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Buckland also states that Bush's idea should be viewed from the historical perspective of microfilm technology developed prior to 1945 rather than based on the power and versatility of digital computer technology developed after 1945.

Buckland summarizes the very advanced pre-World War II development of microfilm-based rapid retrieval devices, specifically the microfilm-based workstation proposed by Leonard Townsend in 1938 and the microfilm and photoelectronic based selector, patented by Emanuel Goldberg during 1931.

Buckland states: " The literature on documentation in the 1930s was as preoccupied with microfilm technology as it is now with computer technology and for the same reason, each being the most promising information retrieval technology of the time.

" Buckland notes that Bush directed creation of a photoelectronic microfilm ' rapid selector ' at MIT during 1938-1940 using stroboscope technology pioneered by his colleague Harold Edgerton.

Buckland suggests that Bush and his team may not have been aware of Goldberg's earlier work when they built their 1938-1940 prototype, but that IBM researchers and Bush's Eastman Kodak Research Laboratory sponsor certainly were.

Buckland concludes: " We speculate that Bush did not independently originate the notion of an electronic microfilm selector, although that was possible.

It is not surprising that the same invention sometimes occurs independently and more or less simultaneously when a need is present and the technology becomes ripe.