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RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
The third invention that we consider fundamental is that of
movable type and its application to printing, probably by Guten-
berg and Johann Fust in the mid-fifteenth century; the earliest
known book printed in Europe is dated 1456. Although movable
type was known in China and Korea before its independent inven-
tion in Europe, its influence in China was negligible, no doubt be-
cause of the nonalphabetic nature of the Chinese language, while
its development in Korea antedated the European invention by
about 50 years, and was probably connected with the Korean
adoption of a phonetic alphabet about that time.
Each of these three inventions provided a remarkable advantage
over previous methods for storing, transmitting, and retrieving
information, with a corresponding decrease in the unit costs in-
volved. The principal consequence of increased efficiency and ef-
fectiveness was the opportunity to build on past knowledge and
experience; this greatly accelerated the growth and progress of
civilization in each of the periods of invention.
The modern general-purpose digital computing machine epito-
mizes the common properties of these three earlier inventions; no
one other instrument or technique in the history of civilization
has created such a change in the ability to store, transmit, and
retrieve information as has the computer. It is difficult not to
view it as the fourth fundamental invention in the field of com-
munication of information, and to speculate that its effect will be
no less than the effects of each of its predecessor inventions. From
this standpoint, a new “information explosion” must be anticipated,
that is, a new period of exponential growth having a growth rate
(i.e., an exponent) greater than that characteristic of the post-
printing press growth period. One consequence of this new explo-
sion will be an increased rate of library accession of information
and quite likely a new role for libraries as archives of information
in machine-readable form. If this argument is accepted, the answer
to the first of the questions posed in Section 1 is clear: the cur-
rent exponential growth rate is not likely to persist; it will be
replaced by an information growth rate greater than the current
rate.
If the role of the computer in civilization is in fact similar to the
roles previously played by the invention of writing systems,
alphabet, and printing, then there will probably be changes in the
essential fabric of civilization as we know it that cannot now be
foreseen. The role of the library is central to this point of view,
for libraries represent the archive wherein the knowledge and ex-