VBushAWMT

Vannevar Bush As We May Think

--Notes record =documentation, memex- hypertext, database, Missing features: search and metadata, connect, annotate, and share both published works and personal trails (wikipedia)--

This has not been a scientist's war; it has been a war in which all have had a part What are the scientists to do next?

benefits of man uses science (control material environment, increase biological knowledge to cope with life etc, food,)

There is a growing mountain of research, The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers. specialisation is necessary.

Inadequate methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research

The difficulty is that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record

But there are signs of a change as new and powerful instrumentalities come into use (photocells, advanced photography etc) Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy of effort. In spite of much complexity, they perform reliably. d. Note the automatic telephone exchange, which has hundreds of thousands of such contacts, and yet is reliable.

A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted (Even if utterly new recording procedures do not appear, these present ones are certainly in the process of modification and extension)

A library of a million volumes could be compressed into one end of a desk Mere compression, of course, is not enough; one needs not only to make and store a record but also be able to consult it, and this aspect of the matter comes later. Even the modern great library is not generally consulted; it is nibbled at by a few.Compression is important, however, when it comes to costs

To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record?

The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a lag in the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or a lack of development of devices for their use. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.

The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association.

MEMEX Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory. It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers In one end is the stored material Most of the memex contents are purchased on microfilm ready for insertion There is, of course, provision for consultation of the record by the usual scheme of indexing Any given book of his library can thus be called up and consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another.