Scope

1. Topical scope:

Historical development of documentation and information internationally. Limit to topics concerned with individuals’ knowledge, knowledge in society, documents and documentation. Exclude information technology per se and information science / systems science concerned with physical patterns (entropy, fractals, cybernetics, etc,) unless related to knowledge and documents.

           Closely related fields sometimes have existing biographical resources (e.g., the excellent Dictionary of American Library Biography, 1978-2003), but I am not aware of any updated, open access resources. They have the same need.

           Comment: As with selection of individuals, there is little disadvantage in including (rather than excluding) when in doubt.

           Suggestion 1: Initially, start with narrow scope: documentation and information science.

           Suggestion 2: In marginal cases tend to inclusion rather than exclusion.

           Suggestion 3: If the policies and project succeed as well as we expect and this wiki is well-established, then, after a couple of years, consider deliberate expansion to a more comprehensive coverage including any and all related fields: libraries, archives, museum documentation, etc., probably with broader governance structure and sponsorship (IFLA, ALA, etc.).

2. Criteria for inclusion:

1.     Shift emphasis from pioneers to influence in or on the field, liberally interpreted to include teaching, writing, theory, history, design, implementation, funding, institutional support, whatever: Architects and visionaries in modern Information Science

2.     The Pioneer pages was limited to North America and an emphasis on ASIST. Our scope should be international in scale and have a similar emphasis on organizations nationally and internationally that are or were comparable to ASIST (e.g., Aslib, FID, ISKO, ACM SIGIR, IASSIST, IIS, IFLA, etc.).

3.     Note distinction between (i) influence in the field by an insider (e.g., Jesse Shera, B.C. Brookes) and (ii) influence on the field by an outsider (e.g., Vannevar Bush, Thomas Kuhn), who may predate or be unaware of the field but whose work influenced it.

NB  The Wikipedia offers advice on assessing candidates for biographical articles and also has the criterion “Noteworthy.” We should be more open to biographee input and primary sources that the Wkipedia is.

3. Organizations:

The Pioneers website had quite varied entries for very diverse organizations: historic specialist companies, large corporations, government agencies, scholarly organizations, and educational institutions. Developing this coverage policy would be an enormous expansion. Such material can be quite valuable, especially for early specialized companies and organizations (e.g., Documentation, Inc,; Zator Inc.; the Concilium Bibliographicum). In many cases the these are closely associated with one or very few individuals (Mortimer Taube; Calvin Mooers; Herbert Field) but not always (e.g., Aslib; Batelle; NIDER (Netherlands). Organizations are probably more likely to have surviving archival records than persons.

           Perhaps a mixed policy initially :

1.     Incorporate with entry for person when closely associated.

2.     Separate entry when not.

3.     Limit to specialized organizations

4.     Use “Category” indexing to provide a virtual list (or a narrative page with links).

5.     Encourage publication of narrative accounts outside the wiki.

6.     Reconsider policy and/or a separate directory project in the future.