Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library, memex, in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It consists of a desk; it can be operated from a distance, but it is primarily a piece of furniture at which an individual works. On its top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. In one end is its stored reference material. The matter of bulk can be well taken care of even by present-day miniaturization. Only a small part of the interior of the memex is devoted to storage, the rest to mechanism. Yet if the user inserted 5,000 pages of material a day it would take a hundred years to fill the repository. So he can be profligate, and enter material freely. Most of the memex contents are purchased on tape ready for insertion. Books of all sorts, pictures, current periodicals, newspapers, are thus obtained and dropped into place. And there is provision for direct entry. On the top of the memex is a transparent platen. On this our user places longhand notes, photographs, memoranda, all sorts of things. When one is in place, the depression of a lever causes it to be recorded on a blank space in a section of the memex memory. Memex has, of course, provision for consulting the record by the usual scheme of indexing. When the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing positions.