetts schooling 6. Education and social change in two nineteenth-century Massachusetts communities 7. Trends in educational funding and expenditures 8. The politics of educational reform in mid-nineteenth-century Massachusetts 9. Conclusion: the triumph of a state school system.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2002

This paper is a draft of the introduction to the chapter on voluntary, nonprofit, and religious e... more This paper is a draft of the introduction to the chapter on voluntary, nonprofit, and religious entities and activities slated to appear in the Millennial Edition of Historical Statistics of the United States (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press). Conceding the various problematic definitions of the "nonprofit sector," the essay offers a rationale for the broadly inclusive approach to the selection of historical statistics of institutions and activities presented in the chapter. In addition, it reviews the challenges and opportunities for researchers working on the statistical aspects of nonprofit, voluntary, and religious organizations. The essay includes samples of the statistical series that will appear in HSUS.

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2009

Journal of American History, 2006

... My research there during the mid-to late 1990s was facilitated by director Glenn Porter; Jon ... more ... My research there during the mid-to late 1990s was facilitated by director Glenn Porter; Jon Williams, head of the Pictorial Department; Mar-jorie McNinch, reference archivist; and CarolLockman, coordinator of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society. ...

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2001

This article describes the section on nonprofit statistics that will be in the forthcoming editio... more This article describes the section on nonprofit statistics that will be in the forthcoming edition of Historical Statistics of the United States. The article provides a few examples of the use of long-term statistical series to gain perspective on the contemporary nonprofit sector and of the use of such series in evaluating standard liberal interpretations of American history in general. The historical examples in the article (such as the decline in American generosity since the 1960s) are as much suggestive as definitive but all point to valuable questions to be explored through more detailed studies.

Library Trends, 2013

Information history is moving beyond listing the "what" and to answering how-and-why systems emer... more Information history is moving beyond listing the "what" and to answering how-and-why systems emerged, prospered, or died. This paper explores the nature of (and debates over) explanation in historical studies. The conclusion is that the history of information has to rely upon complex explanations that are a mixture of social science and humanities approaches. There are no formulas for such historical work, as shown by Boyd Rayward's sensitive efforts on the history of Paul Otlet's career and personal life. Boyd Rayward's work has inspired many of us who explore the history of information to go beyond listing the "what happened" and attempt to explain-to identify the "how and why" of a system's or institution's emergence, successes and failures, impact, and, perhaps, lingering decline. 1 However, explaining is a difficult and complex challenge. It is more demanding of logic and evidence than listing the "what" in history; evaluating the internal merits of a technical contribution; or, pejoratively declaring the influence of such things as chauvinism or sexism. 2 Explaining also depends on more rigorous research than does, for example, categorizing an individual or enterprise as being covered by a historical construct such as The Age of Information (Castells, 1996, 1997, 1998) or The Control Era (Beniger, 1986). Explaining in historical work is more challenging than in the physical or biological sciences (or clinical/experimental social sciences) because history was never a closed system in which a few "controlled" variables could determine an outcome. Causation in institutional and human lives is rarely simple or tidy, and causal factors may interact in unexpected and complicated ways. CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

Intelligence and National Security, 1999

America's codebreakers have a reputation for creating and applying the world's most advanced elec... more America's codebreakers have a reputation for creating and applying the world's most advanced electronic calculation and data processing technologies. That reputation is justified but it was earned only after decades of struggling to surmount political and bureaucratic hurdles. The National Archives' recently acquired and declassified cryptologic history documents confirm that. 1 They reinforce the interpretation that from World War I to the tense days of the Cold War the US Army and Navy's cryptanalysts labored to keep up with, let alone get ahead of, the state of the art in technology, science and mathematics. 2 Even the codebreaking needs and triumphs of World War II did not ensure the cryptanalysts the support they would require for access to the best science and technology in the postwar era. During the cryptanalysts' Golden Age, World War II, the codebreakers and their technological allies built many impressive machines. The Americans created proto-computers as advanced as those of the British whose Colossus has gained a reputation as one of the world's first modern electronic computers. 3 But America's devices fell short of the country's technological and scientific potential. For example, America's versions of the devices used to attack Germany's World War II encryption machines were technological compromises rushed to completion. Those Bombes, and even America's 'Colossus', the 5202, arrived a bit too late because during a critical decade army and navy codebreakers had been unable to establish a development program or to convince the leading universities and corporations to bend their research to the special needs of code and cipher-breaking. The unprecedented millions of dollars and the hundreds of skilled engineers and scientists assigned to crypto-technology during World War II could not make up for the lost opportunities of the 1930s.