MEMEX

The “memex” is a theoretical hypertext computer system proposed by Vannevar Bush. It is a system that stores information such as books and records in a mechanized real-time form. Records are indexed with a code that when dialed in retrieves the record for view or edit. While it was first conceived for microfilm viewing the concept has been applied to computer systems.

An important feature of the memex is one of the methods that documents can be linked, “similar” or “also viewed” documents are linked from the document being viewed. This saves the user time when researching information. This was a very visionary approach to indexing information. A user could in a sense “surf” the memex much like someone would surf the web. Also, personal “favorites” or view logs “trails” would be available and could be shared with others or even by adding the users viewing records to the memex itself.

The original memex concept included text to speech. Information was to be transmitted via telephone to other user’s memex machines in the memex II concept. A “master memex” would be much like a computer mainframe or server where smaller less sophisticated memex machines could mine information.

In its’ original concept the memex was not a computer, it was a microfilm viewer. The concepts that Bush envisioned did go further than a simple microfilm reader. The concept that was truly groundbreaking was the idea that information can be indexed and retrieved in efficient and novel ways. A good portion of this is implemented in the world wide web. Things like hyperlinks in text files that link other relevant information are exactly what was described as “linked documents” in the original memex. Other ideas such as web blogs, favorite link files or history files can be interpreted as the “trails” that were originally described by Bush.

While the internet is much like the memex there are things that even the web lacks from the original memex vision. The web is not as tightly organized as the memex concept is. Only recently with web tools like social networking or google documents is the web becoming “self centered” where the interface becomes personal and the web “personalities” of other users can be profiled and viewed with the intent of sharing useful information to others who are looking. This concept has not fully be implemented since the world wide web is not an information specific system. The internet is not regulated in a way where all information is indexed and tracked in a specific protocol. It’s more like an information wreck than a cohesive all encompassing information explosion that the memex was supposed to be.

What would need to be done to actually create the memex would be to create a computer system that is specialized for information indexed as described without all of the useless and distracting add-ons like advertizing that distract the user from gathering information. This is not to say that you could not view advertisements, listen to music or watch films on the memex. It would mean that these things would have to be indexed like everything else instead of arbitrarily “popping up” at random like often happens on the internet. Generally everything on every “page” and every “address” would have to follow the same format and the same indexing scheme. This eliminates the need for things such as search engines since only the index and “trails” would need to be consulted.