When and why is a pioneer: history and heritage in library and information science

Library Trends, Spring, 2004 by W. Boyd Rayward

Each of the articles that follows incorporates many if not all of the following elements: a brief biographical sketch; an account of the state of affairs both broadly social and more narrowly professional and technical at the time the individuals began to make their contributions; a detailed analytical examination of the work involved; a critical assessment of how the work was received; relevant developments today that suggest a contemporary framework for evaluating the work; and comprehensive references to the relevant literature.

My hope is that these papers will stimulate interest in the historical study of aspects of library and information science by suggesting the necessarily endless range of possibilities for exploration that the field presents to the curious. And so perhaps in the final analysis, my hope is that this issue of Library Trends ultimately contests the claims that Whitman asserted for his pioneers in the epigraph that began this paper. Perhaps we do not, can never, and should not attempt to leave the past behind. Perhaps the newer, mightier, more varied world upon which we debouch, for surely it has been such for pioneers of all times, is so only because of our search for understanding in and of the past from which the world as we know it emerges. Yet, to be sure, we can claim along with Whitman:

   Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
   Pioneers! O Pioneers

REFERENCES

The ALA yearbook (1976-1983). 8 vols. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

American Society for Information Science. (1996). Pioneers of information science in North America: A project of SIG/HFIS (History and Foundations of Information Science) completed 1996, American Society for Information Science (ASIS). Retrieved April 24, 2004, from http://www.asis. org/Features/Pioneers/isp.htm.

Ash, L., & Uhlendorf, B. A. (Eds.). (1970). Biographical directory of librarians in the United States and Canada (5th ed.). Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

Benge, R. C. (1984). Confessions of a lapsed librarian. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press.

Buckland. M. K. (2004). Reflections on social and cultural awareness and responsibility in library, information and documentation--commentary on the SCARLID colloquium. In W. B. Rayward (Ed.), Aware and responsible: Papers of the Nordic-International Colloquium on Social, Cultural Awareness and Responsibility in Library, Information, and Documentation Studies (SCALID) (pp.169-176). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Danton, E. M. (Ed.). (1953). Pioneering leaders in librarianship. Volume 8 of American Library Pioneers. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

Davis, D. G., Jr. (Ed.). (2003). Dictionary of American library biography. Second supplement. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Dawe, G., Zenk, M., & Blair, R. (1932). Melvil Dewey, seer: inspirer: doer, 1851-1931. Lake Placid Club, NY: Melvil Dewey Biografy.

Ellsworth, R. E. (1980). Ellsworth on Ellsworth: An unchronological, mostly true account of some moments of contact between "library science" and me, since our confluence in 1931, with appropriate sidelights. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.