Whether termed the 'network society', the 'knowledge society' or the 'information society', it is widely accepted that a new age has dawned, unveiled by powerful computer and communication technologies. Yet for millennia humans have been recording knowledge and culture, engaging in the dissemination and preservation of information. In `The Early Information Society', the authors argue for an earlier incarnation of the information age, focusing upon the period 1900-1960. In support of this they examine the history and traditions in Britain of two separate but related information-rich occupations - information management and information science - repositioning their origins before the age of the computer and identifying the forces driving their early development. `The Early Information Society' offers an historical account which questions the novelty of the current information society. It will be essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners in the library and information science field, and for sociologists and historians interested in the information society.

The Monograph Series has been planned and organized by the Institute of Information Scientists, in consultation with the pub-lishers. The aim is to provide a series of texts to fill (so far as may be practicable) the considerable gaps in the monograph literature of this fairly new subject, which have greatly complicated the teaching of it; the monographs should be suitable also for people learning on the job, and for information scientists who want to brush up their knowledge of particular fields.