V2p065y1974-76.Pdf
May 8, 1974 Number 19 Each of us in the research game goes At the same time, we face a decline through life discovering-and noting in material resources and cheap energy. down--all kinds of interesting phe- It will no longer be feasible to produce nomena. We record their occurrence, the myriad widgets whose planned and frequently a correct explanation obsolescence has kept our economy of them, in various ‘data banks’: lab going unless reclamation techniques notebooks, correspondence, articles, are vastly improved. The energy-re- books, microforms, magnetic tape fdes, source crisis and the prospect of less etc. We also store quite a lot of unique consumption has had profound effects information in our own intracranial on Wall Streeters. But while the non- memory banks. consumption of goods causes gloom in These stores of knowledge make up the industrial boardroom, the informa- an imperfect, incomplete and fragile tion industry is prospering as never commodity. Ironically, the imperfec- before. tion of knowledge increases the more Indeed, Machlup, Anderla, and we increase our efforts to make it less others have forecast a continued ex- so. The need for knowledge grows as ponential growth in the production we gather more information to satisfy and handling of scientific and other it. Thus, information is in a special types of informational -3 In 1962, sense a ‘perishable’ commodity. It is Machlup reported that the ‘knowledge ‘perishable’ both in the sense of being industry’ already accounted for 29% of deteriorable (like food) and consumable our GNP. Since then, as one of the (like gasoline). The ‘perishable’ nature ‘white-collar service industries’, it has of information may be of enormous been growing quite rapidly.
[Show full text]