A History of Online Information Services, 1963–1976.

Written as a collaboration by two experts in the online world, this book is a result of extensive research and interviews with key players in the early stage of the online information and retrieval systems. The authors' personal experiences, expertise, knowledge, and research interests add value to the book. Charles Bourne, a pioneer in information retrieval services, was formerly director of the Institute of Library Research at the University of California and vice president of DIALOG Information Services. Trudi Bellardo Hahn is the manager of library user education services and adjunct professor at the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. Bourne has published extensively on online resources and information retrieval service, while Hahn has published on the history of online information systems and other online systems topics. The authors have addressed the following important questions that guided their research: What role did hardware, software, telecommunications, and database developments play in driving the progress of online systems (p. 405)? What were the characteristics of the early online services (p. 406)? What role did formal evaluation play in the progress of online systems and services (p. 407)? What role did government and private funding play (p. 408)? What were the characteristics, behavior, and attitudes of the online pioneers (p. 408)? The book is a detailed chronology of the early years of online information systems and services. It begins with a general literature review and explains the research methodology of the book. The methodology includes interviewing key participants in the early development of online systems, documenting the key events, dating the milestones, organizing events chronologically, and outlining the four themes. The next chapter describes early research and development activities and details important research projects, institutions, and individuals in the field. The text also documents all relevant milestones, such as the first demonstration of remote online bibliographic and full-text searching of Stanford Research Institute's SRI Online Systems in 1963. Most of the systems in this period provided access to bibliographic databases. The authors then review the further experimental prototypes in universities from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. The chapter leads a tour of universities in the United States, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, and Japan where systems were developed that made worthy contributions to the online access and retrieval systems. Most systems were oriented toward using a computer to accomplish the functions of a library, technical information center, filing cabinet, or reference book. The chapter details the major players and projects of the academic world during this period. One chapter further described the experimental systems developed in nonacademic laboratories during the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. This chapter illustrates how various nonacademic laboratories continued the research and development that they had begun in the early 1960s, with more commercial and governmental labs joining in with their own projects. Although the lives of some of the systems were short, the research and development efforts during this period produced faster, more efficient, and more effective systems. The book devotes one chapter each to focus on the earliest versions of four major commercial online services, which appeared in the mid-1960s: the prototype versions of DIALOG, ORBIT, LEXIS, and SUNY/BCN (later BRS). These chapters provide elaborate narrative about the major institutions, individuals and their roles in developing the systems, and reasons the systems later came to serve such large and diverse clienteles. These chapters also describe the research and development of the important subject databases in space science, legal services, and biomedical communications. Important players in online information systems—such as Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, the National Library of Medicine (NLM), System Development Cooperation (SDC), Data Central, and the State University of New York (SUNY)—and their roles and major contributions are emphasized in these chapters. The next two chapters discuss how the industry tailored the online systems to customers and how the public embraced the systems. The final chapter is a summary. A list of acronyms and abbreviations to help decipher some of the data is at the beginning of the book, while notes of the chapters, a summary of online milestones, a bibliography, and an index are provided at the end of the book. Much literature has been published on the history of online systems. Some journal articles are very important in the history of online systems. However, many of them address the history of very specific databases. Some books about existing online services are devoted to specific subject areas; some emphasize technological and economical aspects; and some pay more attention to the background of online services. One book, Information Retrieval: On-Line by Lancaster and Fayen (1973) [1], “functioned for years as a textbook, handbook, and encyclopedia on all aspects of online retrieval systems” (p. 2). No book has covered the systems, service, funding, and pioneers in the historic era of early online history as broadly and in as much depth as History of Online Information Services, 1963–1976. The numerous citations of various sources and quotations of the key participants are invaluable to the history of online information. The book is very important to libraries, the information searching and retrieval industry, and individuals who use online databases and catalogs.

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