Vannevar Bush's famous paper "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 paper attempts to reconstruct 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 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 Schuermeyer (1935) and the development of electronic document retrieval technology before Bush are examined.

Michael Buckland's notes on Emanuel Goldberg, with links to other resources.

"Emanuel Goldberg (Portrait) was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1881, a chemist, inventor, and industrialist who contributed to almost all aspects of imaging technology in the first half of the twentieth century: photographic sensitometry, reprographics, standardized film speeds, color printing (moiré effect), aerial photography, extreme microphotography (microdots), optics, camera design (the Contax), the important, early hand-held Kinamo movie camera, and early television technology. He received his doctorate from Wilhelm Ostwald's institute in Leipzig in 1906."