Online retrieval history; how it all began: some personal recollections

Abstract

Purpose -This paper aims to discuss the history of online searching through the views of one of its pioneers. Design/methodology/approach -The paper presents, and comments on, the recollections of Jim Hall, one of the earliest UK-based operators of, and writers on, online retrieval systems. Findings -The paper gives an account of the development of online searching in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s. Originality/value -The paper presents the perspective of one of the pioneers of online searching.

‘So wide and varied’: The origins and character of British information science

“…It is telling that Vickery's 1994 enumeration of American contributions in the early years of Journal of Documentation [52] show that these all dealt with aspects of document technology. Certainly, in the rather later development of online information systems, although these came to be widely used in Britain, and in continental Europe, most of the development was carried out in the USA [50,69,70] -although not necessarily by Americans: as Hahn [50, p. 45] puts it, 'The genesis of online retrieval was, with a few exceptions, an American phenomenon. However many of the key pioneers were not American-born -the United States was the fortunate recipient of a significant brain drain from many other countries'.…”