File storage and document storage, especially when be archived or stored with a company that specialises in information storage is made easier with the use of barcodes. In point of fact, barcodes have revolutionised industry and retail worldwide.

The concept of tracking things automatically was first investigated in 1932. A team of students at Harvard University explored the concept of using punched cards to select items from a catalogue given to the customer.  The idea was explored by others for some years later, but unfortunately it was later abandoned in the end because the required technology was not available at the time. These days barcodes are a vital part of many file storage systems.

This year, 2010, will mark the 58th anniversary of the first barcode that was patented by two Americans, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver. However this patent was for a ‘bull’s eye’ type of concentric circles design rather than the familiar set of straight lines used now. The research into how to produce an efficient system of tracking items no matter where they were used began with a remark overheard quite by chance.

Silver, a graduate of an Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, heard a local food store chain boss ask one of the Institute’s deans for a method of automatically reading the information about any item of produce. So Silver and Woodland in 1948, began to test different methods of doing this, including the use of inks that glowed under ultra-violet light. However, this method proved to be unreliable and too expensive for commercial use.