AN INDUSTRIAL INFORMATION SERVICE: The EFFECTS OF GROWTH ON ITS ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION

When I was asked to give a paper at this conference the subject as presented to me was ‘the organization of information in a large company’, and I accepted this at its face value. As I thought about it, however, I wondered whether it might not be more interesting to give a reasonable amount of attention to the growth aspect as well as to the eventual stage when an information service can justifiably be called ‘large’; in other words, I might try to indicate—as I saw them—some of the changes in, and consequent problems of, a company information service as it develops from its infancy. I have no intention of defining what I mean by the word ‘large’—someone once said that a small organization is one that is destined to become medium sized, the medium sized is one preparing to grow large and a large one is one that wishes it were small—and would instead refer you to the Aslib survey in which this question of size of information services is given some consideration. I shall have to hope that when you finally hear, in the description I give you, of the amount of time that has to be given to various activities and the number of different activities that have to be performed, you will agree that I am referring to what may reasonably be called a large information service.