[Ads-l] Phrase: paperless office

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Stephen Goranson wrote:
> Easy come, easy go. My local library used to have many
> (maybe 10) photocopiers. Now none; only scanners.

Replacing photocopiers with scanners reminds me of futuristic
conceptions of the office from the 1950s through 1970s. The phrase
"paperless office" was once popular with marketers. The Oxford English
Dictionary has an entry for "paperless" with a pertinent sense for
"paperless office".

[Begin OED excerpt]
paperless adjective
3. Esp. of a workplace, business system, etc.: wholly computerized, so
as to make paper unnecessary for the storage and transmission of
information, etc.; not using paper as a medium. Frequently in
paperless office.

1966 Paperless clearing house. Harvard Business Review January 150/1 (heading)

1975 Some believe that the paperless office is not that far off.
Business Week 30 June 48/1
[End OED excerpt]

Here are three earlier citations:

Date: August 1955
Periodical: The Office
Volume 42, Number 2
Article: How to Sort Papers
Author: L. E. Griffith (Hospital Care Association Inc., Durham, North Carolina)
Quote Page 51
Publisher: Office Publications Company, New York
Database: Internet Archive
[Begin excerpt]
The future office may well be a paperless office but, until that time
arrives, it is difficult to think of the word office without conjuring
up a mental picture of papers of all sizes and shapes in various
stages of order and disorder.
[End excerpt]

Date: March 1959
Periodical: The Accountants Digest
Volume 24, Number 3
Article: The Accountant and the Electronic Computer
Author: H. Shearing
Note: Reprinted from The Accountants Journal (England) of November 1958
Start Page 150, Quote Page 151
Publisher: L. L. Briggs, Burlington, Vermont
Database: Internet Archive

[Begin excerpt]
Consideration of electronic computer applications fundamentally alters
these accepted concepts of office methods. The 'electronic office'
will be a paperless office. The tasks of recording, calculating,
storing, selection and presentation of information must be thought of
as one combined, and often almost instantaneous, operation.
[End excerpt]

Date: April 29, 1964
Newspaper: The Daily Telegraph
Newspaper Location: London, England
Article: BREAKTHROUGH IN MICROFILM PRINTING
Author: Our Commercial Correspondent
Quote Page 25, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-telegraph-paperless/206328968/

[Begin excerpt]
A small British company, part of a group with 350 employees, has
produced new microfilm printing equipment which it says large
international concerns have spent millions of pounds trying to
develop. Printing is done by projecting ultra violet rays optically.

The company, Caps Equipment, of Kingsbury. London, claims this is by
far the cheapest method available for printing documents and
engineering drawings. It believes it has advanced the day of the
"paperless office."
[End excerpt]

Garson

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