• Chemical Abstract Services (CAS) establishes research and development unit.
• Hoover Commission recommends that the Perry becomes director of the Center for Documentation and Communication Research (CDCR), NSF. He assists in the design and building of the WRU Searching Selector , a prototype of a computer program to perform literature searches based on encoded abstracts (Perry, 1977 ). During its development the Selector is called the WRU System, the ASM-WRU System, the Perry-Kent System , and the ASM Mark I System . The database used for the project consisted of metallurgical literature (Bourne & Hahn ). Project also involves development of "telegraphic abstracts." Hardware used in the Searching Selector include: Flexowriter , circuit panels, punched paper tape. Jahoda ( 1961 ) summarized the system and evaluations of it as of 1961.
• Garfield publishes the first issues of Management’s Documation Preview . Title is changed in 1956 to Current Contents of Management and Social Sciences. Also has separate contract with ( Garfield, 1987 ).
• The Ford Foundation establishes the Council on Library Resources (CLR) ( Heilprin, 1988 ).
• First supercomputer is delivered to the US Naval Weapons Lab. Name: NORC: Naval Ordinance Research Calculator (Emard, 1976 ).
• Bureau of the Budget assumes responsibility for supervision of federal paperwork management. Pinelli, et al. ( 1992 ) said this established the principle for the control of federal information in the executive branch.
• October: The WRU Searching Selector is demonstrated for the first time in public at the National Metal Exposition. The Selector performs "serial Boolean searches of the punched paper tape database, with up to five (later expanded to ten) concurrent searches of the coded telegraphic abstracts" (Bourne & Hahn ).

• Robert Cahn, Christopher Ingold, and Vladimir Prelog present a nomenclature system for the unambiguous specification of stereoisomers.
• 1956 --First scientific study of the library use of periodicals done at the Science Museum Library (SML), South Kensington, London, by Donald J. Urquhart in preparation for the establishment of the National Lending Library for Science and Technology (NLL), the forerunner of today's British Library Document Supply Centre. Brief summary of the paper published in proceedings of the 1958 International Conference on Scientific Information. Urquart later called his findings, "Urquhart's Law ." 
  

1957

• First fully solid-state business computer. Name: NCR 304 .
• (Altman, 1993 ). Begins series (4 issued) titled: "Nonconventional Information Systems in Current Use" describing operating information retrieval/processing systems and "Current Research and Development in Scientific Documentation," which summarizes research and development in the field. ( Pinelli, et al., 1992 ).
• IUPAC approves rules for chemical nomenclature that are subsequently issued in book form-the famous Red, Blue, and Green Books, dealing with inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry, respectively.
• Eugene Garfield Associates, Inc., begins project with Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association to scan and index the current literature on steroid compounds.  The coding sheets produced are then used by the U.S. Patent Office to make punched cards for searching by patent examiners to find current literature.  This project leads indirectly to Index Chemicus.
• NLM , is convinced that microfilming and rapid copying techniques have advanced well enough to permit responses to request for copies through copying on microfilm rather than ILL to the requesters library. This is done using movable microfilm cameras in the NLM stacks and then shipping the copy to the requestor.
• Taube’s Uniterm system evolves from single word usage to roles and links to "concept coordinate indexing" (Conrad, 1976 , Rush, 1985 , Emard, 1976 ).
• Remington Rand Univac develops and markets the Univac Tape Search writer, a freestanding tape search system, which is intended for "random retrieval of information from a large tape file without requiring the scheduling and running of a job on an organization’s main computer system." Is used, for example, to find license numbers in a motor vehicle file or policy information in insurance company files ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• Noam Chomsky publishes his Syntatic Structures monograph, which initiates the cognitive revolution in theoretical linguistics and was heavily based on information theory.  This work has significant effects on the role in linguistics in information science research. A brief historical sketch is at: http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~geo/Miller.pdf   .  A summary specific to information science is: http://www.nodali.sics.se/bibliotek/kval/info_science/KVAL77-11/KVAL77-11.htm  
• Magnavox Research Laboratories with the aid of the Air Force create the Magnacard System for high-speed handling of magnetic cards. (Bourne & Hahn ).
• Robert Fugmann and co-workers at Farbwerke Hoechst, West Germany, develop Generic Retrieval by Magnetic Tape Storage (GREMAS) , a high-performance fragmentation coding, storage, and retrieval system for low molecular weight organic compounds.
• Cranfield Project I, testing the comparative efficience of indexing systems, established by Aslib (UK), under the direction of C.W. Cleverdon .  Major finding is that all systems were of approximately equal effectiveness. Cranfield II begins in 1963. (Foskett, 1977 )
  
• Rand Corporation charters SDC ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• January: First author indexes to BA are produced using IBM punched cards. BA and Psychological Abstracts begin a program of joint abstracting. John Crerar Library agrees to provide photocopies of original articles abstracted in BA ( Steere, 1976 ).
• April: CDCR begins pilot searching with questions from members of ASM (Bourne & Hahn ).
• 15 - 17 April: Symposium on "Systems for Information Retrieval" is held at the School of Library Science ( Shera & Perry, 1957 ).

