The documentation and special libraries movements in the united states, 1910‐1960

European Modernism and the Information Society

“…The terms "documentalist" and "documentation center" were not in use in the U.S.A., but the roles of documentalist and of documentation center were occupied early on by special librarians and special libraries, even though no courses on documentation or even special library work were offered by U.S. library schools until after the Second World War. Briet had the insight to recognize that this was more a difference in name and appearance than in substance (Briet 1953;Buckland 1996;Williams 1997) The spirit of the early twentieth century documentalists is reflected in their concern with the "technology of intellectual work." This phrase, used in French and German (Technik der geistigen Arbeit (Frank 1954)), does not have a good equivalent in English and "technology" needs to be seen as including "technique."…”

History of information science

“…Their methodological contributions were the result of responding to immediate and practical users' needs through the application of technologies created for purposes other than document processing. They built the United States' Special Libraries Association (SLA) into a large‐scale organization before the emergence of the American documentalists and before anyone dreamed of the electronic computer (Williams, 1997; Williams & Zachert, 1983). Claims of origins in special libraries are not confined to the United States.…”

Managing the machine in the stacks: operations research, bibliographic control and library computerization, 1950–2000

“…The crisis was not limited to finding space for documents, but was also one of adapting existing and finding new bibliographic control systems. 27 Bibliographic control issues were not new to the post-war era. Rayward has argued that many of the central concepts and aspects of modern information science can be traced back to the International Institute of Bibliography, founded in 1895 by Belgian lawyer and internationalist, Paul Otlet.…”