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24 LI 001 811

Grimes, GeorgeInformation Services; A Survey of the History andPresent Status of the Field. MOREL RegionalInformation System for Educators.Michigan-Ohio Regional Education Lab., Ince, Detroit.Office of Education (DHEW) , Washington, D.C. Bureauof Research.BR-6-1465Jul 69OEC-3-7-061465-307135p.; Related documents are LI 001 810 and LI 001 812

EDRS Price MF-$0.25 HC-$1.85Automation, Educational Research, *History,Information Centers, Information Networks,Information Retrieval, *Information Science,*Information Services, Information Systems,*Libraries, *Regional Laboratories

This document is one of a series describing thebackground, functions, and utilization of the Regional InformationSystem (RIS) developed by the Michigan-Ohio Regional EducationalLaboratory (MOREL). The continuing history of the field oflibrarianship and information services is reviewed in this report.The first part covers ancient times to the invention of movable type;the second extends from the advent of print to the end of thenineteenth century; and the third summarizes the period from 1900 tothe present. The first two parts deal almost exclusively with libraryhistory, although the work of documentalists becomes a stronger andstronger trend from the last of the nineteenth century onwards. Theemphasis in the last part is on the accelerating activities of theinformation services area as operationalized by those engaged indocumentation, information retrieval, and the emerging discipline ofinformation science. Appended are descriptions of the informationservice efforts of four regional educational laboratories: the FarWest Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, theMichigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory, the Central MidwesternRegional Educational Laboratory, and the Southwestern CooperativeEducational Laboratory. (Author/JB)

IM

REGIONAL

INFORMATIONSYSTEMfor educators

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFAREOFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEENREPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THEPERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONSSTATED DO NOT

NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCkTIONPOSITION OR POLICY.

Information ServicesA Survey of the History

and Present Status of the Field

by George Grimes

MICHIGAN-OHIOREGIONAL

EDUCATIONALLABORATORY

3750 Woodward Avenue Detroit, Michigan 48201

"It

This document is one of a series describing the back-ground, functions, and utilization of the Regional Infor-mation System (RIS) developed by the Michigan-OhioRegional Educational Laboratory. The series includes:

Information Services A Survey of the Historyand Present Status of the Field

Establishing the Information System AnOperational Handbook

A Searcher's Manual of Information ResourcesInstallation and Evaluation of the RIS

Published by the Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory, a private, non-profit corporation supported in part as a regional educational laboratory by fundsfrom the United States Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, &Welfare. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect theposition or policy of the Office of Education, and no official endorsement by theOffice of Education should be inferred.

July, 1969

ii

Preface

For purposes of viewing, in a logical manner, the con-tinuing history of the field of librarianship and infor-mation services, this report utilizes a somewhatartificial three-part time division. The first part coversancient times to the invention of movable type; the sec-ond extends from the advent of print to the end of thenineteenth century; and the third summarizes the periodfrom 1900 to the present.

The first two parts deal almost exclusively with"library" history, although the work of documentalists'becomes a stronger and stronger trend from the last ofthe nineteenth century onwards. The emphasis in thelast part is on the accelerating activities of the infor-mation services area as operationalized by those en-

'Harold Borkoin an article titled "Information Science:What is It?" American Documentation XIX (Jan., 1968),p. 5 states that documentation "is concerned with acquir-ing, storing, retrieving, and disseminating recorded docu-mentary information, primarily in the form of report andjournal literature." An earlier and somewhat broader defini-tion is offered by Helen L. Brownson in "Definitions ofDocumentation," American Documentation VI (Oct.,1955), p. 254, which states that documentation is "the artof facilitating the use of specialized knowledge through itspresentation, reproduction, publication, dissemination, col-lection, storage, subject analysis, organization, and re-trieval."

2Robert S. Taylor in his chapter on "Professional As-pects" in the Annual Review of Information Science andTechnology (New York: Interscience, 1967), vol. I, p. 19-- relates a basic definition of information science whichemerged from the Conferences on Training Science Infor-mation Specialists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in1961 and 1962. This definition states that information sci-ence is ". . the science which investigates the properties andbehavior of information, and the forces governing the flowof information, and the means of processing informationfor optimum accessibility and usability. The processes in-clude: origination, dissemination, collection, organization,storage, retrieval, interpretation, and use of information.The field is derived from or related to mathematics, logic,linguistics, psychology, computer technology, operations re-search, the graphic arts, communications, library science,management, and other fields."

It is interesting to note that the American DocumentationInstitute has recently changed its name to the AmericanSociety for Information Sciences.

iii

gaged in documentation, infoimation retrieval, and theemerging discipline of information science.2

The Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Labora-tory (MOREL) is a private, non-profit corporation es-tablished in 1966 under the provisions of the Elemen-tary & Secondary Education Act of 1965. One of 20such regional laboratories in the United States,MOREL is dedicated to the development of tested al-ternatives to current educational practice. The Labora-tory's developmental efforts include the TeachingBehavior Improvement Program, the MOREL Re-gional Information System, and a program focusing onCombatting Racism and Its Effects.

This document was developed during the aurpor'stenure as Coordinator of Information at MOREL.

Contents

Preface iii

Ancient Libraries to the Advent of the Printing Press 1

Libraries from the Advent of Printing to the Close of the 19th Century 3

Modern Library and Information Service 5

Present Status and Trends 9

Information Networks 10Information Transfer -- 13Specialized Information Centers 16Mechanization 20Information Science 23National and Regional Information Services 24

he Future 25

Summary 26

Appendix: The Information Service Efforts of Specific Laboratories 27

ILLUSTRATIONS

Table 1. Librarianship and Documentation A Functional Comparison . 6

Table 2. Agencies and Organizations Visited by SDC 8

Table 3. Relative Emphasis of Information Service Activities 18

Figure 1. The Relationships of Documentation, Librarianship, DataCenters, and Information Centers 7

Figure 2. The Structure of a Natural Communication Network 11

Figure 3. A General Model of Information Transfer 14

Figure 4. The Organization of an Information Analysis Center 19

Ancient Libraries to the Advent of the Printing Press

Richard Irwin, in an article on the history of libraries,states that:

The history of libraries begins in China,Egypt and Assyria, where collections of rec-ords on tablets of baked clay are known tohave been associated with temple and royalpalaces. The significance of this association isof interest, for it is evidence of the feelingthat in an unlettered world knowledge has amystical power of its own, and that books arein the end more potent than arrow or spearor gun 3

The major cornerstone of today's libraries in theancient world was the library at Alexandria, Egypt,which has been characterized as "the most famousGreek library of all."4 The Alexandrian Library wasactually an adjunct to a "museum" or a "house of themuses" (that is to say, a house of the arts and sciences)established under Ptolemy about the year 297 B.C.

The Museurr library vas stocked with copies of allknown 'gooks (papyrus rolls) in the city of Alexandria,and ships arriving in the harbor of Alexandria wereforced to "lend" any books which they carried. Agentswere also sent to other lands to buy or borrow booksto be copied. One important feature of the AlexandrianLibrary was the number of outstanding figures whoserved it as librarians or who were connected with itas scholars. One of these, Callimachus, is said to havecompiled a catalog of the library. Callimachus dividedhis work into eight major subject categories: Oratory,History, Laws, Philosophy, Medicine, Lyric Poetry,Tragedy, and Miscellany.

The Alexandrian Library flourished for severalhundred years and was a great influence in the culturaldevelopment of the Hellenic world. In 273 A.D. muchof the library was burned during the conquering ofEgypt by the Roman Emperor Aurelian. Later attacks

3Thomas Landau, ed. Encyclopedia of Librarianship, 3rded. rev. New York: Hafner, 1966. p. 253.

4Elmer D. Johnson. A History of Libraries in the WesternWorld. New York: Scarecrow, 1965. p. 51.

'ibid. p. 57.

6Alfred Hessel, A History of Libraries, trans. by ReubenPeiss. Washington, D. C.: Scarecrow, 1960. p. 6.

by the Roman Emperor Theodosuis I (391 A.D.) andthe Moslem conqueror Omar (645 A.D.) completedthe destruction of the collections.

Aside from its primary value as a center of scholar-ship, a continuing value of the Alexandrian Library hasbeen its status as an ideal to be replicated and, if pos-sible, surpassed. There is a story that Eumenes II, Kingof Pergamum, tried to entice a librarian, Aristophanesof Byzantum, to come from Egypt to Pergamum, andanother story that Egypt cut off the supply of papyrusbeing sent to Pergamum to prevent its library fromgrowing as large as that in Alexandria.' Thus, the Alex-andrian Library was seen as a beacon in organization,content, and scholarship for others to emulate.

From the middle of the second century B.c., Romangenerals began to bring home Greek libraries alongwith other booty. The first to do this was AemiliusPaulus, with Sulla and Lucullus following his examplein the next century. Caesar was eager to found a statelibrary, but the first public library in Rome -- theAtrium Libertatis was established after his death. Atthe opening of the fourth century A.D. there were 28public libraries in Rome. The most important of thesewas the Biblitheca Ulpia located near the Column ofTrajan. Like the others it was divided into Greek andLatin divisions and also served as an archive for im-portant state documents. Heading these libraries atfirst were distinguished scholars with the rank of pro-curator. A- distinction later developed between the ad-ministrative officials proper and the scholarlydirectors.6

The cities and provinces of Italy endeavored tofollow the example of Rome. Although there is no ac-curate estimate of the number of public libraries acrossthe empire, the impression is that the majority of thelarger provincial cities had libraries.

An outstanding feature of library development inRome was the development of private villa libraries.The letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger attest tothis. During the Empire period, villa libraries becamea fashionable means, of displaying one's wealth.

The most direct continuation of the pure Greekheritage of the Alexandrian Library was found in Con-stantinople where the Imperial, Patriarchical, and Uni-versity libraries continued the tradition for over onethousand years. Little new was produced, but editing,

1

annotating, and re-editing of standard texts was carriedon, thus guarding them for the future.?

From an early date libraries became associated withthe work of the church. Origen's library at Caesareawas well known, as were the patriarchical librariesof Alexandria and Constantinople. A papal library wasformed in Rome in the fourth century by Damasus.

The age of the monastic library began with Cassi-dorus and Saint Benedict whose monasteries ofVivarium and Monte Cassino were founded in the sixthcentury. In both of these libraries the tasks of reading

and, as a necessary corollary, that of copyingwere joined, and the great tradition of the monasticscriptorium was launched. The monastic libraries con-tinued the Roman practice of separating books ac-cording to whether they were Greek or Latin andsubdividing within these two language categories bymajor subjects and sometimes by size and source. Theearly monastery librarians were known as "armarius"after the name of the type of chest in which bookswere kept at first, an "armariunz." The term "librarius"was also used because the librarian often directed thescriptorium and the book bindery as well as the li-brary proper.8 The catalogs of the monastic book col-lections were usually little more than lists of books,some of which have survived to tell us of the generalcontent of the collections.

From the fall of Rome to the twelfth century, forthe most part, education in Western Europe was in thehands of the monasteries. By the late eleventh century,however, some secular schools were emerging andreaching higher levels of instruction; and in some cases,as in Paris, advanced degrees were offered. The earliestuniversities of importance were those in northern Italyat Bologna and Padua. There were no libraries, as such,in these early universities. Each master had a collectionof books which he might lend or rent. Each studenthad to buy not only his own textbooks, but any otherbooks which he might wish to read, unless he couldborrow or rent from a master or book seller. As theuniversities grew in numbers of students, the demandfor books made it necessary to establish libraries. Theoutstanding college library of this time was the one atthe Sorbonne in Paris which contained over a thousandvolumes in 1322. By 1400 a circulating library withduplicate copies had been established at the Sorbonne.By 1480 this library was housed in a separate buildingwith a large reading room.9

2

The organization of the university library was him-ilar to the larger of the monastery libraries, except thatthe main divisions of books were according to subjectstaught in the colleges. 'Within these subjects there wereapparently no sub-classes, and books were arranged bysize according to accession. Interestingly enough, therewas an attempt at a "union" -mtalog in fourteenth cen-tury England where an unknown monk compiled aRegistrum Librorum Angliae, which was an attempt tolist all of the known copies of the works of some 90authors, together with the libraries in which they couldbe found. This work contained not only authors, titles,and locations, but a short biographial account of eachauthor as well.

There were also a number of important private li-braries at various times in the Middle Ages. Notableamong them were those of the Italian authors Petrarchand Boccaccio and several members of the Medici fam-ily. Federigo, Duke of Urbino, founded the famous Ur-bino Library of Greek and Latin Classics in thefifteenth century, largely with gifts from his own privatecollection. Many private collectors donated their li-braries to universities or other libraries. Another primeexample of this tendency was Robert de Sorbonne who,in 1250, gave his collection to the college that took hisname. In England, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester gavehis library to Oxford University in the fifteenth century.

The libraries of the ancient world through theMiddle Ages dealt with a relatively rare commodity.Even an ordinary book in the Middle Ages would beworth in excess of two hundred dollars at presentprices. Fairly wealthy people might acquire only a fewbooks in a lifetime, and wills have been preserved thatmention ten or twenty books as a valuable bequest. Atenth century sale of a single book of sermons broughta price of 200 sheep and three barrels of grain, whilea whole Bible was traded for a house and lot.° Thisentire picture changed radically with the advent ofmovable type printing in the second half of the fifteenthcentury. This event, together with the intellectualmovements of the Renaissance and Reformation, didmuch to change the entire thrust and function of thelibrary.

7Landau. op cit. p. 254.

8Elmer D. Johnson. Communication. New York: Scare-crow, 1960. p. 36.

9ibid. p. 42.

p. 46.

Libraries from the Advent of Printing to the Close ofthe 19th Century

In the years between 1440 and 1460, a number of ex-periments were being carried on with block printingand movable type. A block printed book, St. Christo-pher, dated ;About 1423, is thought to be the earliestexample of this technique. Johann Gutenberg began theexperiments which lead to movable type printing in1440. At that time, other people were also engaged in-discovering some method of producing an "artificialscript." Avignon, Bruges, and Bologna are mentionedas places where such experiments were carried out."The perfection of the printing press, coupled with theattacks on the order maintained by the CatholicChurch, roughly coincide in time and were mutuallyreinforcing toward the broadcasting of ideas throughprint.

