Libraries and documentation

Abstract

The President, Sir Frank Francis, opened the plenary session, saying that we had long been troubled by quarrels between librarians and documentalists, but that these had now mostly disappeared. The development of special libraries, especially since the war, had demonstrated their creative work, and the great contribution of documentalists. Both sides required the techniques of librarianship, and there was now a high degree of understanding on what basically were two aspects of one job. Librarians must not “play down” documentation, since the improvement of the transfer of information was extremely important work.