The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia, not the Atom Bomb, not corruption in government, not encroaching hunger, not the morals of the young. It is a crisis in the organization and accessibility of human knowledge. We own an enormous “encyclopedia” — which isn’t even arranged alphabetically. Our “file cards” are spilled on the floor, nor were they ever in order. The answers we want may be buried somewhere in the heap, but it might take a lifetime to locate two already known facts, place them side by side and derive a third fact, the one we urgently need.

Call it the Crisis of the Librarian.

We need a new “specialist” who is not a specialist, but a synthesist….

The above was written in 1950.

…The data explosion is now being solved, mostly by cybernetics and electronics men rather than by librarians — and if the solutions are less than perfect, at least they are better than what Grandpa had to work with.

Same author, 1965.

Mike Doellman
Marshall Public Library
Pocatello