The Reformation thrived on the printed word andthe advocates of internal church reform and later sep-aration, like Martin Luther, were prolific writers but,more importantly, they wrote to be read in the naturallanguages of the people rather than in Greek and Latin.Luther's translation of the New Testament and otherworks into German fostered vernacular educationwhich met with considerable success and reinforced thenationalistic mood of the times. The basic four R's(reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion), along withmusic and some history and physical education, becamethe principal curriculum of the common vernacularschools in Lutheran lands." A broadened educationalbase increased the demands for more books which theprinting press could deliver as needed, which inspiredmore authors to write, which produced more ideas andeducated people, etc., etc. This continuous spiral ofbook creation and production had obvious and funda-mental implications for libraries.

In this period many medieval libraries ceased toexist and a large number of new libraries had theirorigin. Printed books became plentiful enough to beloaned for use outside the library and hence the public,circulating library became a possibility. The typical li-brary became an oblong room with books around thewalls and with tables for readers in the center. The li-

I IS. H. Steinberg. Five Hundred Years of Printing. Balti-more: Penguin Books, 1955. p. 18.

12R. Freeman Butts. A Cultural History of Western Edu-cation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955. p. 225.

brary was open at stipulated times, and a librarian wason duty at those times.

To a great degree the source of library develop-ment became closely allied with national developmentfrom this time onward. In Italy, for instance, severaloutstanding libraries were supported by wealthy mer-chants and nobles with the most important library be-ing the Vatican Library at Rome. Many treasures frommonastery libraries found their way into this collectionas gifts.

The libraries in France reflected that country'sstatus as a unified nation. King Francis I (1494-1547)strengthened the Bibliotheque du Roi, as it was thencalled, by ordering that one copy of each book printedin France be deposited there, After being housed inseveral locations, the royal library became the Biblio-theque Nationale following the French Revolution.Military conquests under Napoleon I brought addi-tional volumes so that by 1815 the collection held overa half million volumes. By 1900 the Bibliotheque Na-tionale was probably the world's outstanding library.

In England both book arts and libraries wereseverely retarded in the 1530's following the Act ofDissolution, separating the Church of England from theRoman Catholic Church. Much of the property of thechurch was transferred to the king and many monasterylibraries were broken up and their contents destroyedor sold. During the Elizabethan Period there was a re-vival in the English literary world and university li-braries were strengthened. The outstanding example ofthis was the Oxford University Library which was builtthrough the activities of Sir Thomas Bodley. In 1570,Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth,drew up a plan for a Royal Academy and Library. Thethen Royal Librarian, Roger Ascham, advanced a sim-ilar plan. It was not until 1753, however, that a privatecollection (Sloane) was united with two private libraries(Cottonian and Harleran Libraries) to form the begin-nings of the British Museum which was finally openedto the public in 1759.

The development of the modern English public li-brary actually had its beginning in 1850 with the pass-ing of the Public Libraries Act which allowed cities of10,000 or more population to levy taxes to supportlibrary service. In 1870 a school law was passed whichmade communities responsible for maintenance of freepublic schools, thus greatly increasing the number of

3

readers and, consequently, the demand for public li-brary servicc.13

The history of libraries in the United States showsa number of very interesting pattcins. Harvard andYale universities were actually founded, in part, by agift collection of books. Parish libraries were promotedand the first successful attempt at making books avail-able for general public use came through the establish-ment of subscription libraries in the eighteenth century.Benjamin Fianklin is usually given credit for beginningthe first one in Philadelphia in 1731. Rental and cir-culating libraries were associated with printshops andbookstores and many books were sold directly, ofcourse. After the Revolutionary War, there wereusually literary society libraries to be found on mostcollege campuses, many of which were more completethan those of the colleges with which they were asso-ciated. Scientific society libraries also developed in thelarge cities along with social libraries. One populartype of social library was that designed for workers andapprentices. At least one type of library was publiclysupported and controlled before 1850, and that was theschool district library. This type of book collection ap-

parently originated in New York State and spreadthroughout New England and the Middle West.

In the year 1800, an appropriation was made forbooks to be included in a Congressional Library. ThisLibrary has become one of the most important librariesin the world, the Library of Congress. Today, the Li-brary of Congress is a pervading influence in all aspectsof library activity and has become the focal point ofour national library system, which also includes theNational Libraries of Agriculture, Medicine, and theInterior.

By the year 1900, the basis for the modern librarywas well set through the work of such persons as Ains-worth R. Spofford of the Library of Congress, JohnShaw Billings of the Surgeon General's Office and laterthe New York Public Library, Charles C. Jewette of theSmithsonian Institute, and the ubiquitous MelvileDewey.i4

11:Johnson. Communication. loc. cit. p. 92.

14Encyclopedia Americana. New York: Americana Cor-poration, 1960. Volume XVIII, p. 392.

Modern Library and Information Service

Up to this point we have taken an overview of thehistory and organization of libraries from ancient timesthrough the advent of the modern library in the lasthalf of the nineteenth century. Our scope, to this point,has been quite broad to the end of providing a generalunderstanding. We shall now turn to the more specificarea of documentation and specialized informationservices.

In their introductory remarks to Bradford's book,Documentation, Jesse H. Shera and Margaret E. Eganpoint out:

Documentation as a discipline distinct fromlibrarianship, may be said to have begun onthe continent of Europe at the close of theNineteenth Century . . . Paul Otlet and HenriLa Fontaine laid the foundation of an inter-national movement for world documentationat their historic meeting at Otlet's home in thede Florence, Brussels, in 1892. From thismeetim3 of these two men came a series ofimportant events that shaped the progress ofdocumentation for more than a generation.It was they who planned the Office Interna-tional de Bibliographie which, after a seriesof changes in name, eventually became theFederation International de Documentation.It was they who conceived a universal inter-national bibliography to which was to be at-tached an international reference library ofsubject bibliographies. And it was they who,in 1895, called the first international confer-ence on bibliography.15

Otlet's Traite de Documentation (published in1934) still stands as a monument in the field of docu-mentation.

So that we may better understand the nature ofdocumentation, let us look at some definitions beforediscussing what has occurred from the start of the cen-tury up to the present. At the beginning of this ac-

15Jesse H. Shera and Margaret E. Egan. "A Review of thePresent State of Librarianship and Documentation." In S.G. Bradford. Documentation, 2nd. ed. London: CrosbyLockwood, 1953, p. 19.

16Borko._ op. cit. p. 5.

17ibid. p. 744.

count, a basic definition of documentation was offeredwhich stated that, "documentation is concerned withacquiring, storing, retrieving, and disseminating re-corded documentary information, primarily in the formof report literature and journal literature."16 One ofthe main reasons for the emphasis on report and jour-nal literature is the fact that most traditional classifica-tion schemes (Dewey and Library of Congress) assumethat the basic content unit is the book. A breakdownthus occurs when these systems are faced with multiplecontent oriented periodicals and multifaceted reportlitera cure. To give more specificity to this general defini-tion of documentation, it is necessary to make a visualcomparison of functional components of librarianshipand documentation as offered by Foster E. Mohrhardtof the National Agricultural Library. Mohrhardt identi-fies the following facts relevant to documentation:

1. Documentation is a twentieth century discipline.2. It has borrowed from numerous disciplines and

has sprawled across many subject areas.3. Confusion has resulted from a lack of informa-

tion concerning (a) what the documentalist does, (b)how he carries out his work, (c) what subject fields arebasic to his trade, and (d) how his work relates toother fields. Confusion is compounded by the recogni-tion that he often does what other groups do, but in adifferent way.

Mohrhardt's concepts of the relative relationship ofdocumentation, librarianship, data centers, and infor-mation centers are shown in Figure 1.17

The three persons who were among the pioneerlibrarian/documentalists in the United States RalphShaw, Jesse Shera, and Mortimer Taube are all re-ported to agree that documentation differs from li-brarianship in two particular aspects. It performslibrary-type functions in greater intensity with- evalua-tion that requires specialized subject matter knowledge.Shera adds that it is the intensive bibliographic workwhich he feels distinguishes the activities of documen-talists. Taube stresses the impact of technical reportliterature as a driving force for documentation. Shawaccepts all of these elements and adds that documenta-tion is concerned with a complete cycle of informationactivities expanding and rounding out the segmentsselected by librarianship.

Booth and Wadsworth, after an investigation of therelationship of documentation to research librarianship

5

which involved various statistical and logical analysisconcluded that:

Documentation is to be regarded as no morethan a scientific attitude towards the ma-terial$, the processes, and the services ofresearch librarianship. It is an attitude whichcan be. shared by public librarians, academiclibrw,lans, and representatives from otherfields .. [documentation] is, then, an atti-tude Tattler than a separate field ... [andthe.] dichotomy of documentalists and re-

Table 1

LIBRAIRIANSi l!P AND DOCUMENTATION

A Functional Comparison

Librarian- Documen-ship Va.ion

I. CREATING OR GENERATING

II. RECORDING (PUBLISHING)Editing

rreerriollseitonnessi11:44:HiniernonenneIIIIIIII:tesseasessitrueinnsomimii i

mInleallngmtensor rossonsosrromossienstressonsissenensus

liir.Tj0II 11OS11111111

I

mann. elI I. ACQUIRING

LocatingSelecting

innosessomtononnunnontorsonenom1:::Fani.... smogmenneng.nr

IV. ASSIMILATING (CONTROLLING)CatalogingClassifyingIndexing isseeniiiiii

signininitiliniem:slial1.........

V. ANALYZING (EXPLOITING)AbstractingAnnotatingBibliography PreparationTranslatingData AnalyzingPreparing Annual Reviews

MIllumumiINIFIPICI

VI. STORING

VII. RETRIEVING

VI II. SERVINGReference AnsweringCirculatingReproducing

IX. ADMINISTERING ANDOPERATING SERVICES

mil Basic Responsibility ;mg Ancillary Responsibi ity

6

search librarians cannot continue if bothgroups are to realize society's needs and ex-pectations of the field.19

Let us now pursue the history and development ofthe attitude of documentation to the present.2°

Two trends in the modern use of documents asgraphic records of information have tended to createsituations in which exact information must be found.The first and most important is the reporting of newscientific knowledge in the form of research mono-graphs on minute and precise topics, and the secondtrend, which is of increasing importance, is the relianceplaced upon exact information by business, industry,and government agencies. We find that science, in-dustry, and government have, therefore, become theleaders in documentation, special library, and informa-tion center activity. More will be said of the manifesta-tions of this activity in the next section on status andtrends.

In July, 1908, the Special Libraries Association(SLA) was formed by John Cotton Dana at the Bret-ton Woods, New Hampshire, meeting of the AmericanLibrary Association (ALA).21 A year later Dana triedto have SLA incorporated as a division of ALA withno success. Since that time, the Special Libraries As-sociation has been an independent organization andhas continually grown in activity and importance.

In Britain, a parallel circumstance is found. TheHoddesdon Conference of 1924 led to the formulationof the Association of Special Libraries and Informa-tion Bureaus (ASLIB). The organization also existsseparately from the British Library Association and isvery large and vigorous.

After 1910, the number of industrial firms form-ing special research libraries increased greatly. Manyof these libraries began as corporate files and archives,but they soon included specialized reference materials,technical journals, and general scientific works. Bank-ing and industrial companies were among the earliest todevelop special libraries, but their use was not wide-spread until the 1940's.

In 1927, the British Society for International Bibli-ography was founded by Professor A. F. C. Pollardand others. The Society became the British NationalCommittee of the International Federation of Docu-mentation. This was the same year as the UnitedStates Library of Congress was organized in its present

18Foster E. Mohrhardt. "Documentation: A SyntheticScience." Wilson Library Bulletin XXXVIII. May, 1964.p. 747.

19Robert Edmond Booth and Harrison Morton Wads-worth. ,4 Stochastic Theory of Documentation Systems.Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation. Western Reserve Univer-sity, 1960. p. 236.

2uMuch of the material in this section is derived from achronology developed by Booth and Wadsworth (ibid.), thecommentary of Shera and Egan in Bradford's Documenta-tion (op. cit.), and Bradford, Chapter VIII, "Fifty Years ofDocumentation."

21Chalmers Hadley. J01711 Cotton Dana: A Sketch. Chi-cago:. American Library Association, 1943. p. 88.

Figure 1

THE RELATIONSHIPS OF DOCUMENTATION,

LIBRARIANSHIP, DATA CENTERS, AND

INFORMATION CENTERS

DATA

CENTL

zz

form. Union catalogs and other cooperative ventureshave become an effective force in the provision of in-formation services and the Library of Congress hascreated the most comprehensive catalog in our country.22

The Association of Research Libraries was foundedin the United States in 1931, and in the following yeara documentation center was established at the libraryof the Berlin Technischa Hochschule. Paul Otlet'sTraite de Documentation was published in 1934; and,by 1935, the Special Libraries Directory listed 1,154libraries.

In 1937, the American Documentation Instituteemerged from the work of the Science Service, datingfrom 1926, and the Bibliofilm Service of Watson Davis,which originated in 1935. The original emphasis ofthe American Documentation Institute was on micro-photography. This emphasis has been subsumed forthe most part under the umbrella of information ser-vices and the emerging field of information sciencetoday.

22Robert B. Downs. Un:on Catalogs in the United States.Chicago: American Library Association, 1942. p. xvii.

23Information on the development of the information cen-ter since World War H was obtained, in part, from a draftcopy of an introductory chapter intended for inclusion in ahandbook for information center personnel being developedunder government contract by Systems Development Cor-poration for the U. S. Office of Education.

24ibid. p. 10.

25Battelle Memorial Institute. Battelle-Columbus (bro-chure). Columbus, Ohio: The Institute, n. d.

