Page 75 - Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.47, 2021
P. 75

074   Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.13, 2021



            or depended on libraries. In the field of library and information science at that time, some scholars
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            called for the “integration of library and information” . Although the discussion was mainly
            centered around the integration of institutions and library and information work, it inevitably
            involved the development of the discipline of information science. With the explosive growth
            of information and the popularity of the Internet, the discussion on the integration of library and
            information gradually weakened.
              Around the 1980s, information institutions paid greater attention to information retrieval services,
            which evolved from manual retrieval to stand-alone retrieval and then to online retrieval. The
            research on information science also centered around information retrieval, constantly exploring
            retrieval theories, techniques and algorithms, and analyzing approaches to online retrieval and
            related databases. In the meantime, there had been an upsurge of research on the theories and
            techniques of retrieval and indexing of Chinese character information in the academia. This
            upsurge originated from the launch of the Chinese character information processing project (“748”
            Project) in China. One part of the 748 Project was retrieval of Chinese character information. From
            the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the research on information retrieval algorithms and automatic
            processing of information in the Chinese language had brought great vitality to information science
            and promoted the close integration of the studies on information science and computer.
              From the 1990s, information institutions began to focus on the building of databases. In 1991, the
            Chongqing Branch of the China Institute for Scientific and Technological Information successfully
            developed the Database of Titles in Chinese Science and Technology Periodicals. Since then,
            numerous databases designed for literature and information services have been developed by
            information and literature service agencies. For example, the China Institute for Scientific and
            Technological Information and the Information Research Institute of the Ministry of Chemical
            Industry respectively developed online information retrieval systems to provide services to the
            public. In the meantime, the work of scientific and technological novelty search by information
            institutions were in full swing, and hundreds of novelty search workstations had been established
            at the central government and some ministries. In a word, the close relationship between work on
            information and computer technologies had constantly promoted the management and utilization
            of computer information in the education and research of information science.
              At the beginning of the 1990s, the surge of information drove the discipline of information
            science to expand to the field of information management. In 1992, the Department of Scientific
            and Technological Intelligence of the National Science and Technology Commission was
            renamed as Department of Scientific and Technological Information of the National Science and
            Technology Commission. Subsequently, a large number of intelligence institutes were renamed
            as information institutes; departments (schools) of library and information were renamed as
            departments (schools) of information management. The “intelligence” in the name of many courses
            on information science was changed to “information”, and the research object of information
            science was entirely expanded to the latter. After that, the popularization and development of
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