Intellectual Warehouse

In a recent article, The Memex Method, Cory Doctorow unpacked the notion of making a public database of your commonplace book. The idea is based on Vannevar Bush’s 1945 'As We May Think,' in which Dr. Bush posited the idea of a memory expander:

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and to coin one at random, “memex” will do. A memex is 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. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

As a thought experiment, the Memex was ground breaking, prefiguring modern computing technology such as tag-based indexing and full text search. It was motivated by the daily challenges Dr. Bush, and other researchers, faced in needing to search the 'findings and conclusions of thousands of other works.'

Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose. If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling. Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month’s efforts could be produced on call.

And Dr. Bush knew a thing or three about the proliferation of scientific research and the double edged necessity / curse of increasing specialization. His day job was as head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), which had responsibility for military R&D during World War II. Yes, the branch of government that initiated the Manhattan Project, ushering in the nuclear age.

To some extent, the modern blogs which took Dr. Bush's Memex for inspiration - Dori Smith's “backup brain”, John Naughton's “Memex 1.1”, or Cory Doctorow's “outboard brain” of 2002 - remain truer to the original intent than some may think. For what most vexed Dr. Bush was how 'truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential,' and the modern blog and accompanying web based search allows the easy surfacing of ideas with an ease that would likely have enthralled the great man.