filmscanners: Re: paperless office

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

Laurie Solomon wrote:

> I would suggest (a) that your office is a rarity, (b) your office
> technically is not a "paperless office" in that you still receive invoices,
> receipts, etc. from others that you need to scan in, and (c) most other
> places which are relying heavily on electronic operations still tend to keep
> paper backup files and archives of their files and records just in case as
> do their workers for their personal security and use.  It is still easier
> for people to printout and read a hard copy version of a 100 page report
> than to read it online or off the monitor - and often more convenient as
> well.
> 
> Statistics show that with the advent of the digital age paper usage has
> increased rather than decreased.  It seems everyone wants their own hard
> copy of each and every document just for safety and security reasons; so now
> files are keep both in electronic form as well as in hardcopy form by most
> offices just in case of some electronic disaster, some hacker intrusions,
> some virus, some inadvertent or deliberate deletion of files by happy or
> disgruntled employees, and the like.
> 

I have to agree with Laurie that the previously discussed "paperless" 
office is just one that is discarding the paper.

My brother is a library scientist, and this is actually one of his 
fields of expertise.  He's been involved in a number of projects with a 
"prestigious university" in regard to the issues of how to translate the 
paper experience to that of the "paperless one".

When I visited him, he picked my brain about this issue quite a bit. The 
problem is many fold (excuse the pun).  We have enculturated certain 
specific habits and styles of functionality over many hundreds of years 
which have involved the use of paper/hard copy documents, books, etc. We 
currently have no gone out of our way (in part, due to technological 
constraints, which are only now being broken) to make a surrogate 
paper-like electronic product.  We either have to evolve at a faster 
rate, or transform our digital/electronic media into something than more 
resembles what we have grown used to as a culture, something that 
resembles paper.  I won't get into the many values paper has, but I 
think smaller, lightweight, easily readable screen which can accept 
input, or electronic paper., which can be erased after use, are more 
likely to succeed where heavy, CRT laden computers cannot.  Ironically, 
when we have computers that more mimic our relationship with paper, we 
will get closer to the "paperless" society.

Art