[308] in Information Retrieval
World Wide Web:Threat or Mance?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (mmanoff@MIT.EDU)
Wed May 1 10:25:44 1996
From: mmanoff@MIT.EDU
To: elibdev@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 01 May 1996 10:24:18 EDT
Re: Tom and Grant's contention that "computers are just tools."
My take on this subject is more in line with the historian Ruth Cowan
who says "tools are not passive instruments, confined to doing our
bidding, but have a life of their own...People use tools to do work,
but tools also define and constrain the ways in which it is possible
and likely that people will behave." I wouldn't describe tools or
technologies as "neutral."
Marlene Manoff
Humanities Library
