This democratization of data is quite remarkable. A century ago, the average person could only create and access a small amount of information. Now, ordinary people have access to huge amounts of data, can create gigabytes of data themselves and, potentially, publish it to the world via the Internet if they choose to do so. Not only is digital information production the largest in total, it is also the most rapidly growing. While unique content on print and film is hardly growing at all, optical and digital magnetic storage shipments are doubling each year.
Digital information is searchable, malleable and inexpensive to copy and distribute.
It goes without saying that the numbers in Table 1 can only be taken as rough estimates. We have had to make various assumptions in order to construct these figures, and some data sources are contradictory or simply not available. Here we list some of the most serious methodological qualifications, each of which offers interesting challenges for those who would seek to refine these estimates. We have published the study as a working document on the Web, inviting others to identify better data sources and methods, hoping to build agreement about best practices for counting. A newspaper, for example, is published on paper, often published on the Web as well and is generally archived on microfilm.