We often forget just how quickly technology has and continues to advance. This quote below is taken from Curtis L. Kendrick of the American Historical Society in April of 1994. It would seem that Moore’s Law is alive and well. (For non-technical folks, Moore’s Law refers to a prediction made by Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel. In 1965 he predicted that the number of transistors on integrated circuits, in other words computing power, would double every 18 months for the next 10 years.)
“Until the last quarter of the twentieth century the technologies used for delivering information were relatively static. Paper, bound in monographic or serial volumes, conveyed the printed word. Until the last quarter of the twentieth century the processes by which scholars obtained research materials were relatively restrictive. Obtaining a book or journal article required a walk across campus to the library or coercing a research assistant to fulfill said request. Recently, we have seen the nascence of new technologies and services born of the digital revolution. While digitalization ultimately offers the promise of technological convergence, at the present time we are witnessing the emergence of multiple technologies vying for primacy. Each of these technologies represents an alternative solution to the question of how research and scholarship will be conducted in the future. This paper presents a view of some of the emerging technologies and services now being developed and used to deliver information to scholars.
Reports from the Field
A complete document delivery system is one which electronically supports the identification of an item that might be of value, assists users with locating the item, allows a request for the item to be initiated, and provides a mechanism for the delivery of the item to the requester. Furthermore, the system should support management activities such as billing and copyright tracking. Such document delivery systems do not fully exist today, but rapid developments are occurring in several areas. The following project descriptions may suggest directions where the technologies and services are heading. These projects are grouped by the type of technology or service, and include compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM) technologies, digital transmission projects, document supplier services, full-text database and ordering services, and leading edge developments and projects.”
You can read the whole article here.
