University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The economics of computer output media

Malincanico, S. Michael

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/1071

Description

Title
The economics of computer output media
Author(s)
Malincanico, S. Michael
Issue Date
1976
Keyword(s)
  • Libraries --Automation
  • Libraries --Economics
  • Library science --Data processing
  • Digital media
  • Computer output media
Abstract
Information not transferred to some sentient recipient is of no particular value, at least of no direct concern to us in this clinic. A library is in simplest terms merely a warehouse for information, albeit information in a very particular form: in recorded form. Our concern at this clinic is with methods of delivering information to a user or, more accurately, information about the information contained in the warehouse. Information can only be transmitted by effecting a modulation in some medium. These modulations can be divided into two classes: those which are primarily temporal, and those which are primarily spatial. As with any such simple model, the distinctions are never so clear in practice. Nonetheless, we can speak of temporally modulated messages as short-duration messages (e.g., sound waves carrying language, or light waves carrying images), while printed information might be thought of as spatial modulations used to encode characters on some medium. It should be obvious that long-duration messages must be transduced into short-duration messages before they can be received by a human. The advantages of long-duration messages are obvious: the activity necessary to synthesize new information from primitive elements must be performed only once; the products of this synthesis can be delivered to many users separated in space and time from each other and from the author; and furthermore, users can choose to accept the information when they are ready to do so. While long-duration messages permit efficient and economical distribution of information, this advantage is decreasing as a result of advances in computers.
Publisher
Graduate School of Library Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Series/Report Name or Number
Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing (13th : 1976)
ISSN
0069-4789
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1071
Copyright and License Information
Copyright owned by Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 1977.

Owning Collections

1976: The Economics of Library Automation PRIMARY
13th Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing (1976). Edited by J.L. Divilbiss