Abstract
The loose-leaf personal organizer popularly known as the "filofax" has been a cultural phenomenon of the mid-80s, connoting city "yuppiedom." It is also clearly an information tool, whose origins actually date back to the early 1900s, with information science connections, and which may presently be regarded as one mdicator of emerging information society in which information work is a general, rather than specialized, activity. The history of loose-leaf personal organizers is re viewed. It is suggested that, as an information tool, they offer both superficial analogies and deeper metaphors for com puterized IR which may assist their users in upward migration to automated information management systems. Filofax may also be interpreted as a convergent technology, and hybrid systems combining paper and computerized storage media may be precursors of sci-fi writers' personal, portable databanks.
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