A article from Ancestry Magazine from November/December 2000 called"Share and Beware -- Sharing Genealogy in the Information Age" leads offwith a discussion of the impact of the photocopying on the oldmimeograph process. Quoting from the article,
Photocopying technology has made it easy to reproduce paper or microform originals. As genealogists, we may now share ourpaper-based research with relative ease. As important as photocopyinghas become for duplicating our work, it's technology has beenovershadowed by the even more replication-ready personal computer. Evenlarger volumes of information may be shared nearly instantly aselectrons in the ether rather than ink on paper. Electronic filescontain our research results. Diskettes, home-burned CD-ROMs, andelectronic mail share our files with our friends and families. Internetaccessible databases which accept submissions from researchers share ourgenealogy with the world. Truly, computers have made sharing easierthan ever. Computers are photocopiers on steroids never running out oftoner and never needing paper. The personal computer is the modernmimeograph machine more copies of more stuff with less thought andeffort required. And therein lies the rub.
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