In 1953 Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux produced The Study of Culture at a Distance, a compilation of research from this period. This work, long unavailable, presents a rich and complex methodology for the study of cultures through literature, film, informant interviews, focus groups, and projective techniques.

This Handbook is concerned with principles of human factors engineering for design of the human-computer interface. It has both academic and practical purposes; it summarizes the research and provides recommendations for how the information can be used by designers of computer systems. The articles are written primarily for the professional from another discipline who is seeking an understanding of human-computer interaction, and secondarily as a reference book for the professional in the area, and should particularly serve the following: computer scientists, human factors engineers, designers and design engineers, cognitive scientists and experimental psychologists, systems engineers, managers and executives working with systems development.The work consists of 52 chapters by 73 authors and is organized into seven sections. In the first section, the cognitive and information-processing aspects of HCI are summarized. The following group of papers deals with design principles for software and hardware. The third section is devoted to differences in performance between different users, and computer-aided training and principles for design of effective manuals. The next part presents important applications: text editors and systems for information retrieval, as well as issues in computer-aided engineering, drawing and design, and robotics. The fifth section introduces methods for designing the user interface. The following section examines those issues in the AI field that are currently of greatest interest to designers and human factors specialists, including such problems as natural language interface and methods for knowledge acquisition. The last section includes social aspects in computer usage, the impact on work organizations and work at home.

The Contributions to the Sociology of Language series features publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It addresses the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches – theoretical and empirical – supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of scholars interested in language in society from a broad range of disciplines – anthropology, education, history, linguistics, political science, and sociology. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Natalie Fecher.