Women Pioneers in the Information Sciences, Part II: Introduction

This issue is the second of two special issues of Libraries & the Cultural Record devoted to the accounts of fourteen remarkable women pioneers in the information sciences. (The first special issue was L&CR 44, no. 2, published in the spring of 2009.) The four articles in this issue focus on women who came into prominence within their specialties after 1950. Their stories carry forward many of the themes explored in the first issue—the pioneers' extraordinary accomplishments in the face of tough challenges, their strong and distinctive personalities, and some common personal attributes, for example, how many of them lived very long lives, extending their professional contributions long after the usual retirement age.

In this group of pioneers, however, are some phenomena that were not present in the first group. After 1950 the field of information science had matured and become more cohesive and self-aware. There were many more interrelations, cross-fertilizations, and opportunities not only for employment but also for support of research and development. The careers of this group of pioneers were also inevitably affected by external events such as the cold war, the launching of Sputnik, and the ensuing space race. These and similar events resulted in a tremendous expansion of federal funding for research and development in science and engineering, including information science. In the 1960s and 1970s government money flowed freely on the premise that supporting research and development was a way to enhance national defense and security. From a focus on science information the government (as reflected in the priorities of the National Science Foundation) gradually changed to an emphasis on information science—the study of systems and theories for gathering, organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of recorded information. The careers of our pioneers reflect that subtle but important shift in the second half of the twentieth century.

While it is true that the field was becoming more formally defined after 1950, it had not yet settled into strict educational requirements. Martha Williams and Madeline Henderson both earned degrees in chemistry and had set their minds on careers in that field. Even though Williams, Henderson, and Pauline Cochrane each assumed the identity of an information science professional and became a serious, prolific, and influential researcher, none of them earned a Ph.D. Only Elfreda Chatman, whose career developed much later than the others, experienced a fairly orthodox educational track in preparation for conducting research in information science. No matter what her background (chemist, librarian, or indexer), however, each came to define herself as an information scientist, establishing her own unique specialty.

As with the first group of pioneers, the women profiled in this issue made contributions that would be dubbed singular and remarkable. As was true also of the first group, these pioneers were multitalented, excelling in research, teaching, writing and editing, project management, and other professional activities. They published extensively—they were prolific writers in all formats and exceptional editors and compilers as well as frequent professional speakers. Their many published works were heavily used and heavily cited—and still are. They won prestigious national awards for their research, publications, and other contributions to the field, and two of them served as president of the American Society for Information Science (now the American Society for Information Science and Technology).

Beyond simply cataloging their many and varied accomplishments, these articles show that the pioneers truly made a lasting difference. Their professional activities were extremely influential in defining and expanding the field. For example, Williams tracked and chronicled the information industry—some might say she defined the industry by the companies she tracked and the statistics she reported. During her twenty-five years as editor of the Annual Review of Information Science & Technology she both expanded the boundaries of information science research and influenced the importance of particular research areas by selecting a wide variety of topics and authors to feature in each of the yearly issues. Henderson developed a key tool for early information science researchers and developers that likewise helped to define the boundaries of the field. Chatman stretched the...