THE PRINCIPLES AND POSSIBILITIES OF DIAZO‐COPYING PROCESSES
| Pages | 1-11 |
| Published date | 01 February 1949 |
| Date | 01 February 1949 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026139 |
| Author | B. DE GORTER |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
The Journal
of
DOCUMENTATION
Volume
5
JUNE
1949 Number 1
THE
PRINCIPLES AND POSSIBILITIES OF DIAZO-
COPYING
PROCESSES
by B. DE GORTER, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
Intelligence
Officer,
Imperial
Chemical
Industries
Limited,
Plastics
Division
The
importance
of
copying
processes
ONE
of the most frequently occurring requirements in all modern human
activity, be it commerce, government, research, or any other sphere, is the
need to obtain a true copy of a document. The efficiency of the method used
for copying documents has a definite influence on the overall efficiency of
the undertaking concerned. Executives are therefore always on the look-out
for improved methods for copying documents. By 'document' is meant any
visual record of information. The information may be expressed by various
media, such as language, numerical data, codes, graphs, diagrams, sketches,
or photographs, which may be borne on various vehicles, such as letters,
memoranda, reports, drawings, tracings, blue-prints, pamphlets, patent
specifications, periodicals, books, photographic film, index cards, and
punched cards.
During the last century progress on the front of human technology has
been greatly accelerated, but some techniques have lagged while others have
made great strides forward. For one thing, it seems an archaism that roughly
80 per cent. of the copying work done to-day is done by the laborious and
error-prone process of transcription, e.g. by manuscribing, copy-typing,
typesetting, or drawing. Now a document is a
visual
record,
that is to say, it
depends upon some characteristic pattern of light to impart its information.
If this characteristic pattern of light emitted from the original is used to
generate its own copy, the copy
is
bound to
be
a
facsimile.
This
self-activating
process is known as photo-copying. In the present state of scientific know-
ledge it is to be expected that there would be widely available at least one
cheap,
simple, and practically automatic photo-copying process. There are
numerous methods in use at the present day, but for an Atomic Age—to be
honest—one must admit that they are not by any means efficient or con-
venient enough. If they were, photo-copying machines would to-day no
doubt be at least as widely used as typewriters.
B
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