UC Berkeley

Three related questions are addressed: why was the work of the European documentalists largely ignored in the U.S.A. before the Second World War? What was the "information science vs library science" argument about? Technological innovation was a vital force in library science in the late 19th century and again after 1950. Why was it not a vital force inbetween? Examination of the technological background and of the Graduate Library School, University of Chicago, suggests that there was a temporary paradigm change away from design and technological innovation. Arguments over "information science" reflected a reversal of that paradigm.