Keywords
Citation
McGuirk, K. (2005), "A Long Search for Information", Online Information Review, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 430-430. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520510617938
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
A Long Search for Information offers something very special. It is more than Brian Vickery's eloquent recollections of his long (nearly 60 years) involvement in the information profession. What is it that makes this occasional paper such a valuable contribution? It is precisely because it offers a historically insightful journey through developments and changes in practice, research and education in the ongoing search for information.
Vickery identifies two key ways of knowing. The first is to know as much as possible about what is going on at present. It is the second, more neglected way of knowing that concerns him. This second way of knowing is the heritage of ideas and practice showing us how we arrived where we are. Vickery finds the tendency of a less frequent teaching of the history of information science in institutions today both short‐sighted and detrimental.
His paper is divided according to these headings: Second World War, Editorial interlude, Industrial librarian, Royal Society Scientific Information Conference (RSSIC), Classification, International Conference on Scientific Information (ICSI), National Lending Library for Science and Technology (NLL), Aslib Research and Consultancy, University life, Reflections, and A Kind of retirement. That which makes his “notes” on his experiences all the more fascinating is how he started out as a plant chemist in an explosives factory in 1941 and ended up as Professor of Librarianship at the University of London in 1973. A Long Search for Information contains wonderful anecdotes, a better understanding of the problems faced in the Second World War and post‐war era regarding information‐related matters, a reminder that technological developments are by no means simple or without growing pains, and the unpredictability of human behaviour. It is also ideal reading for information science students and their lecturers on the factors leading to and affecting information science as a discipline.