As We May Think by Vannevar Bush

Heerin Lee

After a war...

• a growing amount of research• however, our methods of transmitting and

reviewing the results of research are old• scientific efforts should make all previous

collected human knowledge more accessible through machine

Progress in recording

• dry photography - used in facsimile transmission• microfilm - The Encyclopedia Britannica could be

reduced to the volume of a matchbox• tiny camera fitted with universal-focus lens - move freely and record the worthy

Progress in writing

• Voder - emits recognizable speech of stroked key • Vocoder - converse of Voder• Vannevar Bush predict a new machine: - take dictation - type it automatically - talk back if the author wants to review what he

just said

Selection in researches

• creative aspect of thinking• involve the entire process by which man profits

by his inheritance of acquired knowledge• automatic telephone exchange etc.• the way human mind works - association

- things are connected by association of thoughts

Memex

• an electromechanical device• an individual desk with screens, a keyboard,

buttons, levers• a user can store all his books, records, and

communications as microfilm• a user could add or remove microfilm reels at

will• personal computer, online encyclopedias

Associative trail

• a way to create a new linear sequence of microfilm frames across any arbitrary sequence of microfilm frames by creating a chained sequence of links with personal comments and side trails

• bookmarks, search by a keyword, hypertext system etc.