With the advent of World War II, a great accelera-tion and change overtook the whole area of documen-tation. In order to process the tons of German andJapanese documents captured during and after the war,the U.S. A:r Force established the Air Documents Re-search Center in London, England. In 1945, thisfacility was moved to Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio,where it became the Air Documents Division of theIntelligence Department of the Air Material Com-mand. The. Division was reorganized in 1947 as theCentral Air Documents Office (CADO), and its activi-ties were broadened to include the processing of do-mestically produced technical documents. Concurrentlyin 1948, the Bureau of Ordnance and the Office ofNaval Research established a contract operation withthe Library of Congress with these two Navy com-ponents. On May 14, 1951, both organizations weremerged into the Armed Services Technical InformationAgency, the present Defense Documentation Center.Similar services are being performed today by theClearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical In-formation of the National Bureau of Standards and theScientific and Technical Information Facility of the Na-tional Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Shortly after World War II, a slightly different typeof center arose the Analytical Data Center. Thistype of center dealt with precise analytical data. Thefirst one was created at the Battelle Memorial Institute,Columbus, Ohio. This particular center dealt with datapertinent to titanium and its alloys; e.g., melting point,physical and mechanical characteristics, and so forth.To date, there are approximately 90 of these federallysupported centers.23

In the private sector, there has been a definitemovement toward the use of mechanized documenta-tion and information retrieval techniques on the part ofprofessional organizations and societies. Prior to 1955,computing equipment was used primarily for rmericdata compilation as contrasted with information pre-sented in an alphabetic format. A breakthrough tookplace when the American Society for Metals Documen-tation Service was developed at Western Reserve Uni-versity, Cleveland, Ohio.24 Mechanized techniques havesince been implemented by several professional groupsoffering information services, the most notable andcomprehensive example being the American ChemicalSociety's Chemical Abstracts. Not all information cen-ters have turned to computers, however, the notableexception here being Battelle Memorial Institute whichmaintains numerous information centers under privateand public contract, all of which use manual techniques.An interesting fact is that Battelle has an informationcenter on information centers, the Information Re-search Center, which uses manual techniques.25

The government of the United States is probablythe largest operator of information services and centersin the world today. The most active divisions are theNational Aeronautics and Space Administration, theAtomic Energy Commission, the Department of De-fense, the National Science Foundation, the Depart-ment of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Depart-

7

Table 2

AGENCIES AND ORGANIZATIONS VISITED BY SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

GROUP* FUNCTIONS/CHARACTERISTICS FEDERAL NON - FEDERAL

LIBRARIES ACQUIRE, CATALOG, ANO ANNOUNCE ACQUISITIONS WITH

A VIEW TOWARO STORING, CIRCULATING, ANO PROVIOINC

SELECTED REFERENCE SERVICES,

FCOCRAL AVIATION AGENCY

OCPARTMENT OF INTERIOR

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEOICINE

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

SmITIISONiAN INSTITUTION

JOHN CRCRAR LIBRARY

HARVARO UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY LIDRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLANO LIBRARY

INFORMATION

ANALYSIS

CENTERS

ACQUIRE, CATALOG, ANO INOCX WITH A VIEW TOWARO

REVIEWING, ANALYZING, EVALUATING, SYNTHESIZING,INTEGRATING, ANO OTHERWISE REPORTING ON THE CON-

TENT OR SUBSTANCE OF DOCUMENTS, PARTICULAR

EMPHASIS ON USE OF SUBJECT AREA SPECIALISTS FOUNO

HERE,

FOCIO ANO ORUG AOMINISTRATION

NATIONAL REFERRAL CENTER FOR

SCIENCE ANO TECHNOLOGY

SCH,;NCE INFORMATION EXCHANGe

COAST ANO GEOOCTIC SURVEY

BATTELLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE

PUBLICATION,

ANNOUNCEMENT ANO

OISTRIBUTION

ACQUIRE, ABSTRACT, INDEX, COPY, PUBLISH, ANNOUNCE,

ANO OISSEMINATE DOCUMENTS FOR THE PURPOSES OF

PROVIDING DOCUMENTS OR SCCONOARY REPRESENTATIONS

USUALLY TO A WIOE POPULATION OF USERS.

ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

CLEARINGHOUSE FOR FCOERAL SCIEN-

TWIG ANO TECHNICAL INFORMATIONDEFENSE DOCUMENTATION CENTER

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS ANO SPACE

ADMINISTRATION

PATENT OFFICE

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE

AMERICAN SOCIETV FOR METALS

ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTING MACHINERY

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES INFORMATION SERVICE

CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS SERVICE

ENGINEERING INDEX, INC,

MCGRAW -HILL PUBLISHING COMPANY

SOCIETY OF AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERS

CAMBRIOGE COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION

DOCUMENT

GENERATORS/USERS

PRIMARILY ORIGINATE OR USE DOCUMENTS (ALTHOUGHALL ORGANIZATIONS 00 THIS TO SOME OEGREE), TENO TO

BE MISSION - ORIENTED ANO WOULO ENCOMPASS MOST

INOUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS (NOT VISITED),

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

OCPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION

ANO WELFARE

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

AOMINISTRATION,

POLICY, ANO

SUPPORT

ADMINISTER, MAKE POLICY, PROVIOE SUPPORT, OROTHERWISE INFLUENCE DOCUMENT ANO INFORMATION

OPERATIONS BUT ARC NOT IN THE OPERATIONAL LOOP

WITH RESPECT TO PROCESSING OR MANIPULATION OF

DOCUMENTS ANO INFORMATION (EXCEPT FOR THEIR OWN

USE),

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANOAROS

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNOATION

OFFICE OF EDUCATION

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES

COUNCIL ON LIBRARY RESOURCES

ENGINEERS JOINT COUNCIL

NATIONAL FEOERATION OF SCIENCE ABSTRACTING

ANO INOEXING SERVICES

SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION

* FUNCTIONAL GROUPINGS ARE IN TERMS OF EMPHASIS OR PRIME

ROLE OF CRGANIZATION IN SAT DOCUMENT ANO INFORMATION

HANDLING ACTIVITIES,

ment of Commerce, and Congress, through the Libraryof Congress. The following chart (Table 2), developedas a part of the background study done by SystemsDevelopment Corporation (SDC) for the Committeeon Scientific and Technical Information (COSATI) ofthe Federal Council for Science and Technology, sum-marizes the various agencies and organizations in theinformation services business in and out of govern-ment.26 One addition that should be made to the chartis the Educational Resources Information Center(ERIC) of the U.S. Office of Education, Departmentof Health, Education, and Welfare, which was not inoperation at the time the chart was created.

The intent, up to this point, has been to draw avery general history of the field of information services.We have traced, in broad terms, the nature and orga-

8

nization of libraries and information centers fromancient times to the modern era. Moreover, an attempthas been made to define and to focus upon the areaof documentation and the development of specializedinformation services. We have not looked in any detailat the current status of the field. This aspect will becovered in the next section by a careful isolation andinspection of some significant trends which are preva-lent to day. Finally, an in-depth analysis of specific in-formation centers and facilities presently availableshall be made.

26System Development Corporation. Recommendationsfor National Document Handling Systems in Science andTechnology, Appendix A, "A Background Study," Vol. ILSanta Monica, California: The Corporation, 1965. p. 63.

Present Status and Trends

The previous historical overview had as its intent theprovision of a context for viewing the present and pro-jecting the future of the field of information services.From this overview, some trends can be easily dis-cerned such as the emphasis upon precise treatment ofinformation through specialized centers, the involve-ment of professional organizations in the provision ofinformation services, the movement from documenta-tion to information science, and the increasing utilizationof mechanization in some aspects of information ser-vices while still other areas reject it, at least for thepresent. In order to further delimit the particular areasthat shall be analyzed more closely, other sources shallbe examined which seek to determine and define trends.After these and other treads have been identified, keytrends will be examined in more detail.

The most authoritative and comprehensive treat-ment of what is current and promising in informationservices is found in the Annual Review of InformationScience and Technology.27 Two volumes of this con-tinuing series have appeared to date. The first volume,published in 1966, covered the literature appearing inthe calendar year 1965, as well as some earlier ma-terials. Volume II appeared in 1967, and covered thecalendar year 1966. The Present Status and FutureProspects of Reference /Information Services28 was alsoexamined, as were several other relevant articles anddocuments. Interviews were an additional source ofinput.

In his chapter on "National Information Issues andTrends," John Sherrod discusses the role of the Com-mittee on Scientific and Technical Information (COS-ATI) and lists the basic assumptions which resultedfrom the attempts of COSATI to develop a realisticconceptual framework for a plan to improve the overallnational complex of scientific and technical informationactivities government and non-government in the

27Carlos S. Cuadra, ed. Annual Review of InformationScience and Technology. New York: rnterscience, annual.

28Winiield B. Linderman. The Present and Future Pros-pects of Reference / Information Service. Chicago: Ameri-can Library Association, 1967.

29Cuadra. Annual Review, I. op. cit. p. 342.

30Cuadra. Annual Review, II. op. cit. p. 385.

31Linderman. op. cit. p. 6.

United States. The most important of thc, basic assump-tions were:

1. The Federal Government has the responsi-bility to ensure that there exists within the UnitedStates at least one accessible copy of each sig-nificant publication of the worldwide scientificand technical literature.

2. The Federal Government has the responsi-bility to see that the significant worldwide scien-tific and technical literature be acquired, an-nounced, processed, and made accessible to quali-fied individuals and organizations in the UnitedStates.

3. There will be important portions of the na-tional information system independent of the Fed-eral Government.

4. Any systems proposed must be evolutionaryin character, in the sense that they will start withthe present activities, such as libraries and infor-mation exchanges, and evolve to forms which willbe consistent with an overall plan.29

A number of alternative concepts for a nationwidescientific and technical information system were alsolisted, all of which involved some type of national net-work or coordination.

In the chapter on trends and issues in the 1967 An-nual Review, Donald P. Hammer devotes most of thechapter to information networks along with commentson the problems of the information explosion andcopyright revision.38

Verner W. Clapp, President of the Council onLibrary Resources, in his keynote address to the Con-ference on the Present Status and Future Prospects ofReference/Information Services at Columbia Univer-sity in March, 1966, stated that:

. . . World War II . called the attention ofscientists once more, and that of many engi-neers for the first time, to the need for improv-ing access to the literature of an informationon their subjects . .. from these origins havecome developments typically in either of twoforms. One is the establishment of a center orseries of centers to facilitate access to the re-ports and other documents . .. the other isthe establishment of a center for extracting,assembling, and servicing information (ascontrasted with documents).31

9

and furthermore,. the responsibilities of government withrespect to the provision of scientific, tech-nical and other information for use in busi-ness, industry, research, education, and medi-cine have become common subjects ofdiscussion and investigation at the topmostlevels of government . Out of these discus-sions and investigations, there emerged fromtime to time plans for national informationservice. Although these plans at first mayshow insufficient comprehension of the mech-anisms which they discuss or in other waysfall short of their targets, yet it may be ex-pected that sooner or later the tendencies andpressures which they represent will graduallyforce the development of reference serviceswhich are much more 'complete' . 32

Dr, Clapp goes on to discuss the effect upon thelocal library of a national reference system and pointsout that the commitment of manpower it requiresshould be offset by the advantages of mechanization tothe library. He cites, as examples, the nationally co-ordinated, but also decentralized service facilities of theNational Aeronautics and Space Administration (NA-SA) and the National Library of Medicine through itsMEDLARS (Medical Literature Analysis and Re-trieval System) program.

What does the major professional group con-cerned with information services see as the trend ofthe future? The answer to this question can best beseen in the topic for the fall conference of the AmericanSociety for Information Science held on October, 1968,at Columbus, Ohio. In the October, 1967, issue ofAmerican Documentation, a call was given for paperson a theme of the 1968 conference -- informationtransfer.33 A model of information transfer was pre-sented and papers on the topic were solicited. Thislonger range approach to a significant topic, allowingtime for idea generation, incubation, and revision, is

most heartening.In addition to our historical overview, we have sur-

veyed the prink sources of information on trends in

the area of information services. Based upon this in-

vestigation, the following topics seem to be those whichare on the cutting edge today.

Information NetworksInformation TransferSpecialize d Information Centers and ServicesMechanizationThe Movement to an Information Science from

DocumentationIt is evident and should be noted that most of the

substantive work in the advancement of the state ofinformation services has been done in the area ofscience and technology. On this point, D. J. Fosketthas observed that:

Most of the significant advances in techniquesof information retrieval have been made inthe natural sciences. This was inevitable be-cause it was there, particularly in appliedscience and technology, that the right con-ditions existed. First, there was the meregrowth in the quantities of data available,which led to increased specialization. Com-bined with the need for bigger and morecostly equipment this meant that researchbecame like production itself, a social matter,with projects requiring teams rather than in-dividual craftsmen or scientists. Second, therewas the need to apply the results of researchas quickly as possible; the great contribu-tion made by industry to scientific researchwas to supply the motive power arising fromthe drive for increased production.

Until recently, these conditions have notexisted in the humanities or the social sci-ences. Individual workers have relied on theirown resources, and governments have beenless preoccupied with social than with tech-nical problems.34

This situation is now changing, not only for thehumanities and the social sciences in general, but foreducation in particular. The nature and direction ofchanges taking place are not unlike those in scienceand technology, however, but are quite parallel anddraw heavily upon the greater experience of thesciences.

information Networks

Well over half of the chapter on "National Informa-tion Issues and Trends- in the Annual Review of in-formation Science and Technology, Volume II, is

devoted to the topic of national information networks.This section starts with the words:

Perhaps the development in the informationsciences that will do the most to solve theproblems that beset scientific informationusers is the national information network. Itwill have, through its many supporting com-ponents, greater resources and faster accessthan any of our libraries and information cen-

10

ters could hope to have today . interactinggroups of information generating agencies,information centers, libraries and switchingagencies, all with coordinated activities,

32Linderman. op cit. p. 8.

33John W. Murdock and David M. Liston, Jr. "A GeneralModel of Information Transfer: Theme Paper." AmericanDocumentation XVIII (October, 1967). p. 707.

34D. J. Fosketi. "Information Retrieval in the SocialSciences." Wilson Library Bulletin XXXVIII (May, 1964).p. 755.

should be eventually capable of supplying allkinds of data to all corners.35

An information network is, therefore, an intercon-nected aed interrelated system of information pro-ducers, storage and retrieval facilities and users. Suchnetw ui ks are concerned with the expeditious distribu-tion of documents and data to those who use them.

Jordan Baruch of EDUCOM sees three types ofcommunication networks: the need-resources or naturalnetwork, the physical network, and the organizationalnetwork. The natural network depicts the distribution ofneeds and resources among a set of nodes. It illustratesa set of interconnections that could produce the in-formation transfer desired. For example, if four uni-versities chose to lend each other computer programs(solid lines) and books (dashed lines) the naturalnetwork might look like this:

Figure 2

THE STRUCTURE OF A NATURALCOMMUNICATION NETWORK

Center 1 needs books that 3 and 4 have, and po-groms available at 2 and 3. It has, as a resource, booksneeded by 4 and programs needed by 3. Such a net-work is simply a pictorial expression of various desiresand resources. It does not express any connections,paths, or the actual flow of such resources. The arrowsbetween the nodes are merely visual representations ofthe desired flow direction.

