DAVE MUDDIMAN

Biography: Dave Muddiman is Principal Lecturer in the School of Information Management, Leeds Metropolitan University and holds degrees from Leicester University and the UK Open University and a postgraduate diploma in librarianship from what is now London Metropolitan University. In broad terms his research interests concern the social dimensions of the information society; more specifically he has focused on the changing nature of the public library service. With Alistair Black he is author of Understanding Community Librarianship: the Public Library in Postmodern Britain (1997) and he was Project Co-ordinator of the Library and Information Commission funded project Open to All: The Public Library and Social Exclusion (2000) .   Dave is currently working with Alistair Black and Helen Plant on a major UK AHRB funded project on the history of the information society in Britain and has recently published papers on “The Information Career of J.D. Bernal” and the early history of ASLIB. A book which brings together the work of   the project - The Early Information Society in Britain - will be published by Ashgate in 2006. Dave is also Reviews Editor of Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.

Title: The Early Information Society in Britain

Summary: This session gives an overview of recent research at Leeds Metropolitan University which argues that an “information society” was developed in Britain before the advent of the computer.   It looks at the rise of an “information” conscious society in the period 1900-1950:   phenomena such as information bureaux in commerce and industry; professional groups such as ASLIB; and the beginnings of information “science” and information management.   It also highlights the ideas of popular scientists such as H.G.Wells and J.D Bernal, as well as librarians like S.C Bradford and L.S.Jast, all of whom believed that an age of information had arrived.   “Information society” the session concludes, is not confined to the contemporary age.   It is more a feature of any modern industrial society which has at its core the systematic use of knowledge.