Information Systems history: What is history? What is IS history? What IS history? ... and why even bother with history?

摘要

Developing from Carr's summary of Collingwood's insights, the collection of essays on Information Systems (IS) history presented in this and the subsequent issue of the Journal of Information Technology illustrates a range of different ways in which the mutual relations between 'the past' and the 'the way in which historians view the past' can be exemplified with regard to the field of IS. In effect, the authors of the papers are historians, even if that is not their specific or designated area of expertise or specialization.