The physical network is a structure or combinationof parts capable of conveying a subset of the resourcesconnecting points 1, 2, and 3 in Figure 2. For the ex-change of programs, a truck making the trip to transferbooks would be part of the physical network. Theactual configuration of any network is dictated largely

35Cuadra. op cit., Volume II. p. 391.

36Jordan Baruch. "Thoughts on Taking Office." EDU-COM III (March, 1968). p. 3.

37ibid. p. 1.

38George W. Brown, James G. Miller and Thomas A.Keenan. DUNT, Report of the Summer Study on In-formation Networks. New York: John Wiley, 1967. p. 6.

39Baruch. op cit. p. 3.

by history, cost, time of response required, material ormedium to be carried, and other similar design con-siderations.

The organizational network is basically concernedwith the flow of network meta-information (billing,cost accounting, ordering, instructions, performancedata, and data concerning the shape of the network it-self) . Su.ch a network might have a fifth node addedto Figure 2 (if a separate entity existed to manage thephysical network), or it might have lines running from1, 2, and 3 to 4, if 4 was the system administrativeagent.36

in order to provide further definition of the infor-mation network concept, a brief look will be taken atfour proposed or emerging networks which representdiffering areas of intellectual endeavors: EDUCOM(higher education), COSATI (science and technol-ogy), CONLIS (a total knowledge network), andERIC (elementary, secondary and higher education).Interestingly, the third mentioned proposal (CONLIS)would incorporate or coordinate all of the other net-works and their component parts.

EDUCOMEDUCOM is the short name for the InteruniversityCommunication Council, a non-profit organization sup-ported by foundation monies to "facilitate the extra-organizational communication of the university."37 Itsgoal is to bring about collaboration among institutionsof higher education in their efforts to utilize the com-munications media. While all information-processingactivities are of concern to the organization, the primarygoals are to disseminate reports on the state of informa-tion-handiing techniques and to set up task forcegroup!: to study areas of critical development. Theoriginal five-year, $75,000 grant from the KelloggFoundation grew from a belief that only through co-operation can the academic community make a majorcontribution to new concepts and systems or derivemaximum benefits.38

In ;.he summer of 1966, representatives of universi-ties, government, industry, and private foundationsgathered for four weeks at the University of Coloradoin Boulder. Out of this meeting came the overall designfor a higher educational information services networkwhich projected the use and development of sophisti-cated technology for the transmission of information.The present tools being used by EDUCOM are:

. .. symposia, visits and meeting to defineneeds; educational programs to introduce newtechnology, and extensive publication pro-gram to ensure optimal growth of networkutilization; and the staff participation inEDUCOM panels concerned with application

EDUCOM's work is facilitative in na-ture (and a) major role in the natural net-work will be to uncover any shortcomings,gaps and cost mismatches between existingphysical or organizational networks and thenatural network.39

11

COSATIThe Committee on Scientific and Technical Informa-tion (COSATI) is a part of the Federal Council onScience and Technology which is an advisory group tothe President. COSATI has the task of designing a na-tional information transfer system or network of sys-tems which would serve the needs of practicing scien-tists and engineers and their managers in such a way asto promote the more effective and efficient execution ofthe national research and development effort."

In order to determine the optimum approach to anational system, COSATI contracted with the SystemDevelopment Corporation (SDC) to do a thoroughstudy of information needs, the current system, rele-vant legislation and executive orders, available equip-ment and software, trends of the future, and recom-mendations for action. The final report, Recommenda-tions fur National Document Handling Systems in Sci-ence and Technology', appeared in September of 1965in two volumes. Volume I contained the major recom-mendations of the study and Volume II, supportingmaterials. The major recommendations were:

1. The establishment of a capping agency with-in the executive branch to have overall directiveand re,iew authority relative to Scientific andTechnical information and documentation.

2. Implementation of the Responsible AgentConcept which involves the establishment of re-sponsibility for the Federal departments or agen-cies to assume the performance of the necessaryoperations.

The alternate systems suggested include:1. A Federal operating agency which would be

both responsible for and operate a national infor-mation service.

2. A private corporation (possibly governmentchartered) which would provide the services ofthe Federal operating agency.

3. A national library administration in theExecutive branch which would be an amalgama-tion of the major libraries now existing in thegovernment.

4. Strengthen the existing system, mainly theOffice of Science and Technology. 41

A major implication of the SDC report is that thereis a need for several national libraries handling docu-ments in each of several different subject fields, withoperating responsibility for each library residing witha federal agency having primary mission in that field.From the beginning, it is intended to bring these li-braries together into a coordinated system under reviewof the Office of Science and Technology. This does notnecessarily mean that the federal government willoperate the document handling systems, but only thatit will be responsible for ensuring an effective system.42

CONLISIn March, 1966, an invitation was extended byRobert Vosper, president of the American Library As-sociation, to nine national library groups to send repre-

12

sentatives to a meeting in Chicago to consider theCOSATI report on recommendations for a nationaldocument handling system in science and technology.The consensus of the meeting was that the recom-mendations of COSATI were "basically inadequate tothe real needs of the situation by virtue of their limita-tion to science and technology . . . [and furthermore].. . Not only did they fail to consider the urgent needsfor improved access to information in the social sci-ences and humanities . .. but, in the opinion of thosepresent, this failure vitiated even some of the proposalsmade by COSATI."43 Many of the shortcomings asviewed by the participants were attributed to thelimited charge given COSATI.

As a result of the Chicago meeting, an Ad HocJoint Committee on National Library/Information Sys-tems (CONLIS) was formed. The recommendations ofthis committee were presented at the Midwinter Con-ference of the American Library Association in Janu-ary, 1968. The report proposed as a basic hypothesisthat the national interest requires assured and readyaccess by all citizens to unrestricted information as,"information as a commodity is essential to our de-velopment as individuals, to optimization of our activi-ties, to the strength of our nation, and to the progressand survival of mankind."44 It was pointed out thatequal access should be given to all fields of knowledge,that there is a large quantity of information in relationto local resources, and that the federal government isthe logical body to carry responsibility for a nation-wide information system. The problems of intellectualand physical access are discussed and a recommenda-tion is made that:

There be established within the federal gov-ernment a single agency with the responsibil-ity to assure that there is ready access to allsignificant published information by all ele-ments of the economy and with the continu-ing budget support that will enable it to fulfillthis responsibility.45

It is strongly emphasized that this recommendationis not for a monolithic federal agency, but for the useof many channels, from local libraries to serve the localcommunity to national service libraries and biblio-graphic facilities. The Atomic Energy Commission andNational Science Foundation are cited as possiblemodels, with placement within a department such as

40John R. Ray. Information Processing Systems and Net-works: A Working Paper. (A mimeographed paper pre-sented at the National Conference of Regional LaboratoryDirectors, New Orleans, La., January 14-16, 1967.)

41Systems Development Corporation. op. cit. p. 52.

42Cuadra. op. cit., Volume I. p. 343.

43"A National Library Agency .. . a Proposal." ALABulletin LXII (March, 1968).

44 ibid. p. 256.

45ibid. p. 262.

the Department of Health, Education and Welfare be-ing seen as logical.

The CONLIS proposal is, therefore, for a nationalcoordinating agency which would perform serviceswhere none existed and wield those services presentlyexisting into a total system. Again the concept of a sys-tem of many parts is proposed.

ERICThe Educational Rcsources Information Center(ERIC) is a "nation -wide information service l'-which]has been established to help put the results of new edu-cational research into the hands of those who need it

teachers, administrators, researchers and to doso on an up-to-date basis at nominal cost to the user."46ERIC has shifted in its emphasis to some extent frore"research" to "resources." In fact, the R in the ERICacronym originally stood for research.

ERIC is a part of the Division of Research Train-ing and Dissemination of the U. S. Office of Education,

InformationAs indicated earlier, the theme of the 1968 conventionof the American Society for Information Sciences wasinformation transfer.47 The theme paper for this con-vention set foal a general model of information trans-fer which serves as an excellent. vehicle to use inexamination of this area. In the iiitcoduction to thispaper Murdock and Liston made the following points:

Inherent in at least one set of definitions ofthe words "knowledge" and "information" isthe concept that an item of knowledge be-comes an item of information when it is "setin motion" when it enters the activeprocess of being communicated or trans-ferred from one or more persons, groups, ororganizations (sender) to one or more otherpersons, groups, or organizations (receiver).Many people will argue that knowledge asdefined here has no intrinsic value thatonly when it is successfully transferred is itsvalue to be realized. Others go further, argu-ing that the value of information cannot berealized until it is actively applied in decisionmaking. Either of these viewpoints mustnecessarily concede that value is dependentupon transfer. Thus, information transfer isan important and appropriate theme ...48

46Lee C. Burchinal. ERIC . . . and the Need to Know.(An explanatory brochure describing the ERIC program,no publisher or date indicated, unpaged.)

47Supra, p. 10.48Murdock and Liston. op. cit. p. 198. See also the discus-

sion of the nature of information.49See also the work of Berlo, Lasswell, Osgood, Schramm,

Ross, and Westley-MacLean among others in communica-tions theory for other elaborations on this model.

50Murdock and Liston. op. cit. p. 198.

and covers preschool, elementary, secondary, andhigher education through the junior college.

The ERIC system consists of a headquarters office(Central ERIC) which is responsible for overall de-velopment and coordination, 18 decentralized subjectarea clearinghouses, and several specialized services.The chief specialized services are the ERIC DocumentReproduction Service (ERRS) and the publicationResearch in Education. The Document ReproductionService makes the documents indexed in Research inEducation available on microfiche or hard copy. Theinclusions in Research in Education are obtained forthe various clearinghouses which exercise quality con-trol over input. All projects financed by the federalgovernment which pertain to education are also listedin Research in Education. The main content of theERIC system is report literature.

ERIC, in essence, is a national decentralized sys-tem for the gathering, selection, and dissemination ofreport literature in the field of education.

TransferMurdock and Liston state that their model of in-

formation transfer is based on the classic sender-chan-nel-receiver concept, but uses a variety of alternatechannels." Their model is shown in Figure 3.

Several terms used in the Murdock-Liston modelrequire further investigation and shed additional lighton the nature of information transfer.

1. The direct channel is face-to-face discussion inwhich communication is:

a. Very directb. Very dynamic, permitting the utilization of

words, phrases, sentences, etc. (language); gesticula-tions; inflections of the voice; interruptability, allowingthe receiver to interrupt the sender requesting clarifi-cation of or elaboration on the message being spoken;and feedback, allowing the receiver to become thesender with reverse flow of information transfer.

c. Very rapid with virtually no delay time.The primary disadvantages of this channel are re-lated to:

a. Faulty memoryb. Little chance for study of what is transferred.c. Frequent acceptability of vague generalizations

which would not be permitted in a recorded message."Progressing from the point of face-to-face discus-

sion along the communication continuum toward situa-tions involving less directness, less dynamic transfer,and more time delay, one can visualize situations suchas phone conversations, television broadcasting, andradio broadcasting. Murdock and Liston see all ofthese types of transfer as signified by the direct channelfrom the originator to user depicted in their model be-cause of their immediacy.

2. The primary recorded media channel is createdwhen the originator comes to feel that what he has tosay should be recorded as a part of the body of litera-ture of his discipline. Other examples of primary re-

13

Figure 3

A GENERAL MODEL OF INFORMATION TRANSFER"

RELEASEDIRECT NONRECORDED TRANSFER

RESTRICTIONS

USEPEOPLE-

SENSORS-MACHINES

RELEASE RESTRICTIONS

RELEASE

RESTRICTIONS

RELEASE

RESTRICTIONS

RELEASE RESTRICTIONS

RELEASE

SECONDARY RESTRICTIONS

RECORDED MEDIA

RELEASE RESTRICTIONS

eir

I+ VCeSTIL.

INFORMATIONCENTERS

RELEASE

RESTRICTIONS

RELEASE RESTRICTIONS

14 5libid.

13%

INFORMATIONCENTERS

RELEASE

RESTRICTIONS

r

r?,

rri

corded media ai e letters, newspapers, conferencenotes, technical rei.orts, handbooks, monographs, texts,patents and recorded tapes. Little has been done, up tothe last five years, to package primary media for retro-spective searching (ther than providing periodicindexes.

3. The archival channel has developed to store in-formation for subsequent delayed usage when the userbecomes aware of the need for it. Document depots, li-braries, special libraries, and corporate file; are allforms, at least in part, of archival storage.

4. The secondary recorded media channel feedsfrom both the primary recorded media and archivalchannels and becomes archival itself when collectedinto libraries and other holdings. The purpose of sec-ondary recorded media is to assist people to search,more easily, the ever increasing volume of current andstored informational items. Abstracting journals, acces-sional bulletins, indexes, and bibliographies are facedwith handling increasing volumes of literature and withpressure to reduce the time period for tunneling infor-mation from other channels into the secondary mediachannel.

5. The information center channels represent an at-tempt to provide a service to essentially a known groupof users on demand. The information analysis center,in particular, "attempts to utilize all informatLin trans-fer channels to provide technical answers to :ethnicalquestions posed by users."52 The concept of the analysiscenter, therefore, has been primarily applied to techni-cal disciplines and mission oriented projects. It shouldbe noted that one information center can refer to an-other in the model.

6. Release restrictions impede the free transfer ofinformation from originator to user. These restrictionscould be compared to the resistances or impedances inelectrical circuits. The total resistance to flow probablyvaries according to whether the resistance in the chan-nel is applied in series or in parallel or in combinationsof both.

Release restrictions exist even at the face-to-face(direct channel) level of communications in suchforms as language difficulties, personal reluctances todevulge facts, and personal incapabilities of expression.Restrictions become more notable as contact betweenthe sender and receiver grow progressively less direct.

Although the existence of this release restrictionimpedance is generally acknowledged, not a great dealis known about it, including the answers to suchquestions as

52Murdock and Liston. op. cit. p. 200.

53Murdock and Liston. op. cit. p. 201.

