4 ms·

I was surprised that the (1921) filing cabinet comic featured a "Mr. Google" that did the organizing. I thought this was a case of someone editing a comic, but

• kingsuper20 5y ago
  Well, it isn't like Snuffy Smith was going to do the filing. While I've always liked early physical filing systems, and something like a Globe-Wernicke cabinet can be quite beautiful (although they often only have one finished side), I'd really like to know about earlier systems. I mean, the British Admiralty or the Venetian Republic had some serious paperwork storage, usually bound volumes on shelves I imagine. Crazy stuff. A good subhistory of storage would be the invention of those room-sized shelves on wheels so that there's only one access path. I've seen some impressive ones.
• wolfgang42 5y ago
  That comic didn't originate with Filing and Office Management; it’s from the long-running syndicated newspaper strip Barney Google. The eponymous character of that strip may actually have indirectly inspired the name of the company: the mathematician who coined the term “googol” (after which the company was named) got it from his nephew, and it’s been suggested that he in turn got the word from the comic, which was very popular at the time. (The comic in turn got it from a 1913 children’s picturebook called “The Google Book,” about the various creatures of Googleland.)