I've been a lurker on this list for a while, and was on the point of un-subscribing during the recent trolling incident. Perhaps prompted by that, I've decided to abandon my lurker status and try to contribute something. First - bit short notice, especially for those of you in the US, but next week there is a conference in Maastricht called 'Global E-quality, Rethinking ICTs in Africa, Asia and the Latin America', organised by the Infonomics people (also hosting the AoIR conference later this year). The conference marks the end of a project about the Internet, development and education in the regions already mentioned. more details: http://www.infonomics.nl/globalequality Second - Internet histories - Janet Abbate's book is very good, especially on the ARPAnet years. Castells new book _The Internet Galaxy_ has a chapter on the history which draws quite extensively on her work. Other sources: K Hafner and M Lyon (1996) _Where Wizards stay up late: The origins of the Internet_ New York: Simon & Schuster - journalistic but a good read The Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org) maintains lots of relevant stuff, especially from technical point of view sorry for self-promotion: G Thomas & S Wyatt (1999) 'Shaping cyberspace - interpreting and transforming the Internet' _REsearch Policy_ 28,7: 681-98 - looks at history of Internet focusing on changing relationship between producers and users; alternatives to Internet which didn't succeed - why they didn't whereas Internet did... Sally **************************** Dr Sally Wyatt Communicatiewetenschap Universiteit van Amsterdam Kloveniersburgwal 48 1012 CX Amsterdam The Netherlands tel: +31 (0)20 525 3178 fax: +31 (0)20 525 3681 *****************************