It was an era for American Library Science education to transform to Library and Information Science education in 1950s and 1960s. As the dean of School of Library Science, Western Reserve University, Jesse H. Shera actively advocated documentation education from 1952 to 1970. The study aims at systematically reviewing and summarizing Shera's thoughts and practice concerning documentation education during this period with the purpose to uncover the general situation of American Library and Information Science education in transition. The main research method adopted is the analysis of historical material, including works of Shera, the primary archives collected by Case Western Reserve University and other materials.
In summary, Shera's thoughts and practice concerning documentation education mainly included three aspects. Firstly, Shera actively constructed the disciplinary theory for documentation. There is a close relationship between social epistemology and documentation. Shera's documentation education was profoundly affected by the social epistemology. Shera had been working on the theoretical construction of documentation since 1950s, involving documentation's definition, scope and the relationship with librarianship especially special librarianship, which enriched documentation's disciplinary theory system. Secondly, Shera founded Center for Documentation and Communication Research which was the first documentation research center in American library schools. According to Jesse Shera's design, the Center had three functions, namely scientific research, academic communication and serving the instructional program of the School of Library Science. Under the successive leadership of James W. Perry and Shera, the Center had conducted a series of research projects on information storage and searching, etc., and accordingly achieved some research results like the pilot system of Education Resources Information Center. Besides, the Center had organized a series of academic conferences on documentation which promoted the communication and dialogue among library educators, librarians, businessmen, scientists and technicians. Thirdly, Shera introduced documentation courses to library education programs and stressed on the training for special librarians focusing on documentation. Shera's educational ideology on training for special librarians took the documentation education as the core. Documentation education had played an important role in the Master of Science in Library Science program, Master of Science in Health Sciences Librarianship program and the doctoral program in Library Science. 
Shera remolded traditional library education by means of documentation education to make it adapted to the trend of specialization of library education. The standpoint of Shera's documentation education lied in uplifting the social value of library profession relying on documentation. Shera's documentation education served for training librarians, which obviously met his librarianship based standpoint. The documentation education at School of Library Science of Western Reserve University led by Shera was a transitional form of early Information Science education and promoted the transformation from Library Science education to Library and Information Science education in America in the 20th century. Shera's thoughts concerning documentation education has been comprehensively discussed in the study based on original materials, which is of significance for further research of Jesse H. Shera, the history of Information Science education and other related fields. 62 refs.