54Gustavus S. Simpson, Jr., and John W. Murdock. "$and Secrets." American Documentation (April, 1967). p.110.

"Jesse H. Shera. Documentation and the Organization ofKnowledge. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1966.p. 115.

a. What is the magnitude of the impedance? Whatpercentage of valuable information is not availableto certain people because of security classifications,for example?

b. How critical is the impedance? To what extentdoes it really impair progress and understanding?

c. What possibilities are there for reducing orcompensating for the impedance?

d. How justifiable are these impedances in view ofthe value of information or do they exist becauseof information.A set of tentative levels or restrictions are:a. Unclassified/Public Domainb. Unclassified/Copyrightedc. Proprietaryd. Security Classifiede. Natural Language Discrepancyf. Personal limitations in written or verbal expressiong. Expense (cost) 53

An interesting discussion of the implications of re-strictions in the area of information classification, forreasons of profit or national security, was given in anarticle appearing in April, 1967, which utilized anearlier version of the Murdock-Liston model."

7. The symbol for information centers in the Mur-dock-Liston model was first described by G. S. Simpsonat the 1961 annual meeting of the American Documen-tation Institute. The three parallel segments of the sym-bol represent the primary functions of the analysiscenter as described by Simpson. The top segment rep-resents the acquisition function; the middle segment,the storage and retrieval function; and the bottom seg-ment, the primary function of analysis.

We have been looking at a rather general model ofthe process of information transfer, in order to givemore specificity to the concept. We shall now turn to aparticular experiment in information transfer, ProjectINTREX.

Project 1NTREXAs Jesse H. Shera said in his article, "Librarian's Pug-wash, or INTREX on the Cape":

INTREX, for the enlightenment of the un-initiated, is an acronym for information trans-fer experiments and, parenthetically, onemight note that in most advantgarde engine-ering circles information is no longer com-municated or even retrieved, it is transferred.But, whatever one may think of the semanticderivations of INTREX, the term stands fora projected multi-million-dollar, four-year re-search program at the Massachusetts Insti-tute of Technology to be directed toward thedevelopment of new methods for technicaland scientific information handling.55

Dean Shera also observes that the project seems tobe strongly influenced by the work of Vannevar Bushand J. C. R. Licklider.

In August, 1965, a planning conference was heldfor project 1NTREX at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

15

The conference was co sponsored by the IndependenceFoundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Tea-nology. The task of the conference was to formulate acoordinated program of information transfer experi-ments to be performed by Proje:t INTREX. The objectof these experiments was to prc vide a design for evolu-tion of a large university library into a new informationtransfer system that could become operational in thedecade beginning in 1970. The report volume stressedthat it is the belief of the conferees that the informationtransfer system of the next decade will result from aconfluence of three main streams of progress:

1. The modernization of current library proce-dures through the application of data processing,textual storage, and reproduction.

2. The growth, largely under Federal sponsorship,of a national network of libraries and other informa-

3. The extension of the rapidly developing tech-nology of on-line, inter-active computer communitiesinto the domain of the library and other informationcenters.56In order to accomplis'a the purpose of INTREX,

the conference recommended four sets of experimentsas a core program:

1. Augmented catalog experiments the augmen-tation of the library catalog in the areas of content,depth and connectivity to be undertaken through theuse of a computer which will control the flow ofinformation.

2. Text access experiments the development ofmeans of delivering and displaying documents oncethey are identified. A number of technologies will beexplored for storage, delivery and display.

3. Network integration experinzents explorationof a range of ideas to promote the integration of uni-versity libraries into a national (and ultimately, inter-national) network information centers.

4. Fact retrieval experiments experiments withrapid access to very large files, retrieval and assemblyof facts, and automatic systems to answer questions.

Development of a computerized "handbook" and databanks and techniques of querying them had a highpriority.57

An interesting part of the INTREX conference re-port is the "Information Transfer System at M.I.T. in1975," which even includes a budget for that year (J5million dollars).

In terms of progress, the November 15, 1967,Project INTREX Newsletter, reports that:

. The current effort in the augmented cata-log experiments are proceeding in threeareas: (1) input data, (2) the computer pro-gram, (3) the equipment. The Catalog InputGroup .. . has selected for initial cataloginga list of current documents .. . (and) .. .has also selected the data to be included inthe experimental catalog.

The Computer Programming Group .. . isdeveloping programs in three phases . .. test-ing and evaluating various techniques ofstorage and retrieval .. . (and) . . . for use inconducting more advanced experiments withthe interest sector of the M.I.T. community.

The Console Group has specified the com-ponents of a remote console and is in theprocess of ordering the parts for a laboratoryprototype..

The Text Access Group is currently evalu-ating various components of the system .. .(and) .. . yet to be undertaken are the net-work integration experiments and the factretrieval experiments."

Thus, at least one high level experiment is ongoingin the area of information transfer with an eye to de-velopment of a total system for the future.

In light of the proceeding, a basic definition of in-formation transfer might be: the movement of informa-tion from one person, sensor, or machine to anotherperson, sensor, or machine through varied and appro-priate channels.

Specialized Information CentersIt was noted in the earlier historical account of the de-velopment of documentation that specialized informa-tion centers and services grew from two main forces,the need to report new scientific knowledge in the formof research monographs on minute and precise topicsand the reliance placed upon exact information by bus-iness, industry, and government agencies.59 Further-more, these two trends were intensified from WorldWar II onward; and this period is marked by the rise ofthe specialized information and analytical center. It wasfurther pointed out that several professional organiza-tions have been and are engaged in specialized informa-tion services.60 With this background in mind, our taskin this section shall be more to provide definition forthe nature of the specialized information center thanto explore further the reasons for their existence.

16

Kent6' provides a very systematic analysis of thenature .aid functions of specialized centers dealing with

56Carl F. J. Overhage and R. Joyce Harman, eds. IN-TREX: Report of a Planning Conference on InformationTransfer Experiments. Cambridge, Massachusetts: TheM.I.T. Press, 1965. p. xv.

57ibid. p. xviii.

"Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Project IN-TREX Newsletter (November 15, 1967). p. 2.

59supra. p. 6.

"supra. p. 7.

61Allen Kent, Specialized Information Centers. Washing-ton, D.C.: Spartan, 1965.

them in terms of their functional organizations. Hiscategories are: acquisition, analysis, terminology con-trol, recording the results of the analysis on a search-able medium, storage, question statement and analysis,conducting the search, and delivery of the results (first5 input, last 3 output). He also treats overall organi-zation, costs and evaluation, and future developments.Case histories are provided under all topics.

In his introduction, the author quotes from a reportissued by the Panel on Science Development appointedunder Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, Special Assistant to thelate President Kennedy, dealing with the recommenda-tion that, "More and Better Specialized InformationCenters Are Needed."

A specialized information center makes it itsbusiness to know everything that is beingpublished in a special field .. . it collates andreviews the data, and provides its subscriberswith regularly issued compilations, critical re-views, specialized bibliographies, and othersuch tools . . .62

We believe that the specialized informa-tion center, backed by large central deposi-tories, might well become a dominant meansfor transfer of technical information.

Specialized information centers, to be fullyeffective, must operate in closest possible con-tact with working scientists and engineers inthe field. The activities of the most successfulcenters are an intrinsic part of science andtechnology. The centers not only disseminateand retrieve information; they create newinformation . . .

Since the technical information center .. .must be part of science and technology, it isnatural that it be located where relevant sci-ence is flourishing. The Panel, therefore,urges that new information centers be estab-lished at public and private technical institu-tions, not as adjuncts of general libraries, orof publishing ventures, or of centraldepositories.63

In older to place the information center in itsproper place in relation to the user's needs, Kent dis-cusses "the reader's dilemma." The reader cannot pos-sibly read, recall or process in advance of needs all ofthe published materials that are of potential usefulnessto him. He has, therefore, relied upon librarians, jour-nal editors, and the editors of abstracting and indexingjournals to gain organized information. In recent timesso many secondary publications (indexes and abstract-

p. 8.

631Ird. p. 9.

64S-11pra. p. 14.

65Kent. op. cit. p. 21.

66Ralph L. Darby. "Information Analysis Centers as aSoii.rce of Information and Data." Special Libraries LIX(pebruary, 1968). p. 93.

ing services) have been produced that the reader'sdilemma is reoccurring at a second level; and so an-other level of delegation has been created to providethe reader with relevant current and/or retrospectivematerials. It is at this second level of delegation thatthe information center appears. As shown in the gen-eral model of information transfer, this second level ofdelegation may be double-level itself, in that informa-tion centers may refer to other information centers formaterials in their area of specialization."

There are several ways in which an informationcenter may specialize. Among the possibilities are:

1. By subject field, either by general subject (e.g.,chemistry), or by more limited scope within the field(e.g., organic chemistry).

2. By type of source material, e.g. patents, com-pany reports, government reports.

3. By number of people served, e.g., individualscientists, research group, company, general public.

4. By geographic origin or location of (a) sourcematerial, or (b) clientele..

5. By type of service provided, e.g., current aware-ness searches, retrospective searches.65

In regard to the services performed by differenttypes of specialized information centers, the followingchart (Table 3) gives some indication of emphasis. Itshould be noted that most specialized information cen-ters and services are quite capable of providing morethan one type of service. Por example, an informationanalysis center can provide the information service ofbibliographic preparation and an abstracting servicecan perform information analysis.

A brief look shall be taken at three specific typesof center: the analysis center, the referral center andthe one-stop service center.

The Information Analysis CenterOne of the most highly developed of the informationanalysis centers is the Defense Metals InformationCenter of the Battelle Memorial Institute. Mr. RalphL. Darby, Chief of the Information Operations Divisionof Battelle, offered an analysis of the information anal-ysis center in a paper presented at the Workshop onReport Literature and Sources of Information spon-sored by the New Jersey Chapter of the Special Libra-ries Association on April 5, 1967. Mr. Darby depictedthe analysis center's organization through a diagram(Figure 4).66

The differentiating factor between an analysis cen-ter and a library or regular information center is shownby the bottom portion of the figure. Here, instead ofbibliographies, abstracts, and indexes, the mainproducts of the analysis center are technical answers toinquiries, data computations, monographs, and state-of-the-art reports.

In the case of the Defense Metals Information Cen-ter, its mission is to collect, process and disseminatescientific and technical information on structural metalsand closely related aerospace materials. The center has

17

Table 3

RELATIVE EMPHASIS OF INFORMATION SERVICE ACTIVITIES67

Functional Groups

Type of Information Services* Document Abstracting/ Special InformationDepot Indexing Service Library Analysis Center

Passive acquisition M r r r

Active acquisition r M M M

Total storage M 0 0 0

Selective storage r M M M

Reference seavehings M m M M

Retrieval M m M M

Hard-copy dissemination M m M m

Microcopy dissemination M m M m

Preparation of abstracts m M r r

Dissemination of abstracts M M m r

Preparation of indexes m M rn r

Accession lists m m m r

Preparation of bibliographies M m M m

Answer technical questiovIc r m m

Preparation and dissemination of analyticalstudies

0 r m M

Referral service m m r r

*M = major activity m = minor activity r = ram activity o = no activity

a manager, approximately 145 engincers (each a spe-cialist) who participate part time to answer inquiries orprepare special reports, and eight full-time informationspecialists who operate the system and assist the in-quirer and discuss the details of the question. This ar-rangement (1) lets the inquirer know that his problemis receiving attention, and (2) delimits and further de-fines the need. The center answers questions, publishesreviews or recent developments, and issues technicalmemoranda and state-of-the-art and evaluative reportson particular subject areas.

The National Referral Centerfor Science and Technology

If we look at the information transfer network in termsof an electrical analogy, information centers would actas "switching centers" which utilize the "circuitry" ofthe idormation channels to answer varying requests.Furthermore, the most critical task in standard refer-ence procedure is to "define" or "negotiate" the orig-inally asked reference question. Therefore, another typeof information center is one which does not produceanswers itself, but which acts as a matching and switch-ing point for directing requestors to the places wheretheir answers can be found whether in the literature orthrough other centers. The National Referral Center forScience and Technology is one such facility.

18

An explanatory brochure about the center statesthat:

The National Referral Center for Science andTechnology may be described most simply asthe 'information desk' of the scientific andtechnical community. Operating in the Li-brary of Congress with the support of the Na-tional Science Foundation, the Center isdesigned to provide a single place to whichanyone with an interest in science and tech-nology may turn- for advice on where andhow to obtain information on- specific topics.68

The concept of information resources which theCenter has adopted is an extremely broad one. It ex-tends to any organization, institution, group, or indi-vidual with specialized knowledge in a particular geldand the willingness to share this knowledge with others.Through a continuing survey, the Center is building upa central inventory of detailed data resources in termsof their areas of interest and the services which theyprovide.

Another activity of the Center is the publication ofdirectories of information resources in the areas of thephysical, biological sciences and engineering; socialsciences; water; and the federal government.

67Cuadra, op. cit., I. p. 305.68National Referral Center for Science and Technology.

Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, n.d. (brochure)

The One-Stop Information CenterMoving from the area of science and technology to edu-cation, Lee Burchinal, Director, Division of InformationTechnology and Dissemination, Bureau of Research,U. S. Office of Education, has on numerous occasionsadvocated the creation of one-stop information servicecenters. One of the first references to this concept wasincluded in an article on "ERIC and the Disseminationof Research Findings" which appeared in April, 1967.After a discussion of the rationale for the creation ofthe ERIC system, Burchinal makes the point that, "In-formation stored in the systems must be available in aform which can be understood and used. Here is wherethe local information sei vice centers could providevaluable services."6° He also specifies some of the func-tions of such local centers. He suggests that they:

1. Become and remain familiar with allimportant organized sources of knowledgethat could be usefully applied to developmentof educational programs in any field.

2. Know the operational requirements ofsystems .. . (so that) ... Specialists in one-stop centers could not only indicate whatkinds of information might be forthcomingfrom a given system or combination of them,but also how long it will take to obtain an an-swer, the form it will come in, and if there isa charge, the cost.

3. Act as an important intermediary be-tween the user who can only phrase his ques-tion in his own concepts or terms and themore formal language of storage and retrievalof the system.

