School of Information
Previously School of Library & Information Studies
Michael Buckland.
Emanuel Goldberg, 1881-1970:
Pioneer of Information Science.
*** New biography ***
Emanuel Goldberg and his Knowledge Machine: Information, Invention, and
Political Forces, by Michael Buckland. (Libraries Unlimited, 2006). See
http://lu.com/showbook.cfm?isbn=0313313326.
Also
Additions,
Corrections, and
Reviews.
Emanuel Goldberg (Portrait)
was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1881,
a chemist,
inventor, and industrialist who contributed to almost all aspects of
imaging technology in the first half of the twentieth century:
photographic sensitometry, reprographics, standardized film speeds,
color printing (moiré effect), aerial photography,
extreme microphotography (microdots), optics, camera design
(the Contax), the important, early hand-held Kinamo movie camera, and
early television
technology. He received his doctorate from
Wilhelm Ostwald's institute in Leipzig in
1906.
The "Goldberg condition" is a design principle for photography and
movie sound tracks.
In 1933, when head of the world's largest camera firm, Zeiss
Ikon in Dresden, Germany, he was kidnapped by Nazis and disappeared
into oblivion. In fact, he went first to Paris and then to Tel Aviv,
where he set up a precision instruments workshop, now a major
Israeli firm, El-Op.
He died in Tel Aviv in 1970.
In 1931 he demonstrated in Dresden, London and Paris a
"Statistical Machine"
which combined photocell,
circuitry,
and microfilm for document retrieval.
(Description).
His paper on it was apparently last cited in 1938.
Vannevar Bush attempted to build a similar machine in 1938-1940, calling
it a Microfilm Rapid Selector. Bush's fantasy on what such a machine
might do, "As we may think", became famous. Goldberg and his machine
were forgotten.
(Article on Goldberg, Bush, and retrieval).
Goldberg lived in distant worlds during exciting times: Czarist
Russia; the Kingdom of Saxony; the Weimar Republic; Palestine
under the Mandate. He did not reminisce much, even to his children;
the records of his firms were destroyed by bombing (Dresden) and
flood (Israel); his writings are often in obscure German publications;
he burned most of his own papers. His successors (Nazis and communists)
did not honor Jewish capitalists. Some contributions in Israel are
still classified.
Materials are being assembled for biography. Meanwhile, try:
*** New *** - Histories,
Heritages, and the Past: The Case of
Emanuel Goldberg. (CHF Conference, 2002).
M. Buckland.
Emanuel Goldberg, 1881-1970: Ein Lebensbild.
(Auf deutsch).
M. Buckland.
Emanuel Goldberg, electronic document retrieval,
and Vannevar Bush's Memex.
Journal of the American Society for
Information Science 43 (1992): 284-94.
E. Goldberg.
The retrieval problem in photography (1932).
Translation & notes by M. Buckland. Journal of the American
Society for Information Science 43 (1992): 295-298.
M. Buckland.
Zeiss Ikon and television: Fernseh AG.
Zeiss Historica 17 (1995): 17-19.
M. Buckland. Zeiss Ikon's "Statistical Machine".
Zeiss Historica 17 (1995): 6-7.
For the Zeiss companies see the Zeiss Historica Society website
www.zeisshistorica.org
Go to
History or
Selection,
or to Michael Buckland's
Home Page.