Emanuel Goldberg, electronic document retrieval, and Vannevar Bush's Memex

Vannevar Bush's famous article, “As We May Think” (1945), described an imaginary information retrieval machine, the Memex. The Memex is usually viewed, unhistorically, in relation to subsequent developments using digital computers. This study reconstructs the little-known background of information retrieval in and before 1939 when “As We May Think” was originally written. The Memex was based on Bush's work during 1938–1940 in developing an improved photoelectric microfilm selector, an electronic retrieval technology pioneered by Emanuel Goldberg of Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, in the 1920s. Visionary statements by Paul Otlet (1934) and Walter Schürmeyer (1935) and the development of electronic document retrieval technology before Bush are examined.