This book tells the story of Emanuel Goldberg, a chemist, inventor, and industrialist who contributed to almost every aspect of imaging technology in the first half of the 20th century. Photographic sensitometry, reprographics, standardized film speeds, color printing (moiré effect), aerial photography, extreme microphotography (microdots), optics, camera design (the Contax), the first hand-held movie camera, and early television technology--Golberg was involved with them all. Yet history has not been kind to him, and his name has been all but erased from the annals of information science.
An incredible story emerges as Buckland unearths forgotten documents and rogue citations to make the case that it was Goldberg, not Vannevar Bush, who created the first desktop search engine. Goldberg, not "Professor Zapp" (a figment of J. Edgar Hoover's imagination), who developed microdot technology. Goldberg, not Heinz Kueppenbender, who designed the famous Contax 35 mm camera. Buckland firmly yet engagingly gives credit where credit is due, in the process shedding light on the circumstances that led to Goldberg's obscurity. The result is an illuminating tribute to a great mind, and a fascinating investigation of a crucial period in the history of information science and technology