• Beginning of "second generation" of computers (using solid state circuitry, stored programs, and user oriented programming languages) (Emard, 1976 );(Jahoda, 1961 ).
• SDC designs and implements the Q-32 computer ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• With consultation help from Gull , General Electric Aircraft Gas Turbine Division, Evendale, OH, installs a Uniterm indexing system using IBM 704 computer. It is able to print out author, title, and an abstract of reports but only able to do ‘and' Boolean searches. Uses coordination of document numbers listed under descriptors ( Kilgour, 1970 ).
• "Killian Report," Strengthening American Sciences, is issued. Recommends the establishment of Federal Council for Science and Technology (FCST) to promote closer cooperation among federal agencies. Eisenhower accepts the recommendation (Pinelli, et al., 1992 ).
• "Baker Report" on improving the availability of US scientific and technical information is submitted to the US President’s Science Advisory Committee (Emard, 1976 ). The NSF Office of Science Information Service (OSIS) is the eventual result (Pinelli, et al., 1992 ).
• National Defense Education Act (NDEA) becomes law. First general federal aid to education since the Morrill Act of 1862 . Title 9 creates the Science Information Council (SIC), and NSF OSIS is the eventual result (Pinelli, et al., 1992 ).
• U.S. Patent Office and National Bureau of Standards develop the experimental HAYSTAQ (Have You Stored Answers to Questions) system using a Standards Electronic Automatic Computer (SEAC) for use in searching patent files, with particular focus on chemical information (Jahoda, 1961 ).
• International Conference on Scientific Information (ICSI) is held in Washington, D.C.; chief organizer is Alberto Thompson .
• National Federation of Science Abstracting and Indexing Services is founded.  In 1972 it becomes National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• First operation or public demonstration of Kodak’s Minicard , which is developed for the US Air Force to handle intelligence information. USAF Rome Air Development Center contracted ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• Peter K. Worsley of the Benson-Lehner Company in Los Angeles, CA, designs the FLIP (Film Library Instantaneous Presentation) system. This system can search 1200 ft rolls of 16-mm microfilm, searching up to 600 frames per second ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• Kagaku Gijutsu Bunken Sokuho (Alerting Service of Scientific and Technical Information) by Japan Information Center for Science and Technology is published. Covers world science literature.
• Hans Peter Luhn ( IBM ) and Herbert Ohlman (System Development Corporation ) display first key word in context (KWIC) indexes at ICSI.
• Eugene Garfield Associates publishes first issues of Current Contents /Life Sciences, covering life sciences, pharmacy, and chemistry in a format that was prototyped in 1952.  Garfield also begins work on his algorithm for converting chemical names into molecular formulas.
• Beilsteins Handbuch adopts CIP (for Cahn, Ingold, Prelog).  CIP is now used nearly universally.
• IBM 350 , a random access disk storage computer, is demonstrated on the IBM 305 RAMAC system for the first time ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• April:BA publishes the first computerized subject index (Steere, 1976 ).
• 27 May: At special dedication ceremony for the IBM Special Engineering Products Division Plant in San Jose, CA, Luhn announces the development of the SDI (selected dissemination of information) concept and system for the IBM Library (Schultz, 1968 ; Kilgour, 1970 ).
• 16 - 20 November: IBM displays new special purpose equipment for information retrieval: the 9900 Special Index Analyzer and the Universal Card Scanner. ( Schultz, 1968 ; Schultz & Garwig, 1969 ; Jahoda, 1961 ).
• ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) is established in the US Dept. of Defense.  Created as a response to the "Sputnik crisis" to pursue defense related research that promised significant advances. ( Abbate, 1999 )

• Federal Advisory Committee on Science Information (FACI) is established to advise OSIS on policies and programs to coordinate federal science information activities. It is abolished in 1961.
• An Executive Order establishes the Federal Council for Science and Technology (FCST). Is abolished in 1973 ( Pinelli, et al., 1992 ).
• Ascher Opler (Dow Chemical Company) reports on the use of a light pen for graphical entry of chemical structures into a computer.  Later used by Chemical Abstracts Service for input of data.
• DEC develops the first mini computer. Name: PDP 1 .
• The Haloid Xerox Company announces the 914, the first plain paper copier.
• In Wellesley, Massachusetts, the Computer Control Company Inc. develops the Index Searcher (AN/GSQ-26) , which can quickly search a large index to document representations on a one inch magnetic tape and supply reference listings meeting complex search criteria. The first user of the system is the USAF Rome Air Development Center. The system can store up to 68,000 references on a single 2400 foot roll of tape and search the tape in approximately 4.5 minutes ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• Doug Englebart develops the Augmented Human Intellect (AHI) program at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) ( Bourne & Hahn ).
• Jules' Own Version of the International Algebraic Language (JOVIAL), named after the developer Jules Schwartz, is created as a high order programming language for Prosynthex, an early version of Synthex (Bourne & Hahn ).
• September: Synthex project organized. The projects aims to be similar to Memex as proposed by Vannevar Bush (Bourne & Hahn ) ).

 
HOME