Granular Certainty, the Vertical Filing Cabinet, and the Transformation of Files

Craig Robertson

Anthropomorphizing paper acknowledges the anxiety associated with misplacing loose paper. Circulating through the office, papers were expected to manifest the valuable attributes of information as a discrete unit but not to become disconnected from the... See more

The novelty of the vertical filing cabinet and tabbed manila folder derived from a faith in granular certainty. The belief that breaking things down into small components would increase the possibility that a desired outcome would happen shaped the discourse of efficiency and a historically specific conception of information. The filing cabinet

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