"Memex" Not in OED

[Shapiro, Fred]

"Memex" is a historically important word not in OED.  There are 295,000 hits on Google.  Wikipedia defines the word as follows:

The memex (a portmanteau of "memory" and "index", like Rolodex an earlier index portmanteau common at the time) is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto-hypertext computer system he proposed in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think. The memex is a device in which an individual compresses and stores all of their books, records, and communications which is then mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. A document can be given a simple numerical code that allows the user to access it after dialing the number combination. Documents are also able to be edited in real-time. This process makes annotation fast and simple. The memex is an enlarged intimate supplement to one's memory. The memex has influenced the development of subsequential hypertext and intellect augmenting computer systems.

Fred Shapiro

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