4. Become a "listening post" and sourceof information about user informationneeds."

Burchinal goes on to say that the local center wouldhave multiple copies of Research in Education andother ERIC publications; abstracting journals fromother federal and private systems; a full collection ofnewsletter and reoccurring bibliographies; and specialbibliographies tailored to the local user requirements.It would also respond to queries for information thatcould be assembled from available indexes or informa-tion files, prepare d'gests and interpretative summariesof new findings and develop selective Jisseminationprograms through which carefully selected packages ofinformation, probably abstracts of documents, wouldinform users of what is current in their specific areas ofinterest.

Four settings are specified as natural for the one-stop center: regional laboratories, state and local de-

69Lee G. Burchinal. "ERIC and the Dissemination of Re-search Findings." Theory Into Practice (April, 1967). p. 83.

70ibk/. p. 82.

71Lee G. Burchinal. "Needed: One-Stop Information Ser-vice Centers." Educational Researcher (Supplement, 1967).PP. 8-9.

partments of education, or Title HI (ESEA) regionalcenters.

Further restatement and elaboration on the one-stop center, theme by Burchinal appeared in the Educa-tional Researcher'' and in a paper presented at the1968 American Education Research Association(AERA) Convention. The AERA paper stressed theemergence of a multi-level set of resources available toeducation which has appeared during the last few yearsand indicates five lines of development which areneeded if we seriously intend to promote widespreadinstallation of promising programs:

I. Further development of a multi-levelcommunication network based upon special-ized information processing and transferringorganizations that are bound together byfunctional linkages.

2. Articulation of mutually dependent rolesof "inhouse" information processors and"field-oriented" change agents within the con-text of the concept of a national educationalcommunication network.

3. Development of research programs thatcan provide guidance for integrating informa-tion systems theory with theoretical formula-

Figure 4

THE ORGANIZATION OF ANINFORMATION ANALYSIS CENTER

PROPRIETARY REPORTSz' DATA

CLASSIFIED REPDRTSN EN S.

TELEPHONE CALLS ef/. TRIP REPORTS IAwv...x.m.wwzitmo.wiwg.meN avgofft:ivmvax=zkumirl

NEWS REPORTS Y"..1 LETTERS

ABSTRACTSTECHNICAL JOURNALS S --'

MONOGRAPHSPREPRINTS

SELECTIVE ACQUISITION

*

r ''':""'"'"-s4 SELECTEDREJECTS 5';',Xn INPUTS

.... .

STORAGE

RETRIEVAL

DECISION MAKING AND PRODUCTION

SPECIAL

REPORTS

INTERPRETIVEREPORTS

OTHERPRODUCTS

USERS

MitkneMadranNfiltM

tions of disciplines relevant to understandingthe change process.

4. Development of the necessary trainingprograms, training aids and operational man-uals to provide the skills needed by individ-uals now in change-facilitating roles .. .

5. Development of a community of inter-

est for sustained work toward articulation ofresearch, training and operational programsrelated to change."

It can be readily seen that Burchinal views the one-stop information center as an important element notonly in the operation of an educational information sys-tem, but also in the entire change process as well.

MechanizationWhen we think of mechanization in terms of librariesand information centers, one almost automatically as-sumes that they are about to discuss computers. BurtonW. Adkinson and Charles M. Stearns of the Office ofScience Information Service of the National Sciencefoundation have identified three phases of the applica-tion of computers to library operations. The first phaseis to automate information files simply to replace mu-tual library tasks of a conventional sort with likemachine operations. Great strides have already beenmade in this area, and each of the three national li-braries (agriculture, medical, and congressional) havecompleted extensive studies of automation possibilitiesand have automated various operations to varying de-grees. Phase two is the one in which we are today. Itinvolves the question of which documents in the filecontain information on a specific subject.

In the first phase, we have automated our inventorycontrol over packages of information (books, periodi-cals, monographs, etc.); in the second phase we aretrying to automate the process of selecting those pack-ages which contain answers to particular questions. Thebest known technique in this area is coordinate index-ing. The greatest problem here is the "natural language"problem, or how a computer can make meaningfulsearches using the language of the human requestor.

In the third phase, conventional operations may dis-appear almost completely, and storage and search willbe for information itself almost completely without re-gard for the item or document that contains it. Thisultimate system will have the capability of threadingthrough files of great depth and variety and be able toattack these files from a variety of angles to obtain thedesired information. We have not really entered thisphase as yet. Some experiments are being made towardit; Project MAC at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology is an example. Project MAC involves sharedtime use of a heterogenous pool of information fromremote consoles."

J. C. R. Licklider in his book, Libraries of the Fu-ture, lists some of the information processing schematawhich will play a role in shaping future knowledge re-trieval systems:

1. Random-access memory2. Content-addressable memory3. Parallel processing4. Cathode-ray-ocilloscope displays and light

pens5. Procedures, subroutines, and related compo-

nents of computer programs

20

6. Hierarchical and recursive program structures7. List structure8. Procedure-oriented and problem-oriented

languages9. Xerographic output units

10. Time sharing computer systems with remoteuser stations.74

In terms of our overview, we shall not attempt todeal with this range of factors, but shall look briefly atthree presently available, but as yet not completely im-plemented, information mechanization procedures: Se-lective Dissemination of Information, facsimiletransmission, and on-line remote inquiry.

Selective Dissemination of InformationSelective Dissemination of Information (SDI) was firstdeveloped by H. P. Luhn of the IBM Advanced Sys-stems Group in the late fifties. SDI is a "current aware-ness" procedure which provides selected materials fromcurrent literature to individuals based upon their in-terests. The key to the system is the creation of "pro-files" which characterize the content of an article ordocument and the user. Each profile is made up fromcharacteristic terms or "keywords" selected on the onehand from the language of the document, and on theother hand from the specialized vocabulary of the user.Profiles are compared, the keywords serving as a com-mon denominator, allowing documents to be sent tothose people whose list of keywords sufficiently matchthe list of document keywords.

So that the users will not have to be burdened withthe full text of the documents which are in their gen-eral area of ,interest, but which they do not want toread fully, only abstracts are sent to the users initially.A feedback procedure is built into the system so thatusers may inform the SDI service that (1) the informa-tion was of interest, and served to keep the user suffi-ciently informed, (2) the information was of interest,and the user would like the complete text, or (3) theinformation was of no interest. This feedback allowsthe recipient's profile to be modified.

72Lee G. Burchinal. Articulation of Resources for Re-search Utilization. (A paper presented at the 1968 conven-tion of the American Educational Research Association,Chicago, Illinois, February 9, 1968.)

73Burton W. Adkinson and Charles M. Stearns. "Librariesand Machines A Review." American Documentation(July, 1967). p. 122.

74J, C. R. Licklider. Libraries of the Future. Cambridge,Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press, 1965. p. 9.

Because of the vast number of documents and re-cipient keywords which have to be matched in an SDIsystem, mechanization is necessary, "Since mechaniza-tion is essential it follows that machinable records ...must be used. A typical set of machinable records des-cribing a document consists of IBM cards for author,title, source, keyword and abstract."75 The profile fora given recipient is a list of his interests which are de-termined initially by having each potential recipientsubmit a list of topics pertinent to his area of activitywhich are checked against a keyword dicticnary. "Thedocument profiles and the recipient profiles are readinto a computer and compared. In those cases whereenough keywords match, the machine notes the nameand address of the recipient and the identification codeof the document selected for him, whereupon an infor-mation card and an address-response card are sent tohim."76 The SDI procedure is really the reverse of thenormal library procedure in that the information seeksthe user rather than the user seeking the information.

An example of an operating SDI system is the in-stallation at the Bonniville Power Administration. Anexplanation of this program states that:

A team of specialists follow the literaturecarefully, abstract, and index according tokeywords found in a thesaurus (a kind of dic-tionary) created at the Bureau of Reclama-tion. Each participating engineer has a profile

a verbal description of his interestsusing words taken from the thesaurus. Whenthe two are matched in a computer an ab-stract card is sent to the subscriber.77

This system is very much like the original IBMmodel except for two major functions which have beenadded: retrospective searching when needed and theweighting of keywords so that abstracts are sent outonly when a combination of keywords weights a signifi-cant "hit" level, thus eliminating those documents oflow relevance.

An example of the application of the SDI approachto higher education can be found in the system operatedat Wayne State University for a number of universitiesacross the United States."

75International Business Machines Corp. Selective Dis-semination of Information. White Plains, New York: IBM,1962. p. 5.

76ibid. p. 7.

"Eric I. Bronberg, George A. Dubinski, Norman D. Pe-terson. "Bonneville Power Administration Selective Dissem-ination of Information Program." Special Libraries LXIII(October, 1967). p. 589.

78Lois Lindow. Selective Dissemination of Information:Its Basic History and Its Application at Wayne State Uni-versity. (Unpublished master's essay, Detroit, Michigan:Wayne State University, 1967).

79Sharon Scatz. "Facsimile Transmission in Libraries: AState of the Art Survey." Library Resources and TechnicalService XII (Winter, 1968). p. 6.

"ibid.

Facsimile Transmission"Facsimile transmission is the rapid transmission ofprinted pages from one point to another point usingelectronic devices."79 All facsimile transmission methodsrequire converting the original picture into an electricalimpulse which is then transmitted over telephone lines,private lines, microwave or a combination of thesecommunication means. When the transmitted signal ar-rives at the receiving unit, the electrical impulses areused to recreate a duplicate of the original documenteither on a screen or in the form of hard copy. Themajor users of this technique are presently newspapers,wire services, and commercial organizations who canafford the relatively high cost. Some basic considera-tions which should be taken into account in regard toinformation center use are:

1. Facsimile equipment is available that can acceptany type of information which exists on paper and willdo so without any intermediate transcribing orprocessing.

2. Facsimile systems will operate over any availablecommunications medium including telephone lines,overseas cable, radio, microwave, and COMSATsatellite.

3. There is no technical limitation to the distanceover which facsimile can be transmitted.

4. Most facsimile systems are designed to acceptand transmit standard 81/2 by 11-inch pages .. . Fac-simile recorders are available that are 36 inches inwidth.

5. Most facsimile recorders utilize special electro-sensitive or pressure sensitive paper not unlike specialpapers used in copying machines.

6. For copy of average nature, such as a printedpage, the time to transmit a page over telephone linesvaries between three and six minutes. Production equip-ment is available that will cut transmission by as muchas 20 times, but this requires substantially more ex-pensive communication facilities.

7. Facsimile can transmit from colored originals,but the received copy will be in all of one color. Toneshades may be received on many systems.

8. Facsimile scanners are available that operatewith microfilm clips or slides. They can be used totransmit microfilm records and reproduce them in en-larged form at remote locations.

9. Information in facsimile form can be stored onmagnetic tape where it can be manipulated by com-puters. Computer-generated information can beprocessed by an available "scan converter" and trans-mitted over telephone lines in facsimile form.

10. Facsimile signals can be digitized and encryptedfor secure communications over telephone lines.

11. Facsimile network switching systems may be asautomated and flexible as those for other types ofcommunications networks.8°

In a facsimile network extending over ally reason-able distance the cost of communications rather thanequipment may become the major factor.

21

There have been several experiments conducted ininformation centers using facsimile equipment. TheXerox Corporation markets two types of facsimileequipment, the Magnafax Telecopier, a low cost sys-tem, and Long Distance Xerox (LDX), a much morecostly device which works in much the same manner asa regular Xerox 914 photocopier. The first device wasgiven a 30-day test at the University of Nevada. Resultsshow that use of the Magnafax Telecopier was feasibleand convenient for routine interlibrary use. A test ofthe LDX equipment at the University of California'sInstitute of Library Research showed that such un-precedented interlibrary service could be made possiblewith this equipment and that, "entirely new concepts ofcooperative sharing and distribution of library re-sources"81 could be obtained; however, "the cost of anLDX system precludes its use in libraries at current in-terlibrary photoduplication service levels."82

The previously mentioned Project INTREX hasdone some work with a single frame microfilm facsimilesystem which has been partially evaluated. In its pres-ent configuration, the system consists of three unitsa flying-spot scanner, a receiver, and a video transmis-sion channel.

The Division of Development of the New YorkState Library is conducting a pilot program in facsimiletransmission known as FACTS (FACsimile Transmis-sion System). The project encompasses 14 stations, sixof which can both receive and send, and eight of whichcan only receive. The facsimile equipment of two man-ufacturers is being tested and a technical evaluation ofthe study should be available soon.

As can be seen, the area of facsimile transmissionhas great promise, but the costs are presently too highfor widespread usage. Hopefully, further developmentswill rectify this problem.

On-Line Remote InquiryThe advantages of the capacity to perform on-line, re-mote inquiry of computer files seems rather obviouswhen contrasted with typical off -line procedures rang-ing from the book index to "batching" of computerquiries. An article in the SDC Magazine, discussing on-line access to computers, states that:

Of all of the potential advantages of storinginformation from and about documents inmachine-readable form, one that will haveparticularly striking impact on informationgathering customs of the future is the poten-tial of someday placing the contents of thegreatest libraries in the world at the fingertipsof people in their own offices and homes ...

On-line techniques enhance computer utili-zation by enabling people to control their ownprograms directly at the time the computer is

processing them ... With on-line usage, theuser sits at a terminal device of some kind,

22

usually a teletype machine or a cathode raytube scope, and tells the computer directlyby typed commands what to do with thedata stored in its mernory.83

In the case of a document retrieval system, aspresently developed, the user can formulate his searchrequest at the input device, specify documents with agiven list of characteristics (index terms, dates, sub-ject areas, etc.) and receive a list of all documents inthe collection that match the given description. Not onlydoes such a system save the searcher time, but it shouldgive him more information than he would get from acatalog, thereby enabling him to make his search farmore specific. Systems using microimage techniquescould display or print out the entire text of a document(see the previous section on facsimile transmission).

A specific example of on-line, remote inquiry is thenationwide system recently installed for access to se-lected data of general interest by the U. S. Office ofEducation." Authorized users of this system merelydial the area code and telephone number of the com-puter and transmit their inquiry phrased in a structured,abbreviated English language format. If he wishes, theuser can call for the answer to his inquiry to be printedout on his own remote teletype and the answer to hisquestion will be forthcoming between two and thirtyminutes later. The user can also request that his answerbe printed out on a high speed printer connected to thecentral computer and mailed to him, usually within 12hours. The intent of this new remote inquiry system isto allow project managers within the Office of Educa-tion to exchange information among themselves. Thesemanagers will also be able to access directly the greatvolume of information which is collected by the Na-tional Center for Educational Statistics as well as torespond to requests from the educational communityfor special reports. The U. S. Office of Education sys-tem has provision for assuring the privacy of sensitivedata and has great flexibility in the construction of in-quiries. Statements of relationship (equal to, not equalto, less than, etc.) can be made in almost unlimitedcombinations using natural language addressing.

