Back Home	Seminar on Records and Archives in Society
Course This Week Past Readings History Archives Projects	Silvia Hansman, HIST 0647, Spring1999 Owen David,"Copies in seconds: a Popular History of Photocopying", Atlantic Monthly, February 1986, 64-73. Copies in Seconds Main thesis: Office copying as we know it didn't arrive until 1960 when a small company, began marketing the Haloid XeroX 914 Office Copier which was simple to use and made good, permanent copies on ordinary paper. Haloid Xerox, Inc., (today the Xerox Corporation) had been marketing a small number of machines employing its copying technique for a decade but neither machines made copies that were archival, or permanent. The first model intended for general office use, was also the first to be massively marketed. Since then the number of copies made in American offices grew from around 20 million in 1955 to 14 billion in 1966 to approximately eleven zillion today. The impact of this new technology was dramatic: Without The Xerox machine "We would have no Pentagon Papers, fewer lawyers, more secrets, larger forests, more (fewer?) bureaucrats, less espionage, better memories, fewer cartoons on our refrigerators, and a lot less information in general. Xerography places rapid mass communication within the reach of almost anyone.... The Xerox machine has given ordinary people an extraordinary means of preserving and sharing all sorts of information". Other arguments: Introduction of new technology is a dynamic process in which new uses are developed for the same device as in the case of photocopying and offset printing or laser printers. In a time of home offices, technology is associated with efficiency and independence and is also associated with real jobs. Introduction of technology not always is done on the basis of rationalization. Much of the photocopying done is unnecessary. Relation to other readings: This article contrasts the core reading in two aspects: scope and genre. First it covers the history of a single device, from the perspective of a different setting: the home office. Second it is a popular history narrative very different from the scholarly study of Yates. As such it illustrates the problem (mentioned by David Van Tassel in "Historical Organization as Aids to History") of trying to reach the broadest audience without loosing much of the truth. The article emphasizes personal proclivity as a factor to introduce new technology. It looks with some sarcasm at the relationship of technology and efficiency but it does not contradict Yates thesis in any way. Evaluation of thesis: I tend to agree with the authors arguments even if they are documented in a scholarly historical manner. Questions not addressed: I think that the points addressed comprises the subject, they only need to be supported by evidence. Overall assessment: From the archival theory point of view the article does not contribute much. It states the value of photocopying as a mean to preserving and sharing information. It points to a massive body of archivable disarrayed copies in a decentralized office world. It also suggests (1986) that laser xerography will play a large role in the office of the future Making possible to create copies without originals. "Secretaries,....will create lavishly illustrated documents on their desktop microcomputers and transmit them instantaneously halfway around the world, where they will be printed, collated, and bound on laser copiers without the intervention of human hands". On the other hand the article covers very well the development of photocopying and explains some important, complicated technical aspects in a very clear way. It also presents a variety of issues that are still valid today. I wold keep it only for this reasons.