Robert V. Williams

The use of punched cards in US libraries and documentation centers, 1936-1965

Librarians, particularly those in traditional academic and public libraries, were slow to take advantage of punched cards. In contrast, special librarians and documentalists, with their small systems and focus on retrieving information for users, readily adopted punched cards. The results were dramatic: improved ability to index scientific and technical information and better user service. The paper presents a history of the use of punched cards in US libraries.

Documentation and communication in Aboriginal/indigenous communities

This panel session explores a number of different issues related to the nature of documentation and communication in aboriginal cultures, where “documents” are not traditional, knowledge systems are of varied types, and the transmission of culture and property are decidedly non-Western. Ample time will be provided for interchange between the speakers as they discuss similarities and differences in documentation and communication practices in the various cultures.

Abstracts for SIG/HFIS classic panel session: Theme 6: “Trends and issues in the history of information science and technology and the ASIST history fund awards showcase”

This classic panel session will review recent trends and issues in the study of the history of information science and technology and present findings from the first awards given by the ASIST History Fund. It will consist of three presentations: (1) an overview, by Robert V. Williams, of recent trends and issues and identify some of the major gaps that need to be addressed in future work; (2) a presentation by Charles Meadow, winner of the 2009 ASIST History Fund Research Grant award, of the results of his study of the history of the digital divide; (3) a presentation by Rachel Plotnick, winner of the 2009 ASIST History Fund Best Paper award, on her study of the history of a total hospital medical information system developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Pioneering women of the information age

This session will feature six speakers, each of whom is among the contributors to two special issues of Libraries & the Cultural Record on women pioneers in the information sciences. This session will be the third in a series presented by the Special Interest Group on History and Foundations of Information Science (HFIS). It will spotlight the lives and contributions of remarkable women pioneers in information science. The individual presentations will be about women whose fields of specialty and accomplishments fall in a wide variety of areas-practice, research, education for the profession, or information policy. Each paper will address the pioneers leadership, innovation, and advocacy, as well as the historical context and social and professional milieu in which she worked and made her contributions. Each presentation will be about 15 minutes long, and enhanced with slides to show photographs or other relevant historical materials.

Harold Abbott Wooster: A memorial essay

Harold Abbott Wooster was born on January 3, 1919, in Hartford, CT. He received his A.B. degree (Chemistry) from Syracuse University in 1939, M.S. degree (also in Chemistry) in 1941, and Ph.D. (Physiological Chemistry) from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1943. Wooster had distinguished careers in a variety of fields, but is recognized in this essay primarily because of his influence on the early development of information science and technology and his work in biomedical communications through his writings and support of research and development in the field. He also was well known for his incisive and humorous writings and presentations at various conferences in information science. He began his various careers as a Lab Assistant (1943–1946) at the Toxicity Laboratory of the University of Chicago, where he did classified research on novel chemical warfare agents sponsored by the National Defense Research Committee. From 1946 to 1947, he worked as a Research Associate at the Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania under a U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research contract studying the pharmacology and toxicology of various nitrates, including a new type of flashless explosive. From 1947 to 1956, he was a Senior Fellow at the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, Pittsburgh, where he did research, writing, and editing on nutritional and food biochemistry, including editing the journal Nutritional Observatory and producing what became the standard reference work and teaching aid, Nutritional Data, published by H.J. Heinz, Inc. (Wooster, 1949). In 1956, he became the Director of Research Communications at the U.S. Air Force Office for Scientific Research (part of the Air Research and Development Command), where he was responsible for press relations, technical information, and supervised the staff library. He held this position for 1 year, after which he became a project scientist in mathematical sciences but also continued his work with the library and technical documentation. In 1959, he became Chief, Information Sciences Division (1959–1962), and then Director from 1962 to 1970 (The division was part of the U.S. Air Force Office of Aerospace Research at the time.) During the period 1959 to 1970, he also held at different times concurrent positions as Executive Secretary of the Panel on Information Science and Technology of the Committee on Scientific and Technical Information (COSATI) of the Office of Director of Defense Research and Engineering (1965–66) and was an adjunct instructor at Drexel Institute’s Graduate School of Library Science (1967). It was while he was with the Air Force that Wooster exercised significant influence on the direction of research and development work in information science, computer science, and related areas through the funding of projects sponsored by the Information Sciences Division. Wellknown recipients of funding from the Division of Information Sciences during Wooster’s tenure include Douglas Englebart (inventor of the computer mouse and early developer of interactive computing), J.C.R. Licklider (considered one of the founders of the Internet and author of Libraries of the Future, 1958), and Marvin Minsky (of artificial intelligence fame and founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Artificial Intelligence Lab). Two recent obituary notices lamented his passing and noted that “Dr. Wooster awarded crucial early grants to many of the scientists and engineers whose research spurred the development of the Internet and personal computer” (Wisconsin Advanced Technology Advocates, Inc., 2005) and that the researchers he funded “played critical roles in the development of the technological infrastructure that we now take for granted.” (Institute for End-User Computing, Inc., 2005). Harold Abbott Wooster: A Memorial Essay1

Information science and intelligence work: Mutual history lessons from the Cold War. Sponsored by SIG HFIS

This session is a continuation of a similar program presented at ASIS&T annual conference in 2001. The 2001 program explored the extent to which information science and intelligence work have, or could have, influenced the practices, work patterns, problems, and outcomes of each other in the past. This program considers the same types of issues but will be predominantly focused on the Cold War period. It will examine such questions as what intelligence workers learned about information science concepts and tools on their jobs, how this knowledge contributed to their work as intelligence professionals, what they should have known (or now wish they had known) about information science, and the role of intelligence in such areas as competitive intelligence, information retrieval, and indexing. Both historical and theoretical perspectives will be emphasized–along with some interesting stories. The panelists come from a variety of types of intelligence work in different countries over a period of about 50 years. We will NOT have to kill you after you hear this session!