ABSTRACT
If history helps us to understand the present and prepare for the future, we should view current information products and services in their historical perspective. The information industry, as we know it today, developed largely from the concepts of the American Documentation Institute (ADI), which was founded in 1937 and which became the American Society for Information Science (ASIS) in 1968.
This essay reviews the dreams of Watson Davis, founder of ADI, and the degree to which those dreams have been realized in the international information society. The evolution of those visions are evident in technology, information retrieval systems, information policy, and standards. The author also reviews the nature of the workstation called a “memex” described in 1945 by Vannevar Bush but which had been envisioned by Davis and his wife, Helen in 1935. These early visions of an end-user workstation closely resemble the current state of end-user information management that is possible today.
