*Never heard of it. Heck of a scheme.
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldb31.html
"This is a preprint of article published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science 43, no. 4 (May 1992): 295-298, published for the American Society for Information Science by Wiley and available online to ASIS members and other registered users at http://www.interscience.wiley.com/. This text may vary slightly from the published version.
THE RETRIEVAL PROBLEM IN PHOTOGRAPHY (1932)
by Emanuel Goldberg (1881-1970)
"Translation and notes by Michael K. Buckland, School of Library and Information Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-4600
"Abstract: A new approach to mechanized document retrieval is demonstrated using optical and photoelectric methods to retrieve indexed documents stored on microfilm. Microfilm can be used to store images of documents compactly with suitable index codes recorded on the film adjacent to the image of the document.
"The film can be passed through a "statistical machine" [microfilm selector] in which a combination of light source, search template, and photoelectric cell is used to scan the moving film, identify the desired index code, project or copy the associated document. (((Oh really.)))
"The machine demonstrated can search at up to 35,000 documents per hour, which could be increased to 100,000 per hour. (((!))) [Translation of "Das Registrierproblem in der Photographie," a paper presented at the VIIIth International Congress of Photography, Dresden, 1931, and published in the proceedings in 1932.]
"Translator's Introduction
"This is a translation of Emanuel Goldberg's paper "Das Registrier Problem in der Photographie" presented at the VIIIth International Congress of Photography, Dresden, in 1931 (E. Goldberg, 1932b).
"The paper presented here is of exceptional interest in relation to the development of information retrieval systems for four reasons:
"1. It is a good, concise introduction to a form of information retrieval technology that was actively developed from the late 1920s to the 1960s: the use of photoelectric cells to search indexes on microfilm and to present a copy of the associated documents. Goldberg and other pioneers use the name "statistical machine," but later the name "microfilm selector" (or "microfilm rapid selector") was used.
"2. Inasmuch as use of a photoelectric cell could be regarded as an electronic device, (((well, yes))) this paper is probably the first paper on electronic document retrieval and describes what was probably the first functional electronic document retrieval system, well before the development of electronic digital computers. (((Don't that beat all, etc.)))
"3. Priority in this area of information retrieval is generally assigned to Ralph R. Shaw or, more commonly, Vannevar Bush. This paper, along with his patents filed in 1927, clearly establishes Goldberg's priority, twenty years before Shaw and a decade before Bush. (((Well, yes, there's that, too.)))
"4. This paper has been a "sleeper." (((I'll say.))) It was presented in 1931 at an international congress, mentioned in some contemporary reports on the congress, and published in the proceedings. It has remained essentially unknown even though it was listed in a few of bibliographies and there are some passing references in the information retrieval literature to Goldberg having pioneered in this area. An English translation published in 1932 appears to have been even less well-known.
"It was probably unhelpful that Goldberg used the German verb "Registrieren" (and other derivatives of "Register") which has various meanings including "to record" and, in relation to photography, "to align" as well "to index". The literal translation of the title of the English version of 1932–Methods of photographic registration–does not suggest a paper on document retrieval.
"The new translation is rather literal in an attempt to reflect the flavor of the original. (Parentheses) are used as in the German original. {Braces} indicate the original German wording. [Brackets] mark the translator's additions. The advice of Traude Buckland and of Herbert Goldberg is gratefully acknowledged.
"Emanuel Goldberg, born in Moscow in 1881, emigrated to Germany and became managing director of Zeiss Ikon AG in Dresden until forced by Nazis to flee first to Paris and then to Tel Aviv. (((For a self-imagined high-tech crew the Nazis sure were great at obliterating technology.)))
"He was responsible for a remarkable range of contributions to the theory of photographic processes, camera design, movie sound recording, extreme reduction "microdot" microfilm technology, and television (Browne & Partnow, 1983, 234-235; International, 1983, v. 2, p. 388; N. Goldberg, 1969; Neumann, 1957; Sipley, 1965, 58-59). He remained very interested in the use of photographic techniques for handling information (Neumann, 1957). In an era before digital computers he saw great potential in the approach to information retrieval described in the following paper, combining as it did the speed of light with storage capacity of microfilm."
The Retrieval Problem of Photography
by Emanuel Goldberg
If photography is in itself a recording technique, a technique whose goal is to retain, to record natural appearances, so also there are particular kinds of photography in which the "recording" itself and not the image is the goal.
Soon after the discovery of photography it was recognized that the light-ray in conjunction with a photographic plate is an outstanding means to replace the moving indicator which is connected to a stylus and which draws a curve on paper. Gradually other special techniques were developed to serve the same purpose but they are typically photographic.
In particular, one should include among these techniques the so-called actinographic methods, in which the intensity of light is measured by greater or lesser darkening [Schwaerzung], which the effect of illumination produces on a light-sensitive coating. This actinographic process, which has, for example, been proposed for measuring the variation of natural light in the course of the year, has been very little adopted because the darkening is no direct measure of the light intensity. Rather, one must additionally measure the resultant darkening with the help of a light meter [Photometer] and establish it indirectly by way of the Characteristic Curve [Hurter and Driffield curve] of the light-sensitive coating.
This method can be greatly simplified if the light-sensitive film is not exposed directly to the light but is covered by a gray wedge-filter [i.e. a filter that is clear at one end and increasingly opaque towards the other]. Then the combined effect of the illumination with its fluctuating intensity and of the filter produces a spreading out of the darkening right on the developed plate such that a curve can be read directly. This method of intersecting {gekreuzten} filters has been frequently used, for example for the determination of the absorption curves of dyes, to measure the characteristic curves of photographic plates, meteorological studies, etc.
The new technology of low electric current has also opened new possibilities for recording using photographic means. Two tools are of quite special importance in this connection:
1. The photoelectric cell,
2. The cathode-ray oscillograph {Braunsche Roehre} [Braun tubes].
The latter provides the possibility of recording photographically those phenomena that happen in extraordinarily short periods of time. So, for example, bursts which take place in less than 1/1,000,000,000th of a second can be captured in this way. It seems also that sound recordings could also be achieved very simply with the help of the cathode-ray oscillograph.
In the photoelectric cell also an instrument is created which holds a host of currently unbounded possibilities for photographic recording. As one of these possibilities a new technique will be described here for the indexing [and retrieval] {zum Regustrierung} of any number of photographed documents.
There is an increasing trend to [micro]film the vast quantity of documents, checks, and messages which flow daily into offices and businesses before handling them any further. This work takes place with special equipment with which the individual items are transmitted one after another into the view of a special camera and then taken away for further handling. As film, normal 35 mm movie film is selected and the greatly reduced images can either be photographically enlarged or projected as needed.
With the great number of items that come to be involved the retrieval of an individual image is in practice very difficult because on a normal spool – as used in movie equipment – up to 50,000 images would be stored.
This retrieval can now be achieved by mechanical means by which when photographing each individual document a statistical [i.e. numerical] description is recorded with it, which contains the document number (tax number, check number, customer's account number) and, in addition, the day's date. This description can consist either of translucent letters, or numerals, on a black background (Fig. 1) or of suitably arranged [translucent] dots as, for example, in telegraph equipment where letters are represented by two or three holes in paper tape (Fig. 2).
(...)
