Proceedings Of The 1998 Conference On The History And Heritage Of Science Information Systems

The conference on the History and Heritage of Science Information Systems was held October 23-25, 1998, in Pittsburgh, pa., prior to the ASIS annual meeting. The conference papers explored the history and heritage of the nature, development, and influence of all types of science information systems world-wide. It was co-sponsored by ASIS, the ASIS SIG History and Foundations of Information Science (IG/HFIS), and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, This was the first conference to explore this topic, and this volume will be of great interest to both historians and current practitioners.

Emphasis for the second conference on the history of information science systems was on scientific and technical information systems in the period from the Second World War up through the early 1990s. These proceedings present the papers of historians of science and technology, information scientists, and scientists in other fields on a wide range of topics: informatics in chemistry; biology and medicine; information developments in multinational, industrial, and military settings; biographical studies of pioneering individuals; and the transformation of information systems and formats in the twentieth century.

ARIST, published annually since 1966, is a landmark publication within the information science community. It surveys the landscape of information science and technology, providing an analytical, authoritative, and accessible overview of recent trends and significant developments. The range of topics varies considerably, reflecting the dynamism of the discipline and the diversity of theoretical and applied perspectives. While ARIST continues to cover key topics associated with classical information science (e.g., bibliometrics, information retrieval), editor Blaise Cronin is selectively expanding its footprint in an effort to connect information science more tightly with cognate academic and professional communities.

ARIST, published annually since 1966, is a landmark publication within the information science community. It surveys the landscape of information science and technology, providing an analytical, authoritative, and accessible overview of recent trends and significant developments. The range of topics varies considerably, reflecting the dynamism of the discipline and the diversity of theoretical and applied perspectives. While ARIST continues to cover key topics associated with "classical" information science (e.g., bibliometrics, information retrieval), editor Blaise Cronin is selectively expanding its footprint in an effort to connect information science more tightly with cognate academic and professional communities. Contents of Volume 40 (2006): SECTION I: Information and Society Chapter 1: The Micro- and Macroeconomics of Information, Sandra Braman Chapter 2: The Geographies of the Internet, Matthew Zook Chapter 3: Open Access, M. Carl Drott SECTION II: Technologies and Systems Chapter 4: TREC: An Overview, Donna K. Harman and Ellen M. Voorhees Chapter 5: Semantic Relations in Information Science, Christopher S. G. Khoo and Jin-Cheon Na Chapter 6: Intelligence and Security Informatics, Hsinchun Chen and Jennifer Xu SECTION III: Information Needs and Use Chapter 7: Information Behavior, Donald O. Case Chapter 8: Collaborative Information Seeking and Retrieval, Jonathan Foster Chapter 9: Information Failures in Health Care, Anu MacIntosh-Murray and Chun Wei Choo Chapter 10: Workplace Studies and Technological Change, Angela Cora Garcia, Mark E. Dawes, Mary Lou Kohne, Felicia Miller, and Stephan F. Groschwitz SECTION IV: Theoretical Perspectives Chapter 11: Information History, Alistair Black Chapter 12: Social Epistemology and Information Science, Don Fallis Chapter 13: Formal Concept Analysis in Information Science, Uta Priss.

Whether termed the 'network society', the 'knowledge society' or the 'information society', it is widely accepted that a new age has dawned, unveiled by powerful computer and communication technologies. Yet for millennia humans have been recording knowledge and culture, engaging in the dissemination and preservation of information. In `The Early Information Society', the authors argue for an earlier incarnation of the information age, focusing upon the period 1900-1960. In support of this they examine the history and traditions in Britain of two separate but related information-rich occupations - information management and information science - repositioning their origins before the age of the computer and identifying the forces driving their early development. `The Early Information Society' offers an historical account which questions the novelty of the current information society. It will be essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners in the library and information science field, and for sociologists and historians interested in the information society.

This book narrates the development of science, sci/tech, and intelligence information systems and technologies in the United States from the beginning of World War II to the second decade of our century. The story ranges from a description of the information systems and machines of the 1940s created at Wild Bill Donovan’s predecessors of the Central Intelligence Agency, to the rise of a huge international science information industry, and to the 1990’s Open Access-Open Culture reformers’ reactions to the commercialization of science information. Necessarily, there is much about the people, cultures, and politics that shaped the methods, systems, machines and protests. The reason for that is simple: The histories of technologies and methods are human histories. Science information’s many lives were shaped by idiosyncrasies and chance, as well as by social, economic, political and technical ‘forces’. The varied motives, personalities and beliefs of unique and extraordinary people fashioned science information’s past. The important players ranged from a gentleman scholar who led the Office of Strategic Services’ information work, to an ill-fated Hollywood movie director, to life-mavericks like the science information legend Eugene Garfield, to international financial wheeler-dealers such as Robert Maxwell, and to youthful ultra-liberal ideologically-driven Silicon Valley internet millionaires. However, although there are no determining laws of information history, social, political, legal and economic factors were important. After 1940, science information’s tools and policies, as well as America’s universities, were being molded by the nation’s wealth, its role in international affairs, the stand-off between left and right politics, and by the intensifying conflict between Soviet and Western interests.

This book explores the history of Library and Information Science (LIS) across non-English speaking European countries, including France, ex-Yugoslavia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Portugal.

Uniting a team of international and interdisciplinary scholars, this volume considers the views of early twentieth-century European thinkers on the creation, dissemination and management of publicly available information. Interdisciplinary in perspective, the volume reflects the nature of the thinkers discussed, including Otto Neurath, Patrick Geddes, the English Fabians, Paul Otlet, Wilhelm Ostwald and H. G. Wells. The work also charts the interest since the latter part of the nineteenth century in finding new ways to think about and to manage the growing body of available information in order to achieve aims such as the advancement of Western civilization, the alleviation of inequalities across classes and countries, and the promotion of peaceful coexistence between nations. In doing so, the contributors provide a novel historical context for assessing widely-held assumptions about today's globalized, 'post modern' information society. This volume will interest all who are curious about the creation of a modern networked information society.