Remote inquiry systems are becoming more preve-lant and will become more so as larger computers withtime-sharing capacity become readily available. Theultimate implication of remote inquiry is that of havingall of the world's literature available at any given loca-tion, whether it be office or home.

8libid. p. 8.

82ibid. p. 9.83"Document Storage and Retrieval." SDC Magazine

(Fall, 1967). p. 9.84Jack W. Smith and William C. Dickson. "An On-Line

Nationwide Remote Inquiry System for Dissemination ofEducational Data." AEDS Journal I (September, 1967).pp. 5-14.

Information Science

At the beginning of this report some attention was givento the movement from documentation to an informationscience.85 Further on in the chapter a more detailedaccounting of the nature of documentation was givenas this field developed from the late nineteenth centuryonwards.86 The intent here shall be to further define theemerging discipline of information science as it evolvesfrom documentation and other areas of concern.

Tefko Saracevic, of the Center for Documentationand Communication Research at Case Western Re-serve University stated in a paper delivered at the 1968Special Libraries Association Convention that:

Since the historical conferences at the GeorgiaInstitute of Technology in 1962-63, the at-tempt to define information science has be-come a sport, if not a preoccupation. By 1968the term has gained common acceptance andrespectability despite the lack of agreementas to its definition . . It is unfortunate thatinformation science has become equaled inso many instances with information technol-ogy, a technological pursuit based upon theapplication of the computer and mechanicalmanipulation of graphic records such as in-dexes cannot be regarded as a science. Thisreinforces a conviction that informationscience cannot be equated with informationretrieval."

Saracevic proceeded to discuss the qualities whicha science should possess. Those which he indicatedwere:

1. A commonality of interest in a given set ofphenomenon.

2. An existing number of persons working inthe area possessing accepted qualifications,commitment, and interest.

3. Available tools and methodologies.

85supra. p.

86supra. p. 5.

87Tefko Saracevic. "The Impact of Information Scienceson the Practice of Librarianship." Paper given at the 1968Special Libraries Association Conference, Los Angeles, Cal-ifornia, June 3, 1968.

88ibid.

89ibid.

90Anzerican Society for Information Science. Washington,D.C.: The Society, n. d. (brochure)

4. Existence of a theoretical base.

5. Provision of a formal education for otherpersons interested in the area.

6. Emergence of formal and informal com-munication channels among persons workingin the area.

7. Existence of a professional association orsociety and publications in scholarlyjournals.88

Saracevic's conclusion is that information sciencemeets most or all of the above qualifications. He thenturns to the question of what information science is andcontinues:

General agreement exists that informationscience is concerned with communicationphenomenon; its behavior, properties, trans-fer of information involving communication,the processes involving communication andthe tools involved in employing and facilitat-ing the communicative process.89

Under a question title, "What Is Information Sci-ence?," in an explanatory brochure produced by theAmerican Society for Information Science (ASIS), thisdefinition is offered:

Information Science as a discipline seeks tocreate and structure a body of scientific, tech-nological, and systems knowledge related tothe information transfer chain . .. As a dis-cipline, Information Science investigates theproperties and behavior of information, thefocus that governs the transfer process, andthe technology required to process informa-tion for optimum accessibility and use. Its in-terests include information representations inboth natural and artificial systems: the useof codes for efficient message transmission,storage and recall: and the study of informa-tion processing devices and techniques suchas computers and their programming systems.

It is an interdisciplinary field derived fromand related to mathematics, logic, linguistics,psychology, computer technology, operationsresearch, librarianship, the graphic arts, com-munications, management, and similar fields.

Information Science has both a pure sci-ence component, which inquires into the sub-ject without regard to application, and anapplied science, which develops services andproducts.9°

What are the practical dimensions of informationscience? A look at the sections headings for the year-

23

book resulting from the 1964 conference of the Ameri-can Documentation Institute, Parameters of Informa-tion Science, provides an interesting outline:

Information in Decision ProceduresEducational and Professional Aspects of Informa-

tion ScienceInformation and Data Centers and ServicesHuman Factors and Communications Environ-

ments

Document Storage and Display and OnlineMachine Mediation in Time Sharing

Analysis, Indexing and Correlation of InformationSymbolization and Transforming of Information.91

In short, the field of information science is con-cerned with the properties and flow of information;What information is, how it is gathered, processed, andstored; how it is expressed and communicated, and howit is used, by both individual and man-machinesystems.92

National and Regional Information ServicesTo fill out the picture drawn to this point of the history,present status; and trends of the area of informationservices, a look should be taken at a selected group ofcenters and services presently available. Networks andspecialized centers of a general nature shall be dealtwith, with little or no attention being paid to individualpublications unless they are a product of a more com-prehensive facility.

The main sources of information for this listingwere the National Referral Center for Science andTechnology's Directory of Information Resources in theUnited States series, particularly the volumes on TheFederal Government and Social Sciences, as well as apublication produced under contract to the U. S. Officeof Education which was utilized in a seminar on infor-mation sources in education at the 1968 American Edu-ucational Research Association convention.93 Othermajor sources of input came from the various articlesand publications gathered and used for the previoussection of this paper.

A few general characteristics of the following cen-ters and services should be noted. A rough division hasbeen made between "educational" and "non-educa-tional" facilities. This refers to the primary audience ofthe center and not to the relevance of the center's in-formation to education. If a center or service sees itself,as being primarily interested in education it is so cate-gorized. If other areas of interest are primary, it isplaced in the general "non-education" category.

A differentiation has also been made between "net-works" and "specialized services." Networks consist ofmore than one unit and specialized centers, by andlarge, operate from one physical or functional location.

Data centers are included within both the educa-tional and non-educational categories. Data centers aredistinguished from other information centers in thatthey are facilities organized primarily for acquiring,processing, storing, retrieving and disseminating data,as opposed to information as defined for the purposesof this paper.

Presently operating information centers and servicesinclude:

Educational NetworksEducational Resources Information Center (ERIC)EDUCOM (Interuniversity Communications Council)Midwestern States Educational Information Project

(MSEIP)

24

Educational Specialized ServicesCenter for the Study of Liberal Education for AdultsEducational Products Information Exchange (EPIE)Institute for International EducationNational Information Center for Educational Media

(NICEM)Project INTREXProject TALENT Data BankSchool Research Information Service (SRIS)

Non-Educational NetworksNational Aeronautics and Space Administration, Tech-

nology Utilization DivisionNeurological Information Network, National Institute

for Neurological Diseases and BlindnessNon-Educational Specialized Services

Alexander Graham Bell Association for the DeafClearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical In-

formationClearinghouse for Sociological LiteratureData Repository, Survey Research LaboratoryDATRIX (Direct Access to Reference Information; A

Xerox Service)Defense Documentation CenterInformation Research CenterInternational Data Library and Reference ServiceManai,ement Information ServiceNational Aeronautics and Space Administration, Scien-

tific and Technical Information DivisionNational Clearinghouse for Mental Health InformationNational Library of MedicineNational Referral Center for Science and TechnologyResearch Program in Child DevelopmentSafety Research Information ServiceScience information ExchangeScientific Information Centers Branch, National Insti-

tute for Child Health and Human Development

91American Documentation Institute. Proceedings of theAmerican Documentation Institute, Volume 1. Parametersof Information Sciences, Annual Meeting, Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, October 5-8, 1964. Philadelphia: The Insti-tute, 1964. pp. iv-vi.

92Louise Schultz. Careers in Information Science. SantaMonica, California: Systems Development Corporation,1963.

93American Institutes for Research. Seminar on Informa-tion and the Behavioral Sciences. (A handbook passed outat the 1968 American Educational Research AssociationConvention, Chicago, Illinois, February 7, 1968; producedwith the support of the Division of Information Technologyand Dissemination, Bureau of Research, U. S. Office of Edu-cation. )

The Future

It is possible only to conjecture about the future, butG. S. Simpson, Jr., has engaged in some interestingprojections of past history and present trends. Simpsonsees the world of information services as a vastly dif-ferent one in the year 2000 A.D.

By the year 1975, in Simpson's projection, an or-ganization has been established under the auspices ofthe United Nations which has as its task the coordina-tion and integration of the various extant informationsystems. A master plan is implemented which dictatesthat every piece of scientific information and data pro-duced be exposed to a print reader which retransmitsto other scientists only that information approved bythe Regional Information Center. Information not ap-proved is automatically destroyed. Regions are basedupon the predominant grammar type used (i.e., allRussian-speaking people are Region One). A WorldScientific Information Center (WSIC) composed ofcomparator-translator, master storage, and master se-lective dissemination divisions, coordinates the entiresystem. The sequence of events followed at the World'sScientific Information Center is:

Any group of ten or more scientists agree Ona proposed research program. Using U.N.standardized communication language andequations, they prepare a succinct statementof the purposes and objectives of their pro-gram. After internal human editing, the localprint reader absorbs the content of the pro-posal. The print reader automatically relaysthe message to the World's Scientific Infor-mation Center via the Regional InformationCenter which conducts an initial and limited(single language) comparison. At World's

94G. S. Simpson, Jr. The Scientific Information Systemof the Year 2000 A.D. (Mimeographed paper obtainedfrom the Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio.)

Center, the master comparator matches thecontents of the new proposal with other pro-posals from any language. If a proposal isunique . . . it is subjected to a second test.The second test ... involves a statisticalmatching of the objectives of the proposalagainst the information already integrated inthe master storage division of the Center... .

When a project has been accepted by theCenter, implemented, and completed by thescientists, the report describing the activityis exposed to the print reader. Like before,the print reader relays the report to theWorld Scientific Information Center via theregional center. At WSIC it is translated,stored, and selectively disseminated poly-lingually

Under this totally automated scientific in-formation system, there is no duplication ofresearch .. . [and] ... no scientist can makea technological advance without its beingknown to all his contemporaries within threeminutes."

Simpson indicates that a number of socio-economicchanges resulted from the above system. Advertisingis outlawed in 1990; congresses and symposia are elim-inated by 1993; the printing, publishing, and paperindustries are reduced in size; and the world postalsystem reduces its staff.

Simpson's projection will most certainly not be theactual situation in the year 2000, but it represents aninformed opinion as to what today's trends could bringtomorrow.

25

Summary

The keystone of library history is the AlexandrianLibrary of ancient Egypt. This institution attracted anumber of outstanding figures as librarians, one ofwhich is said to have compiled a catalog of the library.One of the continuing values of the Alexandrian Li-brary was its status as an ideal to be replicated.

Roman libraries emulated the Greek and, in fact,received much of their impetus from the Greek librarycollections brought back from various military cam-paigns. Roman libraries were divided into Greek andLatin divisions and also served as archives for impor-tant state documents. The cities of Italy and the pro-vinces endeavored to follow the example of Rome.

The age of the monastic library began in the sixthcentury. The tasks of reading, and its corollary of copy-ing, were joined in the monastic library and the greattradition of the scriptorium was founded. Monastic li-braries followed the Greek practice of dividing the col-lection into Greek and Latin sections.

The organization of the university library, whichflowered during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,was similar to the larger monastic libraries except thatthe main division of books was according to the sub-jects taught.

The advent of the printing press, coupled with theintellectual ferment of the Reformation, provided aformula for broadcasting ideas. The spread of vernacu-lar education and the creation of literature in the nat-ural languages of the people further intensified thecreation and use of print.

Generally, the development of libraries to the endof the nineteenth century was closely tied to nationaldevelopment. in the United States, private and semi-private libraries provided literary access until about1850 when the public library system as we now knowit began to form. By the end of the century the basicpattern which we enjoy today had been devised andwas well on its way to implementation.

26

The foundations of the area of documentation werelaid by Otlet and La Fontaine in a meeting at Otlet'shome in 1892. Documentation, in its essence, is theapplication of scientific method to library procedures.It stresses the analyzing of information in addition toacquiring, assimilating, storing and retrieving informa-tion as practiced in the traditional library situation.

With the coming of World War II a great accelera-tion and change overtook documentation. The report-ing of new scientific knowledge in the form of researchmonographs and the reliance placed on exact informa-tion gave rise to the analytical and other informationcenters.

The main trends operative in the current state of thefield of information services arc:

1. Information Networks2. Information Transfer3. Specialized Information Centers4. Mechanization5. The Movement to Information Science from

Documentation

Each of the above trends is interrelated toward thegoal of creating an ideal system which would have thecapacity of providing any significant document to anyperson desiring it at the place and in the form mostconvenient to them. Another level of service is the pro-vision of "secondary channel" services which distill andrepackage information for more economical use. Anumber of separate projects and centers are working atvarious aspects and on differing levels of this task to-ward creation of an effective ordering of the many spe-cialized services into a meaningful whole.

A specific need has been expressed, in the area ofeducation, for the creation of a one-stop center wherethe various existing information resources can be co-ordinated in relation to specific reference needs.

Appendix

The Information Service Effortsof Specific Regional Educational Laboratories

In reviewing the Bureau of Research Taxonomy codifi-cation of all "activities" and "projects" of the twentyregional laboratories only two specific indications werefound of information service programs as defined forthe purposes of this study.95 There are a number of pro-

grams for handling iniormation in the data proc....ssingsense, but only two in the information/knowledge area.

One of the identified programs, that of the Far WestLaboratory for Educational Research and Development(FWLER), is a "project" under the general "activity"of Communications. The second effort is at the larger"activity" level and is being carried on by the Michigan-

Ohio Regional Laboratory (MOREL).The Central Midwestern Regional Educational Lab-

oratory (CEMREL) has two "projects" which aresomewhat related to the information/knowledge area;one to classify, index, and evaluate educational ma-terials and the second to maintain a continuous regionaldirectory of innovative practices. A look shall also be

taken at a laboratory dissemination program which has

some definite implications for information services.

We shall examine the two major programs in somedepth, and take a much briefer look at the remaining

two.

Far West Laboratory for EducationalResearch and Development

In the introduction to its Information System TaskForce Report, the Far West Laboratory states that they

have. . . undertaken two major research and de-velopment programs and a small number ofauxiliary projects. The primary R and D pro-gram (is) concerned with developing and im-plementing more effective inservice trainingfor teachers .

