This conference is bringing together scholars with significantly different backgrounds. In order to ameloriate these differences, several readahead materials have been gathered. Not everyone will need or want to read them all, but the collection should form a reasonably sound basis upon which to discuss the parallels and impacts - as communications advances - between printing and the Internet.

Requested Readaheads

Prof. Steve Kang, "The Printing Press in Korea" - This extended essay is a nice introduction to the history of the printing press in Korea - a very interesting example to contrast with the history of the printing press in Europe.

Prof. Christopher Reed: "Printing and Publishing in Late Imperial China" - This paper captures some of the impact of printing and publishing in China and emphasizes the importance of looking at the impact on different tiers of society.

Prof. Dan Traister: "Some Thoughts on the Printing Press and the Internet" - True to its title, this paper presents some cautionary notes as we think about the imparct of printing and any parallels it might have with the Internet.

Prof. Ev Rogers: "Diffusion of Printing and the Internet" - This paper delves briefly into the diffusion of the technologies of both printing and the Internet.

Additional Readaheads

It's a nice introduction for those who are coming to the conference without a historian's perspective. It follows printing from its origins in China, through Gutenberg and into its impact on modern thought.

The second readahead is an article by Roger Chartier of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris (and translated by Jill A. Friedman, "Gutenberg Revisited from the East."

The article introduces a Special Issue of Late Imperial China (vol. 17, 1996) on Publishing and the Print Culture in Late Imperial China. It is a nice overview of the history of printing and publishing in China. It draws some important contrasts with printing and publishing in Europe after Gutenberg.

Prof. Chartier was unable to attend the conference, but has sent another paper that is pertinent. The paper was written for a Japanese book entitled "Treasury of Printing." It's titled "Publishing and Reading." In the paper Prof. Chartier reminds us that:

• movable type started in Asia, not with Gutenberg,
  
• publishing a text does not necessarily require printing,
  
• and the connection between printing and the history of reading is not as direct as we might like.

A fourth readahead is from conference participant, Prof. Jonathan Rose. It's titled "The History of Books: Revised and Enlarged". It's a nice status report on what Rose calls the new academic discipline of the history of books. It's a good summary of what we know and don't know about books and their impact.

The four readaheads above give a reasonable overview of the history of printing in both Europe and Asia. In addition, it is also important to know something about the Internet. It is certainly the case that today's historians are going to know more about the Internet than today's Internet thinkers are going to know about the history of print. There is, however, at least one important aspect of the Internet that it is important for everyone to understand - the where?, how? and how fast? of diffusion of the Internet. The impact of a technology is highly dependent on the nature and extent of its diffusion.

Prof. Larry Press of California State University at Dominguez Hills has an ongoing project to monitor the diffusion of the Internet. At "Tracking the Global Diffusion of the Internet" he has an index to his study as well as to other studies that are monitoring globally the how fast? and where? questions. For a better idea of how? the Internet is diffusing (at least in the United States), there's Prof. Tora Bikson's article on "Citizens, Computers, and Connectivity: A Review of Trends."

Finally, as another perspective on a historical analogy with the Internet, there is an interesting HyperForum (an Internet-based forum system) discussion on "Will the Internet Change Humanity?" This particular link is moderator Dr. Robert Lempert's discussion for the HyperForum session. In it he suggests three historical analogies with the Internet (in ascending order of impact on humanity) - the automobile, the steam engine, and the printing press. He argues the likely impact of the Internet will be somewhere between that of the automobile and the steam engine. There are also links here to the HyperForum discussion itself, as well as an ongoing online discussion.