As I think back over the early days of information science, when I was at the National Science Foundation, the memorable "moment" that first comes to mind occurred right after the 1957 launching of Sputnik. I was startled one evening to hear Eric Sevareid in his 11 PM radio broadcast describe the Soviet Union's All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information and its coverage of the world's scientific and technical literature. He contrasted it with the Office of Technical Services, in the Department of Commerce, and its abstract journal, U.S. Government Research Reports. He apparently did not know that in the U.S. scientists and engineers relied on abstracting and indexing services covering their fields, such as Chemical Abstracts, Biological Abstracts, and Index Medicus.
     It seemed to me that this broadcast, and other reactions to the demonstrated technical achievement of the Soviets, contributed to a change of climate surrounding information science and also our NSF efforts to develop programs aimed at facilitating access to scientific literature. 1958 became the busiest year in my recollection. The President and his Science Advisory Committee, headed by Dr. James R. Killian, took an interest in the science information problem, The Committee named a special subcommittee, headed by Dr. W. O. Baker, Vice-President for Research of Bell Telephone Laboratories, to look at the problem of improving access to scientific literature. This subcommittee looked to us on the NSF staff for certain kinds of help and information; and we spent much time that year preparing special reports for them on the problems and current efforts toward that goal.