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ight at the desk. As the 1945 article explains, the Memex “can presumably be operated from a distance, [but] it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works.” Enduring and Endearing Concepts Without resorting to attributing unwarranted insights to the Memex article, there For Peer Review are still concepts from the article that fire the imagination and can still be held up as goals. 2t-S-1Ed-D-P One of the most important aspects, clearly intended by Bush, was that the Memex was a personal machine storing an individual’s personal collection. If there are any doubts about the fact that it was a personal machine, Bush (1967) explicitly stated later that the 1945 article “proposed a machine for personal use.” Following from the personal nature of the device is the fact that it was intended to be an extension of one’s own memory. One of the major benefits of the Memex was that a person would no longer have to rely solely on memory to find things previously seen or read. This means that the Memex was to be a personal archive, housing a collection of all of a person’s books, records, communications (i.e., written communications), newspapers, periodicals subscribed to, and so on, accumulated over the years. As a personal, archival collection, the Memex acquired most things, and stored everything, in a single format (microfilm or microfiche) and it was intended to be a 17 John Wiley & Sons Page 18 of 38
Page 19 of 38 format that would be just as useful at the end of a lifetime of collecting information as at the beginning. In our current world of software, computers and storage media that are continually being ‘improved,’ we may indeed wonder if we will ever have a personal digital device that will be just as useful thirty or forty years from now as it is today. Another major aspect of the Memex is that it was supposed to be easy to find For Peer Review associated information as well as to create associations. This is still a good goal, but, like the use of microfilm, the techniques suggested in 1945 can be bettered by newer technologies. After all, the 1945 article had no idea that it would be possible to rapidly search for any word, or any string of characters, occurring anywhere within any text in the collection, and to use occurrence statistics to establish associations. Lesk (2005, p. 225) points out that even though the hyperlink was Bush’s primary information seeking method, “chasing hyperlinks is not effective now” as a way of generally finding information in large collections. The reference is to searching the Web, but the same applies for any really large collection. A related concept in the 1945 article was that information in one’s own collection, including the linked associations, would be easily shareable with others by virtue of quickly copying microfilm frames. Because the links from one item to another were embedded in the microfilm frames containing the items, sharing links that have been added to formal materials like books and articles would involve copying the materials themselves. Bush, though, did not address the question of copyright or other ownership issues. 2t-S-1Ed-D-P 18 John Wiley & Sons
Page 1 and 2: Page 1 of 38 For Peer Review Journa
Page 3 and 4: Page 3 of 38 Introduction Thomas Wa
Page 5 and 6: Page 5 of 38 The interest in the ar
Page 7 and 8: Page 7 of 38 Some commentators have
Page 9 and 10: Page 9 of 38 techniques for extreme
Page 11 and 12: Page 11 of 38 The second aspect of
Page 13 and 14: Page 13 of 38 quickly (on rails) in
Page 15 and 16: Page 15 of 38 One of the largest si
Page 17: Page 17 of 38 disappointed by their
Page 21 and 22: Page 21 of 38 Today’s Manifestati
Page 23 and 24: Page 23 of 38 2t-S-1Ed-D-P The desk
Page 25 and 26: Page 25 of 38 that they can process
Page 27 and 28: Page 27 of 38 2t-S-1Ed-D-P And just
Page 29 and 30: Page 29 of 38 want to refer back to
Page 31 and 32: Page 31 of 38 Acknowledgments I wou
Page 33 and 34: Page 33 of 38 Johnson, Steven. (200
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