3
Reading Overload Awareness
Awareness of reading overload is evident from comments in
the literature from as far back as 1945. A sample of these
excerpts, quotations, and statements follows in chronological
order (sources can be found in the Bibliography in the back of
this volume):Reading Overload Awareness
| 1945. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers--conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less remember as they appear ( Bush). | |
| 1947. Modern man stands before the Himalayas of our libraries like a prospector who is trying to find a grain of gold in a sea of sand ( Vavilov). | |
| 1954. In this scientific era our store of knowledge is growing so fast that we shall soon need new ways to keep it available ( Adrian). | |
| 1955. The literature relating to efforts to handle the literature is too great to be handled easily ( Asimov). | |
| 1955. How then can mankind cope with this vast store of knowledge that has been built up and which daily becomes more unwieldy? This, to my mind, is a major intellectual problem facing society today. In most fields of knowledge too much has been written and is being written for any one individual to follow ( Hutchisson). | |
| 1955. The increasing dependence of modern society upon the efficient use of graphic records, and the barriers to that use imposed by the growing bulk and complexity of these records, are |
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