18th
Farradane waves the informational pirate flag (against the librarians)
In spite (or perhaps because) of expansion, the longstanding debates about ASLIB’s purpose and identity (see pp. 86-87) finally erupted in the post-war years. Fundamentally, the debate was rooted in the contradictions inherent in ASLIB’s dual ‘professional’ and ‘corporate’ role, and fuelled by uncertainties latent [in] the associations relationship to library work in general and the Library Association (LA) in particular. Problems first surfaced in the late 1940s with a revival of discontentamong members about basic training for specialised information work, and, especially, the seeming inability of the LA to cater for this growing in its qualificaiton schemes and syllabi.[See ch. 6 of this book ‘Education for the early information professions’, by Helen Plant] In in 1948, a motion was put to annual conference suggestion that ASLIB independently sponsor a postgraduate qualification in information work, but this was only inconclusively carried (by 68 votes to 65) and little decisive action followed. Matters came to a head again in 1954, when, frustrated by what they saw as fruitless committee work and negotiations with the LA, a cabal of scientific and inductrial information officers led by Jason Farradane proposed to ASLIB council that a separate but affiliated ‘Information Scientists Institute’ be formed to sponsor educational courses and to act as a professional body for information workers. For a time, this group was proposed by Leslie Wilson and others on the association’s council to put the proposals on hold, whilst attempts were made to achive the group’s aims within ALSIB and avert what Wildon himslef saw as the ‘fragmentation’ of the information field. However, in 1957, the patience of the ‘rebels’ gave way. Council proposals at annual conference for an educational syllabus approved by ALSIB and an association register of successful students were defeated by what Farradane later desribed as ‘organised opposition … from librarians who were members of ASLIB (Farradane, 1970 p.144). In January 1958, the inaugural meeting of an embryonic ‘Institue of Information Scientists’ (IIS) was held, and its constitution was approved in May that year (p. 145). By 1961 the Institute was sponsoring (ironically with the support of ALSIB) a new course entitled ‘Collection and Communicating Scientific Knowledge’, at Northampton College (now CIty UNivesity), London, and most of its founding group were teaching on the programme (p.148). By 1970, similar courses in ‘information science’ had been adopted at three other British higher education instituion and IIS memberships stood at 750 (p. 146).
