Editing Information science (section)

==History==
{{see also|Information history}}

===Early beginnings===
[[File:Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Bernhard Christoph Francke.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]], a German [[polymath]] who wrote primarily in Latin and French. His fields of study were [[Metaphysics]], [[Mathematics]], [[Theodicy]].]]
Information science, in studying the collection, [[classification]], manipulation, storage, [[information retrieval|retrieval]] and dissemination of [[information]] has origins in the common stock of human knowledge. Information analysis has been carried out by scholars at least as early as the time of the [[Assyrian Empire]] with the emergence of cultural depositories, what is today known as libraries and archives.<ref>Clark, John Willis. ''The Care Of Books: An Essay On The Development Of Libraries And Their Fittings, From The Earliest Times To The End Of The Eighteenth Century.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901</ref> Institutionally, information science emerged in the 19th century along with many other social science disciplines. As a science, however, it finds its institutional roots in the [[history of science]], beginning with publication of the first issues of ''[[Philosophical Transactions]],'' generally considered the first scientific journal, in 1665 by the Royal Society.

The [[institutionalization]] of science occurred throughout the 18th century. In 1731, [[Benjamin Franklin]] established the [[Library Company of Philadelphia]], the first library owned by a group of public citizens, which quickly expanded beyond the realm of books and became a center of [[scientific experimentation]], and which hosted public exhibitions of scientific experiments.<ref>Korty, Margaret Barton. "Benjamin Franklin and Eighteenth Century American Libraries." ''Transactions of the American Philosophical Society'' December vol. 55.9 (1965)</ref> Benjamin Franklin invested a town in [[Massachusetts]] with a collection of books that the town voted to make available to all free of charge, forming the first [[public library]] of the [[United States]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://franklinma.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/FranklinMA_Library/libraryhistory |title=Town of Franklin – History of the Franklin Public Library |publisher=Franklinma.virtualtownhall.net |date=2010-06-29 |access-date=2011-05-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724122448/http://franklinma.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/FranklinMA_Library/libraryhistory |archive-date=2011-07-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Academie de Chirurgia ([[Paris]]) published ''Memoires pour les Chirurgiens'', generally considered to be the first [[medical journal]], in 1736. The [[American Philosophical Society]], patterned on the [[Royal Society]] ([[London]]), was founded in Philadelphia in 1743. As numerous other scientific journals and societies were founded, [[Alois Senefelder]] developed the concept of [[lithography]] for use in mass printing work in [[Germany]] in 1796.

===19th century===
[[File:Joseph Marie Jacquard.jpg|thumb|left|[[Joseph Marie Jacquard]]]]
By the 19th century the first signs of information science emerged as separate and distinct from other sciences and social sciences but in conjunction with communication and computation. In 1801, [[Joseph Marie Jacquard]] invented a punched card system to control operations of the cloth weaving loom in France. It was the first use of "memory storage of patterns" system.<ref>Reichman, F. (1961). Notched Cards. In R. Shaw (Ed.), The state of the library art (Volume 4, Part 1, pp. 11–55). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers, The State University, Graduate School of Library Service</ref> As chemistry journals emerged throughout the 1820s and 1830s,<ref name="Emard 1976">{{cite journal | last1 = Emard | first1 = J. P. | year = 1976 | title = An information science chronology in perspective | journal = Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science | volume = 2 | issue = 8| pages = 51–56 }}</ref> [[Charles Babbage]] developed his "difference engine", the first step towards the modern computer, in 1822 and his "analytical engine" by 1834. By 1843 [[Richard Hoe]] developed the rotary press, and in 1844 [[Samuel Morse]] sent the first public telegraph message. By 1848 William F. Poole begins the ''Index to Periodical Literature,'' the first general periodical literature index in the US.

In 1854 [[George Boole]] published ''An Investigation into Laws of Thought...,'' which lays the foundations for [[Boolean algebra]], which is later used in [[information retrieval]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Smith | first1 = E. S. | year = 1993 | title = On the shoulders of giants: From Boole to Shannon to Taube: The origins and development of computerized information from the mid-19th century to the present | journal = Information Technology and Libraries | volume = 12 | issue = 2| pages = 217–226 }}</ref> In 1860 a congress was held at Karlsruhe Technische Hochschule to discuss the feasibility of establishing a systematic and rational nomenclature for chemistry. The congress did not reach any conclusive results, but several key participants returned home with [[Stanislao Cannizzaro]]'s outline (1858), which ultimately convinces them of the validity of his scheme for calculating atomic weights.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Skolnik | first1 = H | year = 1976 | title = Milestones in chemical information science: Award symposium on contributions of the Division of Chemical Literature (Information) to the Chemical Society | journal = Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences | volume = 16 | issue = 4| pages = 187–193 | doi=10.1021/ci60008a001}}</ref>

By 1865, the [[Smithsonian Institution]] began a catalog of current scientific papers, which became the ''International Catalogue of Scientific Papers'' in 1902.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Adkinson | first1 = B. W. | year = 1976 | title = Federal government's support of information activities: A historical sketch | journal = Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science | volume = 2 | issue = 8| pages = 24–26 }}</ref> The following year the Royal Society began publication of its ''Catalogue of Papers'' in London. In 1868, Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and S. W. Soule produced the [[Sholes and Glidden typewriter|first practical typewriter]]. By 1872 Lord Kelvin devised an analogue computer to predict the tides, and by 1875 [[Frank Stephen Baldwin]] was granted the first US patent for a practical calculating machine that performs four arithmetic functions.<ref name="Emard 1976" /> [[Alexander Graham Bell]] and [[Thomas Edison]] invented the telephone and phonograph in 1876 and 1877 respectively, and the [[American Library Association]] was founded in Philadelphia. In 1879 ''Index Medicus'' was first issued by the Library of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, with [[John Shaw Billings]] as librarian, and later the library issues ''Index Catalogue,'' which achieved an international reputation as the most complete catalog of medical literature.<ref>Schullian, D. M., & Rogers, F. B. (1958). The National Library of Medicine. I. Library Quarterly, 28(1), 1–17</ref>

