Information and Empire: The Information and Intelligence Bureaux of the Imperial Institute, London, 1887–1949

Muddiman, David C.

doi:10.1007/978-1-137-26743-6_6

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Equally, the Branch impacted information activity elsewhere. Its work served as a template not only for the above mentioned NID but also for an Imperial Institute, established in London in 1887 (Muddiman, 2011). Described by the Times (23 April 1887) as the 'brain centre of the empire' (as cited in Muddiman, 2011, p. 112), the following year the Institute opened an Information and Intelligence Bureau which, it claimed, was modelled on the Branch.…”

Section: Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information management in the Intelligence Branch of Britain’s War Office, 1873-1914: ‘All information flows toward it, or returns to it, in a form worked up into shape’

Black

2020

Open Information Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

AbstractIntelligence has always been an aspect of organized warfare. It was not until 1873, however, that the British Army recognised this formally by establishing an explicitly named unit, under the auspices of the War Office, dedicated to the development of strategic intelligence: the Intelligence Branch. Based on documents held in the National Archives (UK), this study explores the ways in which the work of the Intelligence Branch developed before the First World War in response to imperial and foreign military challenges and the growing awareness of the importance of strategic intelligence and planning. The Branch’s steam-age origins should not disguise the intensity and sophistication of the information management that underpinned its operations. Attention is paid to the type of information management methods that were employed. The existence of a rational system of information management is revealed, consisting of planned phases for the collection, processing, storage, organisation, analysis and dissemination of information.

show abstract

Section: Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information management in the Intelligence Branch of Britain’s War Office, 1873-1914: ‘All information flows toward it, or returns to it, in a form worked up into shape’

Black

2020

Open Information Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…24 In 1887, an Imperial Institute was established in London. 25 It was described by The Times as the 'brain centre of the empire'. 26 Endeavouring to live up to this status, the following year the Institute inaugurated a Department of Commercial Intelligence, modelled on the Intelligence Department of the War Office.…”

Section: The Early History Of Government Libraries and The Board Of Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information, Intelligence, and Trade: The Library and the Commercial Intelligence Branch of the British Board of Trade, 1834–1914

Black

Murphy

2012

Library & Information History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Business intelligence, broadly conceived, has always been an ingredient of economic life. However, the planned and systematic collection, organization, and dissemination of information for commercial purposes did not appear until the abrupt escalation of trade and the massive extension of imperial reach in the nineteenth century. In Britain, investment in sources and systems of commercial information was made by the Board of Trade in the form of a departmental library placed at the disposal of government officials, from 1834; and a publicly accessible Commercial Intelligence Branch, established in 1899, which employed the new modes of information work emerging around this time in private companies. With the outbreak of war in 1914, the Commercial Intelligence Branch experienced a considerable increase in demand for its services, confirming the perceived importance of commercial information to national survival and post-war recovery.

show abstract

Systems of Information: The Long View

Black¹,

Schiller²

2014

lib

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In response to the perceived (by some) onset of an information society, historians have begun to study its roots and antecedents. The past is replete with the rise, fall, and transformation of systems of information , which are not to be confused with the narrower computer-mediated world of information systems . The history of systems of information—which for digestibility can be labeled information history —lacks neither scale nor scope. Systems of information have played a critical role in the transition to, and subsequent development of, capitalism; the growth of the state, especially the modern, nation-state; the rise of modernity, science, and the public sphere; imperialism; and geopolitics. In the context of these epochal shifts and episodes in human thinking and social organization, this essay presents a critical bibliographic survey of histories—outside the well-trodden paths of library and information-science history—that have foregrounded, or made reference to, a wide variety of systems of information.

show abstract

Information and Empire: The Information and Intelligence Bureaux of the Imperial Institute, London, 1887–1949

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Information management in the Intelligence Branch of Britain’s War Office, 1873-1914: ‘All information flows toward it, or returns to it, in a form worked up into shape’

Information management in the Intelligence Branch of Britain’s War Office, 1873-1914: ‘All information flows toward it, or returns to it, in a form worked up into shape’

Information, Intelligence, and Trade: The Library and the Commercial Intelligence Branch of the British Board of Trade, 1834–1914

Systems of Information: The Long View

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About