The Application of Automated Techniques in the Management and Control of Source Materials

Abstract

is an inveterate adapter. His history is one of the application of narrow concepts to general needs. In the technological age such application has meant the proliferation of uses of a single invention far beyond what the inventor intended. The steam engine, developed to pump water from mines, became a power plant for locomotion, a means for creating electrical energy by driving generators, and, as a byproduct, a force to blow a penetrating whistle that replaced the steeple bell for mass communication of simple messages. The electric relay system, perfected to make possible telegraphic communication, developed into such diverse uses as the doorbell and the remotely controlled rail switch, and it became the mechanical predecessor of the electronic computer. The computer itself has followed this pattern of adaptation. Originally designed as a machine to aid in solving mathematical problems, it has been employed to address envelopes, to determine when magazine subscriptions will lapse, to control automobile traffic, to aid in the launching and progress of space flights, and to permit the designing of an apartment building with 167 different floor plans.1 By applying the computer in archival and manuscript work, the professions can attack problems that long ago were abandoned as prohibitively expensive. The computer is making possible information retrieval on a massive scale. The problem of retrieving information is not unfamiliar to archivists and manuscript curators. It existed even half a century ago, when collections generally were small, new accessions were few and far between, and the scholarly world was a rather tightly knit community of researchers and teachers who usually knew each other and knew what each was