Information Science in Transition

Until it joined with the Library Association in 2002 to form the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), the Institute of Information Scientists was a professional organisation for those primarily working in scientific and technical information work. The chapters in this volume were first published in 2008 as a special issue of the Journal of Information Science to commemorate the founding of the institute in 1958. In accordance with this, many of the chapters provide a retrospective sometimes even anecdotal overview of developments in information science in the UK since the 1950s. While the approach of the volume is thematic, a major focus is on key initiatives and individuals, the latter including such luminaries as Jason Farradane, Cyril Cleverden and Karen Spärk Jones. Following a guest editorial by Brian Vickery, there are sixteen chapters in the book. While each chapter stands alone, conceptually the volume moves with some exceptions from largely retrospective reviews of past progress in information science by scholars of the older generation to overviews of current trends and technologies by their younger colleagues. Vickery's editorial tries to place information science in its historical context, explaining how the advent of digital computers and the Internet has transformed the discipline dramatically while simultaneously making its future more uncertain. This is also a view articulated by several of the volume contributors. The opening chapter is an attempt by Jack Meadows to discern the main research themes in UK information science over the past 50 years. A survey of the Journal of Information Science and other journals showed that the predominant theme was information retrieval, but that there was also important research being undertaken into information seeking, communication and bibliometrics. The chapter also tries to delineate some of the factors affecting information science research in the UK, for example noting the negative consequences of the demise of the old British Library Research and Development Department in the 1990s [1]. He concludes, however, on a positive note, pointing out that "activities that were relatively marginal decades ago such as automated information retrieval are now at the heart of major growth industries" (p. 17). He also notes that the widening interest in information science concepts has brought in researchers from other disciplines which is probably one of the key lessons of the whole book. In the second chapter, David Bawden (City