CO‐ORDINATION OF INFORMATION: A SURVEY OF SCHEMES PUT FORWARD IN THE LAST FIFTY YEARS

Abstract

The burden of recorded information is almost as old as man's habit of making records—witness the cry of Ecclesiastes, ‘of the making of many books there is no end!’ No doubt also man has always wistfully dreamed of some super‐organization which would relieve him from the labour of bibliographical research, necessary nevertheless if he is to be sure that his contribution to knowledge is original. These bibliographical searches became more onerous as, with the passage of centuries, man's recorded knowledge increased, and the problem grew rapidly more urgent with the development of science and technology during the last two centuries. The scholar's leisured pace could no longer satisfy the demands of industry; the command of information—printed information—was now one of the keys to power and to wealth; the lack of it might be disastrous to a wide range of interests.

Citation

DITMAS, E.M.R. (1948), "CO‐ORDINATION OF INFORMATION: A SURVEY OF SCHEMES PUT FORWARD IN THE LAST FIFTY YEARS", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 209-221. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026118