The Myth of the Paperless Office by Abigail J Sellen

The Myth of the Paperless Office by Abigail J Sellen

An examination of why paper continues to fill our offices and a proposal for better coordination of the paper and digital worlds.

Over the past thirty years, many people have proclaimed the imminent arrival of the paperless office. Yet even the World Wide Web, which allows almost any computer to read and display another computer's documents, has increased the amount of printing done. The use of e-mail in an organization causes an average 40 percent increase in paper consumption. In The Myth of the Paperless Office, Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper use the study of paper as a way to understand the work that people do and the reasons they do it the way they do. Using the tools of ethnography and cognitive psychology, they look at paper use from the level of the individual up to that of organizational culture.

Central to Sellen and Harper's investigation is the concept of "affordances"--the activities that an object allows, or affords. The physical properties of paper (its being thin, light, porous, opaque, and flexible) afford the human actions of grasping, carrying, folding, writing, and so on. The concept of affordance allows them to compare the affordances of paper with those of existing digital devices. They can then ask what kinds of devices or systems would make new kinds of activities possible or better support current activities. The authors argue that paper will continue to play an important role in office life. Rather than pursue the ideal of the paperless office, we should work toward a future in which paper and electronic document tools work in concert and organizational processes make optimal use of both.

Harper, Richard H. R.: - Richard Harper is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge and co-manages the Socio-Digital Systems Group. His tenth book, Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload, was named Book of the Year (2011) by the Association of Internet Researchers. His prior books include the IEEE award-winning The Myth of the Paperless Office, co-authored with Abi Sellen, and Inside the IMF: An Ethnography of Documents, Technology and Organisational Action.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780262692830
ISBN 10	026269283X
Title	The Myth of the Paperless Office
Author	Abigail J Sellen
Series	The Mit Press
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	MIT Press Ltd
Year published	2003-02-28
Number of pages	245
Prizes	Winner of 2002 IEEE-USAB Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Engineering Professionalism 2002
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.