The secondary R and D program of theLaboratory seeks to improve disseminationand productive use of research and develop-ment information by school personnel whomake decisions affecting school organizationand operation. The objectives of this program

95Bureau of Research, Office of Education, U.S. Depart-ment of Health, Education & Welfare. Taxonomy. Wash-ington, D.C.: The Bureau, 1968.

96Far West Laboratory for Educational Research Devel-opment. Information Systems 7'ask Force Report. Berkeley,California: The Laboratory, March, 1968.

97ibid. P. 1.

are (1) to develop motivation among schoolpersonnel to learn about new developmentsin education; (2) to provide efficient systemsthrough whirl-. school pemonnel can haveready access to relevant information; and (3)to develop organizational arrangements with-in school systems and support personnel train-ing programs so that school personnel will beable to use research and development infor-mation effectively.96

To reach the objectives stated above the laboratoryhas proceeded with a coordinated and systematic re-search, development, and implementation effort throughthe following components:

1. Development of Attitudes and Realistic Expec-tations. This focuses on the use of mass media to informteachers and other school personnel about significantinnovations and research based developments in edu-cation.

2. Design of and Experimentation with SystemsThrough Which School Personnel Can Have Access toRelevant Information in Usable Forms. Two relatedactivities are being undertaken in this cot 1ponent. Oneis the collection of data on information needs and sys-tem requirements. (The report being referred to hereis a product of this activity.) The other involves the de-velopment, field testing, and implementation of modelinformation systems.

3. Development of Organizational ArrangementsWithin Schools To Utilize Information Effectively. Thiscomponent includes three activities: study of educa-tional decision making and change process as they re-late to information requirements; identification andanalysis of specific organizational arrangements andtraining programs that will facilitate effective use byschool personnel or research and development informa-tion; and pilot tests of selected organizational arrange-ments and training programs in school systems."

Five activities specifically related to informationsystems have been initiated by the Far West laboratory.They are:

1. A Communication and Utilization Study forEducational Research and Development (com-pleted through a contract with the Lockheed Mis-siles and Space Company).

2. A Formulating Educational Problems Pro-ject (done under contract with the American In-stitutes for Research).

27

3. A review of the literature and field study onthe manner in which research derived informationis used by various levels of school personnel (con-ducted under a contract with the Stanford ResearchInstitute).

4. Studies and reviews by laboratory staff.5. A detailed st/Ay and analysis of educational

information systems requirements by a speciallyselected Task Force. (The report being discussedhere is the product of this Task Force.)

The Far West Laboratory Information SystemsTask Force met in four working sessions during themonths of July and August, 1967. The topics covered,by sessions, were:

1. Output the requirements of local schoolpersonnel.

2. Input the content, organization, and loca-tion of information.

3. System existing and planned informationservices and information technology develop-ments.

4. Roles national, regional, state, and countyroles and their potential relationship to educa-tional research and development services.

The Task Force Report, as it stands in draft form,deals with problem definition, description of existingconditions, model system requirements, practical sys-tem concepts (including system constraints and a func-tional description), and the assignment of roles andfunctions.

The two major conclusions of the report are:1. Organization and operation of a single sys-

tem which would incorporate all sources of infor-mation and use one indexing system is not feasiblein view of the present state of taxonomy of edu-cational information and existing organizationalinterests.

2. Two major functions are not being servicedproperly at this time: production of user-orientedinformation materials (evaluative reports, inter-pretive summaries, and handbooks), and input/output to provide a dialog for translating userneeds into formalized system language on inputand vice-versa on output.

The national network should consist of severallarge and many smaller systems with their owncollection and indexing processes. In addition, asubcentral processor is needed to accomplish theinput-output functions described in the previoussection, e.g., the interpretation of questions, theuse of various systems to collect and organize re-ports, the evaluation and presentation of data in aform compatible with user needs, etc.98

28

It is stated that the most reasonable approach tothese processor functions . . .

. . . would be to assign them to an informa-tion specialist within the school system .[and furthermore] . . . the laboratory coulddelve into solving their problem . . . [by hav-ing] . . . several possible roles:

1. Training and support of informationspecialists in each school district in the region.

2. Preparation, production, and distribu-tion of interpretive summaries on subjectareas of local interest in a format compatiblewith user requirements.

3. Preparation of an annual review of edu-cational R and D.99

It should be re-emphasized that the Far West Lab-oratory does not intend to set itself up as an informa-tion services center, but as a developer and supporterof information service systems to be operated byothers.10°

Michigan-Ohio RegionalEducational LaboratoryIn its statement of program and budget done accord-ing to the Planning Programming Budget System

(PPBS), the Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Lab-oratory identified the second of its three major pro-gram -goals as "To Provide Information Services. . . .',Iot

This program emphasis of the Michigan-Ohio labora-tory sterns from the results of an in-depth survey oftheir service area taken in the summer of 1966.102 In

Volume IX of its 1967 Annual Report, the Laboratory

states that:The MOREL Information Center and Re-source Bank are intended as a one-stop spotwhere educational and educationally relatedagencies in the region can tap informational

resources which are relevant to their spe-cific needs. The structure of the center is thatof a "switching" or "transfer" network in that

98ibid. p. 46.

looThis conclusion is substantiated by a personal conver-sation with Dr. Paul Hood, Project Director. He stated thatthe Far West Laboratory has no intention of establishingan information system, but saw its role as fostering suchsystems in others.

lolMichigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory,MOREL Program and Budget, December 1, 1967 - Novem-ber 30, 1968 (PPB System). Detroit, Michigan: The Lab-oratory, September, 1967.

102An analysis of this survey which involved over onethousand structured interviews of regional lay and educa-tional leaders was reported in The Second Annual Reportof the Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory(Detroit, Michigan: The Laboratory, October, 1966).

it does not possess extensive stores of ac:ualinformation, but is composed of the searchingtools necessary to identify and locate suchinformation upon request.

1. To act as an information linkage net-work, bringing together persons or agencieshaving specific informational needs withsources possessing the desired information.These sources may be regional or extra-regional.

2. To maintain a one-stop spot where allsignificant informational searching tools areavailable (indexes, directories, catalogs ofprinted cards, MOREL Resource Bank, etc.).

3. To provide "current awareness" servicesin terms of national, international, and re-gional educational activity. Such a dissemi-nation system is both quick and selective inoutput and immediately responsive to activityin the field of education and related disci-plines.

4. To provide specific reference service forall MOREL projects, program and supportactivity.

5. To act as a transmitter of informationgenerated by MOREL and other regionalagencies to related national information net-works such as the Educational Resource In-formation Center (ERIC) of the U. S. Officeof Education, other regional laboratories andresearch and development centers.

6. To identify, foster and support coopera-tive information services, with the region andto urge participation in national networks.

7. To be aware of the operational require-ments of other information sources and sys-tems in terms of what type and extent ofservice they offer.

8. To assist in the identification of regionalneeds through the identification of voids inthe informational fabric of education in theregion.

In short, the MOREL Information Centeroperates much like the information switch-board in a large reference library where aninquiry (need) comes in from a person oragency, the need is further defined if neces-sary, an identification is made as to where theparticular informational need can be satisfied,and the person is switched to the appropriatedepartment.103

103Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory.MOREL Annual Report, Volume IX: Information Centerand Resource Bank. Detroit, Michigan: The Laboratory,September, 1967.

This Annual Report volume goes on to deal withthe content of the system (documents, data, talent andresources), the progress of the Information Center, anda proposed budget for the Resource Bank together withits coding scheme and data gathering forms.

The information system of the Michigan-Ohio lab-oratory is one which sees the regional laboratory's rolein information services as being that of developing aninformation system to give direct service to its con-stituents within a local to national hierarchy.

It should be noted here that the author of this studyhas had major conceptual and operational responsibil-ity for the MOREL Information Center and ResourceBank from the inception of the laboratory. This situa-tion has provided the author with a unique opportunityto test many of the ideas dealt with in the paper. Thiscircumstance has also given major impetus to the de-velopment of a model which can be used to evaluateand point directions for present and future informationservices activities of the regional laboratories, includingMOREL.

Central Midwestern RegionalEducational Laboratory

One of the avenues taken in gathering informationfor this study was to contact the Science InformationExchange at the Smithsonian Institution. The ScienceInformation Exchange catalogs research in progress.The only response, among twenty received from theExchange in answer to a query about national informa-tion systems and centers, that related to the regionallaboratories concerned the Central Midwestern Re-gional Educational Laboratory. The Notice of ResearchProject said in part:

. . . for its program on systems design andapplication, CEMREL has begun an exami-nation of the information requirements ofeducational decision makers and planners inan effort to determine ways in which existingeducational information can be made moreaccessible and useful.

In an information booklet about CEMREL, underthe heading of Information Services, four sub-areas arelisted:

1. Educational Planning. Work is directedto discover ways for (a) gathering, storing,and using educational information, (b) con-tinuous identification of crucial problems fac-ing public and private education in the region,and (c) various agencies to work together tosolve educational problems.

2. Computer Utility for Education. Thisprogram is designed to develop and test awide variety of computer uses in education inthe areas of (a) administration, (b) teaching,and (c) guidance.

29

3. School Data Systems Design. This pro -gr is developing a system to help schoolsconvert from manual data handling systems tomore rapid, efficient computer methods.

4. Classification, Indexing, and Evaluationof Educational Materials. This program will(a) survey existing systems for organizationof educational materials, (b) develop newsystems where appropriate, (c) join withother libraries, materials, and informationcenters in the development of media and in-formation systeriz.; for smaller schools andschool districts, (d) design systems to takeadvantage of automatic input storage, andretrieval hardware and software, and (e) de-velop techniques for encouraging the effectiveuse of a wide variety of informational and in-structional materials at the classroom level.'"

The CEMREL program is somewhat limited interms of the area and scope of this paper, but there aresome definitely relevant aspects. Under the sub-areaEducational Planning, the discovery of ways to gather,store, and use educational information would seeminglybe germane, although the author was unable to findevidence of specific efforts in this direction and thisproject was not listed in the Bureau of Research Tax-onomy. The classification, indexing, and evaluation ofeducational materials was listed in the Taxonomy, butthese techniques would most certainly have transfera-bility at the internal, technical level and not at the over-all systems design plane. In the CEMREL situationinformation systems, as they are defined in this paper,are restricted to "smaller schools and school districts"which again speaks to an area much narrower thanthat intended .For this paper.

It would seem that CEMREL's efforts have tangen-tial relevance and are an area of activity to be aware ofrather than being central to the concerns we are dealingwith here.

Southwestern CooperativeEducational Laboratory

In a plan for the gathering and dissemination of in-formation proposed in 1966, the Southwestern Cooper-ative Educational Laboratory (SWCEL) includedseveral ideas quite relevant to the topic of this paper.The program of the Southwestern laboratory does notactually include all of these items at present, but theirnatures are quite germane to the concerns of this study.The purposes of this proposed plan were:

1. To allow the laboratory to receive the kindan quantity of information needed.

2. To make educators and others aware of andto encourage the use of information or innovativepractices in the classroom.

30

Some interesting aspects of the plan are:1. A comprehensive survey of innovative prac-

tices (Regional Resource Inventory).2. A "People Bank" of consultants.3. Reciprocal arrangements with other regional

laboratories to exchange research findings.4. A complete "union catalog" of research on

specific areas (in the case of SWCEL cultural fac-tors in learning).

5. Identification of those classroom teacherswho are receptive to new ideas and are willing toinnovate.'05

The Southwestern Laboratory plan gives attentionto some of the areas included in the Michigan-Ohiolaboratory program, particularly in terms of humanresources and innovative centers and practices. It doesnot strive to provide broadbased information services,however.

SummaryTitle IV of the Elementary and Secondary Educa-

tion Act of 1965, which provided funding for the twentyRegional Educational Laboratories, incorporated andexpanded the Cooperative Research Act of 1954. Aspart of this expansion, additional Research and Devel-opment Centers were established for basic research, andthe regional laboratories were created to move the prod-ucts of theory and research into practice. The Educa-tional Resources Information Center (ERIC) was alsostarted in May, 1964, to disseminate research and re-search related information. Thus, these three sets ofagencies, stemming from the same office, are mutuallysupportive and complementary.

The first twelve of the twenty regional laboratorieswent into operation in June, 1966 after an intensivedevelopment period of 75 days. An additional eight lab-oratories, which enjoyed a somewhat longer develop-mental period, were operative, or nearly so, by the earlypart of 1967. A reinforcing and supporting network oflaboratories is now coming into being as well as a stabi-lizing and maturing set of programs and funding base.

In terms of geographic placement all sections of theUnited States, except Hawaii, are served by a labora-tory. The laboratory service areas range in size fromone city (New York City) to a laboratory dealing withsections of eight states. The organizational structure ofthe laboratories is that of a non-profit corporation. Lab-oratory governments have come to be broadly based in

104Central Midwestern Regional Educational Laboratory,Central Midwestern Regional Educational Laboratory, Inc.,jor Educational ... Research, Innovation, Diflu.iion, Im-plementation. St. Ann, Missouri: The Laboratory, n.d.

' °Southwestern Cooperative Educational Laboratory. AProposed Information System for SWCEL. Albuquerque,New Mexico The Laboratory, a mimeographed draft copydated September, 1966.

their regions, including persons from educational andnon-educational pursuits.

The programs of the laboratories range widely overthe high priority needs of education today and arcoriented toward the development of viable alternativesfor use in the classroom. The role of the laboratories ineducational development is becoming more and moreclearly defined. The entire area of educational develop-ment itself is gaining more power and favor as its intentis to produce usable results derived from basic theoryand research.

Four regional laboratories have initiated or de-veloped programs oriented toward the provision ofinformation services. The Far West Laboratory forEducational Research and Development has built a

strong theoretical base for information handling andsees its role as promoting and assisting with the creationof information systems in its region. The Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory, based on theresults of a needs survey, has established a referral serv-ice for printed, human, and institutional resources. TheCentral Midwestern Regional Educational Laboratoryand the Southwestern Cooperative Educational Labora-tory have both designed and established informationcomponents into their general programs, although theydo not elevate these efforts to "activity" or "program"status.

In general, the regional educational laboratorieshave become a potentially vital force in American edu-cation in a period of a little over two years.

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