Managing information post World War Two
Post-1945 the history of the development of computers is well documented, and without doubt, the decryption work was of the greatest importance in catalysing the development process. The techniques of managing very large card indexes also continued to be developed, many using edge-notched cards. It is quite interesting to read a report on Nonconventional Technical Information Systems published in 1958. It reads as though these all suddenly sprang into life but in fact, they were all introduced during World War Two to manage decrypted information.
When I started work in 1970 at the British National Formulary (B.N.F.) a ten-thousand-hole optical coincidence card system was being used for information retrieval, a technique developed by Polish cryptographers in the 1930s as they, for the first time, worked out how to decode the German Enigma machine traffic. Gradually these were supplanted by computers and in particular the development of computer phototypesetting that generated computer-readable tapes for use in information retrieval systems.
When it comes to the techniques of managing information, there was no need for these after the end of World War Two. Computers did not have a major impact managing text information until the arrival of IBM STAIRS in 1973 and enterprise search applications only came on to the market in the 1980s. Going back to the start of my career the most technically sophisticated device in the B.N.F (apart from a foundry and several diecasting machines) was the IBM golf-ball typewriters being used by the team preparing B.N.F Abstracts.
Certainly, the volume of published scientific information increased substantially after World War Two and this led to the formation of the Institute of Information Scientists in 1958. I have always wondered how many of the founders and initial members of the IIS were aware of the Enigma and Ultra work, but of course could say nothing about it. If they had, perhaps the importance of information as an organisational asset and the techniques of information management tested out for real in a global conflict could have been more widely recognised and adopted.
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Martin White is the Managing Director of Intranet Focus http://intranetfocus.com/
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This is an edited version of an article first published in UKeiG's eLucidate journal. For more information on eLucidate (the e-journal of CILIP special interest group UKeiG).
https://www.cilip.org.uk/members/group_content_view.asp?group=201314&id=794576
Contact Gary Horrocks info.ukeig@cilip.org.uk
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