Traditional models for data aggregation

Shared structures For most of the last thirty years, sharing information has meant standardization on tabular structures for large-scale information, and file formats for smaller-scale sharing.
Centralized storage Putting content into a single storehouse with a single coherent structure has made life easier for systems administrators and others charged with keeping organizational information.
Redundancy Where centralization wasn't possible - thanks to transmission costs, development issues, or even security - redundancy has been a common strategy. This may involve duplication and maintenance of duplicates, it may involve simple caching, or it may mean paper printouts stored in file folders.
Lowest-common denominator When information needed to be shared between systems, text-based solutions (think delimited files) or eventually HTML-based solutions provided a basic level of interoperability but not much functionality.