To Infinity and Beyond: A Cultural History of the Infinite by Eli Maor (review)

The Internet, which is actually a vast network containing some 38,000 smaller networks in 135 countries, is currently the world's most extensive online system, supporting e-mail, information databases, and various other subscription and free services for close to 20 million regular users. Professors Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler discuss ways in which global networks can provide businesses and organizations with competitive advantages. A growing number of companies in developed nations are using computer systems and local area networks for organizing internal operations and communications with customers and for data communications such as electronic funds transfers. Training workers to use in-house e-mail has also become commonplace. Workers can hold conferences and tap into scores of databases and services. Managers can also use networks to foster new kinds of task structures and reporting relationships. Although never replacing face-to-face interactions, networks hold great potential for improving performance in areas such as customer service, product design or production. The introduction of these new communication technologies ultimately may have a cultural impact as profound as the impacts that printed books, telephones and television have had. Students, researchers and scholars are among the groups who stand to benefit most from online access to various forms of information such as libraries, databases and bulletin board services. Lucio Teles explores some of the new knowledge resources for students, including network-based apprenticing with mentors, peers and experts. Techniques using coaching, feedback and greater instructor and peer access are employed to build and share knowledge in subjects such as Science, English, History and Geography. Two popular types of commercial online services are bulletin board and conferencing systems, or "virtual communities," as author and editor Howard Rheingold describes them. His prime example is the thriving WELL system, which hosts a wide spectrum of discussion topics. Rheingold emphasizes the responsibility of individuals for their community input and the necessity of ensuring freedom of expression in "cyberspace." He points out that "democracy itself depends on the relatively free flow of communications" and asks,