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A survey of books about electronic mail

1995-03-26 03:18:14
A survey of books about electronic mail
---------------------------------------

For people interested in electronic mail, here is a survey of
some books in this area:

Warning: I am the author of one of the books. I have tried to
be impartial, but you should be aware of the risk of
partiality when I review my own book.

General overview books
----------------------

Title: The e-mail frontier, emerging markets and evolving
technologies
Size: 475 pages
Author: Daniel J. Blum & David M. Litwack
Publisher: Addison-Wesley 1994
Comment: A general overview about e-mail, with particular
emphasis on the commercial market and products on the
commercial market. Standards (both Internet and X.400) are
also well covered..

Title: Electronic mail
Author: Jacob Palme
Size: 267 pages
Publisher: Artech Books 1995
Comment: A general overview which covers social effects,
cost-benefit issues, legal and ethical issues, technical
issues and standards (both Internet and X.400). For more info
see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/e-mail-book/e-mail-
book.html.

A comparison of the two overview books above: Palme gives
better coverage of social effects, cost-benefit, wide-area
network issues, distribution lists and group communication
than Blum-Litwack, while Blum-Litwack gives better coverage
of services and products on the commercial market and of
local area network issues.

Title: E-mail: Achieving local and global communications
Size: 155 pages
Publisher: Computer Technology Research Corp. 1995
Comment: I have not read this book, but from the promotional
material it seems to be a shorter and more popular books than
the two books reviewed above, and more directed at the
information needs of company executives.

Books about particular standards
--------------------------------

Title: The internet message: closing the book with electronic
mail
Author: Marshall T. Rose
Publisher: Prentice-Hall 1993
Comment: An excellent and comprehensive overview of the
Internet e-mail standards.

Title: Introduction to X.400
Author: Cemil Betanov
Publisher: Artech House 1993
Comment: A very complete and readable presentation for those
who really wants to learn all about the X.400 standard.

Title: Electronic Mail: An introduction to the X.400 Message
Handling Standards
Author: Sara Radicati
Publisher: McGraw-Hill 1992

Books primarily about social effects of e-mail
----------------------------------------------

Title: The Network Nation
Author: Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff
Publisher: (1) Addison-Wesley 1978 (2) MIT Press 1993
Comment: An outstanding early work, predicting much of what
would later happen on the market.

Title: Connections: New ways of working in the networked
organization
Author: Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler
Publisher: MIT Press 1991
Comments: A stimulating in-depth presentation of the effects
on organizations of using e-mail.

Style and ethical aspects
-------------------------

Title: The elements of e-mail style
Author: David Angell and Brent Heslop
Publisher: Addison-Wesley 1994
Comment: A good guide on how to use e-mail correctly and
effectively.

Title: The smiley dictionary
Author: Seth Godin
Publisher: Peachpit Press 1993
Comment: About smileys, character combinations to forward
emotional information, e.g. ":-)".

Title: Smileys
Author: David W. Sanderson
Publisher: O'Reilly and Associates 1993
Comment: Another book about smileys.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Palme                      E-mail: jpalme(_at_)dsv(_dot_)su(_dot_)se
Department of Computer and       Phone: +46-8-16 16 67
Systems Sciences (DSV)           Fax: +46-8-703 90 25 not rapid
Stockholm University             Postal address: Skeppargatan 73,
Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan      S-11530 Stockholm, Sweden

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