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Richard R.Yeo. “Before Memex: Robert Hooke, John Locke, and Vannevar Bush on External Memory.” Science in Context 20. 2007.

Whereas Bush modeled the memex on the associative processes of natural memory, Hooke and Locke concluded that an external archive had to allow collective reason to overcome the limits of individual memory, including its tendency to freeze and repeat patterns of ideas. Moreover, they envisaged an institutional archive rather than one controlled by the interests and mental associations of an individual.