===European documentation===

The discipline of ''[[documentation science]]'', which marks the earliest theoretical foundations of modern information science, emerged in the late part of the 19th century in Europe together with several more scientific indexes whose purpose was to organize scholarly literature. Many information science historians cite [[Paul Otlet]] and [[Henri La Fontaine]] as the fathers of information science with the founding of the International Institute of Bibliography (IIB) in 1895.<ref>Rayward, W. B. (1994). International federation for information and documentation. In W. A. Wiegand, & D. G. David Jr. (Eds.), The encyclopedia of library history (pp. 290–294). New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.</ref> A second generation of European Documentalists emerged after the [[Second World War]], most notably [[Suzanne Briet]].<ref>Maack, Mary Niles.(2004). The Lady and the Antelope: Suzanne Briet’s Contribution to the French Documentation Movement.” ''Library Trends'' 52, no. 4 (2004): 719–47.</ref> However, "information science" as a term is not popularly used in academia until sometime in the latter part of the 20th century.<ref name="Day 2001, p7">Day, Ronald. ''Modern Invention of Information''. Carbondale, Il.: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001: 7</ref>

Documentalists emphasized the utilitarian integration of technology and technique toward specific social goals. According to Ronald Day, "As an organized system of techniques and technologies, documentation was understood as a player in the historical development of global organization in modernity – indeed, a major player inasmuch as that organization was dependent on the organization and transmission of information."{{r|Day 2001, p7}} Otlet and Lafontaine (who won the [[Nobel Prize]] in 1913) not only envisioned later technical innovations but also projected a global vision for information and [[information technologies]] that speaks directly to postwar visions of a global "information society". Otlet and Lafontaine established numerous organizations dedicated to standardization, bibliography, international associations, and consequently, international cooperation. These organizations were fundamental for ensuring international production in commerce, information, communication and modern economic development, and they later found their global form in such institutions as the [[League of Nations]] and the [[United Nations]]. Otlet designed the [[Universal Decimal Classification]], based on [[Melville Dewey]]'s decimal classification system.{{r|Day 2001, p7}}

Although he lived decades before computers and networks emerged, what he discussed prefigured what ultimately became the [[World Wide Web]]. His vision of a great network of [[knowledge]] focused on [[document]]s and included the notions of [[hyperlink]]s, [[Search engine (computing)|search engines]], remote access, and [[social network]]s.

Otlet not only imagined that all the world's knowledge should be interlinked and made available remotely to anyone, but he also proceeded to build a structured document collection. This collection involved standardized paper sheets and cards filed in custom-designed cabinets according to a hierarchical index (which culled information worldwide from diverse sources) and a commercial information retrieval service (which answered written requests by copying relevant information from index cards). Users of this service were even warned if their query was likely to produce more than 50 results per search.<ref name="Day 2001, p7" />
By 1937 documentation had formally been institutionalized, as evidenced by the founding of the American Documentation Institute (ADI), later called the [[American Society for Information Science and Technology]].

===Transition to modern information science===
[[File:Vannevar Bush portrait.jpg|thumb|[[Vannevar Bush]], a famous information scientist, {{circa|1940}}–1944]]
With the 1950s came increasing awareness of the potential of automatic devices for literature searching and information storage and retrieval. As these concepts grew in magnitude and potential, so did the variety of information science interests. By the 1960s and 70s, there was a move from batch processing to online modes, from mainframe to mini and microcomputers. Additionally, traditional boundaries among disciplines began to fade and many information science scholars joined with other programs. They further made themselves multidisciplinary by incorporating disciplines in the sciences, humanities and social sciences, as well as other professional programs, such as [[law]] and [[medicine]] in their curriculum.

Among the individuals who had distinct opportunities to facilitate interdisciplinary activity targeted at scientific communication was [[Foster E. Mohrhardt]], director of the [[National Agricultural Library]] from 1954 to 1968.<ref>Cragin, Melissa H. 2004. “Foster Mohrhardt: Connecting the Traditional World of Libraries and the Emerging World of Information Science.” ''Library Trends'' 52 (4): 833–52.</ref>

By the 1980s, large databases, such as Grateful Med at the [[National Library of Medicine]], and user-oriented services such as [[Dialog (online database)|Dialog]] and [[Compuserve]], were for the first time accessible by individuals from their personal computers. The 1980s also saw the emergence of numerous [[special interest groups]] to respond to the changes. By the end of the decade, special interest groups were available involving non-print media, social sciences, energy and the environment, and community information systems. Today, information science largely examines technical bases, social consequences, and theoretical understanding of online databases, widespread use of databases in government, industry, and education, and the development of the Internet and World Wide Web.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.asis.org/history.html |title=ASIST History |publisher=Asis.org |date=1968-01-01 |access-date=2011-05-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018105558/http://asis.org/history.html |archive-date=2012-10-18 |url-status=dead }}</ref>