The Paperless Society: Farce or Reality?

Abstract

There is hardly a human endeavour that has not been affected by the digital technologies. For over five centuries, since Gutenberg invented the printing press, paper has maintained a quasi-monopoly as the medium of transmission and storage of information. This role is being seriously challenged by new audiovisual and information media, and the debate still will lead to a paperless society. rages as to whether computers, and in particular the Internet, Paradoxically, a recent posting on a listserv reported that the sale of print copies by a publisher went up because the publisher made electronic copies available on the Internet free of charge. Statistics also reveal that demand for writing and printing paper rate of literacy. Despite this rising has gone up more than six fold in societies with a high growth paper consumption, it is said that demand will start falling off in some parts of the world in 10 to 20 years when computer-literate children become old enough for the workforce. As today's children will be more comfortable with electronically stored they see something information, they will not automatically reach for the printer when interesting online. Paper has been supplanted by digital media as a means of conveying secondary information sources including s, indexes, reviews, and reference volumes such as encyclopaedias and dictionaries.


(African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science: 2000 10 (1): 1-12)