III. Writing Exercises:

Exercise 1. Complete the sentences with the suggested words:

sometimes; but; no longer, only; often.

In the past, 'records management' was _______ used to refer only to the management of records which were _______in everyday use _______ still needed to be kept - 'semi-current' or 'inactive' records, _______ stored in basements or offsite.

Exercise 2. Fill in the table with words and expressions from the text:

	parts	processes	kind of analysis	types of documents
Example: a record can be	-	-		birth certificates, medical, X-rays, office documents, databases, application data
RM may include
efficient and systematic control of
items may be subjected to

Exercise 3. Compose a story on one of the topics (up to 100 words):

“Processes included”

“Definitions of records”

“Storing records”

5. Lesson 4

THE READING MODULE

Read the text: Office of the Future

The office of the future is a concept dating from the 1940s. It is also known as the "paperless office". After sixty years of unfulfilled prophecies the phrase "paperless office" has been discredited somewhat. Research and development around the idea continues under the name "office of the future", with quite a few novelties.

The first practical office of the future concept was probably the series of Memex machines which were presented in Life (magazine) on November 1945. Life magazine hired an illustrator from Sperry Rand to make drawings of the concepts Vannevar Bush had presented a few months earlier in The Atlantic Monthly magazine.

The Memex article in The Atlantic is most often cited because of its longer text which details the proposal of a system of shared microfilm based hyperlinks which could be considered as a precursor to the World Wide Web. Those citations tend to overlook the massive organization it would have taken to mail all those microfilm reels between scientists, and eventually between any knowledge worker, in order to make the system work. The citations also tend to overlook that Memex was an entire system, composed not only of a massive desk which housed the microfilm hyperlinking equipment, and the microfilm library but also of a speech activated typewriter (also capable of speech synthesis from normal paper text) and other accessories.

Many concepts for future computer systems were presented in the 1960s and 1970s, but none really touched office work as much as the Memex or had such a lasting impact.

Sun Microsystems presented a complete office of the future concept when it made its Star fire video prototype public in 1994. Like the Memex system, The Starfire prototype has been sometimes touted as predicting the birth of the World Wide Web. While it is true that we see the heroine "navigating" what the narrator describes as a "vast information space" this takes up but a few seconds at the beginning of the 15 minute Starfire video.

The Starfire is much more than a Web navigating machine. The Starfire video shows in the rest of the 15 minutes a large panoply of hardware and software concepts such as a gestural interface, total integration with public telephony and other innovations. Like the Memex system the Starfire has a large, massive desk as its central feature, and proposes compatible devices in complement to the desk, such as a laptop with a chorded keyboard and advanced videoconferencing. Bruce Tognazzini was the principal driver behind the project.

At the beginning of the year 2001 the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York city presented a 3 month long exhibit called "Work spheres", which explored the role of industrial designers in creating what were intended to be effective and aesthetic solutions to present and future office environment issues.

Among the 151 objects or ensembles presented there were 6 works commissioned specifically for the exhibition, from experienced industrial design companies like IDEO. While some of the works had practical aspects, they were all chosen for their artistic impact. A complete catalogue of the exhibition was produced and a special website, with its own distinctive artistic interface, was put on line.

"Office of the Future" is also the name of an ongoing research project (based at the Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) which began among a consortium of universities sponsored by the National Science Foundation.