The SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION

I have chosen for the title of this address ‘The social organization of information’. By this I mean organization by and on behalf of society or the community. This is, I fear, a somewhat ambiguous title, but unfortunately we are operating in a field where many of the words are for us going to have a special significance, while popularly retaining a more general meaning; even the word ‘information’ has come to have a specialized meaning to us. I rather think the time has come when we need a single word to describe all these matters in which we are dealing. Otherwise we shall need a sentence, indeed a definition covering such words as ‘information’, ‘documentation’, ‘storage’, ‘retrieval’, ‘dissemination’, ‘communication’. It is arguable we should perhaps have the definition before we have the word but this need not deter one from the game of word invention.