Reaction to Vannevar Bush's "As we may think" (1st week)

This article was first published in July 1945, when the World War II was coming to an end. The author of this article, Vannevar Bush, was heavily involved in national defense research during the World War II [1]. He wrote this article from the perspective of a science administrator, trying to find new directions for post-war scientific research. The article also reflected his academic background in electrical engineering, with various appearances of electrical engineering terms and technologies. 

In this article, the author called for a shift in the focus of scientific work after the war. He suggested focusing on facilitating access to human knowledge, including the creation, storage, manipulation, selection and consultation of records.

The famous theoretical hypertext-based computer system “Memex” was proposed as “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”. The “Memex” has great impacts on the development of hypertext and intellect augmenting computer systems [2].  

In addition, many new technologies, as well as technical trends, associated with the “Memex” were also successfully predicted, such as speech recognition, mass-produced computers, hypertext, and new forms of encyclopedias.

This article is very important for Information Sciences and Technology (IST), although the word “record” was used much more frequently than the word “information” by the author (I would guess it was partially because the idea of “information” has not been mature or well recognized at the time of the article). This article provided seminal work and laid groundwork for a great number of current IST topics. This article was primarily concerned with I and T of the Information-Technology-People (I-T-P) triangle. As for I, “Memex” was proposed to provide personalized information service, which is similar to library service. As for T, it talked about technologies that can help people to better create, organize, store, manipulate and utilize information. Nevertheless, the author also considered user interface design for effective access to knowledge, which is about “People”. 

Every coin has two sides. There are also limitations in Bush’s article.

First, from the perspective of “Technology”, he missed some important technologies, although it seems too harsh to expect him to predict all important technologies. For example, as an electrical engineer, he missed digitalization, maybe because he was so successful in analog computing. Most of the technologies he proposed in this article were based on analog devices and technologies. By contrast, digital technologies have dominated IST nowadays. Another example was considering computer systems such as “Memex” as standalone discrete units, although the idea of hypertext was fundamental to the emergence of Internet, which connects computer to form a network. 

Second, from the perspective of “People”, Bush’s vision was limited to scientists and scientific research. He did not pay much attention to the civil use and the social contexts of new technologies, while they are crucial for the success of new technologies. For example, the “Memex” system was primarily designed for academic purpose. However, modern computers owe a great deal of their success to ordinary people, who use computers for business, entertainment and everyday life.

Third, from the perspective of “Information”, the article did not distinguish “record”, “information” and “knowledge”, although the three ideas are different from each other.

Even though technology has changed tremendously during the past 63 years and some predictions in this article may now seem odd or out-dated, I was still impressed by the author’s vision. It took not only knowledge in one’s own discipline, but also a clear overview and a deep understanding of human being’s scientific research, to come up with so many great insights. I thus consider this article as a giant leap, not only for IST, but also for science as a whole.

Reference:

[1] Wikipedia. Vannevar Bush. 2008 [cited Jan 14, 2008]; Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush.

[2] Wikipedia. Memex. 2008 [cited Jan 14, 2008]; Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex.