On October 28, 1977 the Dutch Association of Users of Online Information Systems officially was granted its charter. On October 29, 1977 the first meeting was held. Looking back VOGIN members were the first official cybernauts in the Netherlands. Recently some of these Dutch cybernauts met.
At the occasion of the
termination of the Dr. Ir. H.C. Molster foundation a pdf was
produced with a retrospect of the foundation and a list of stipend winners. The
file is in Dutch, but it contains also interesting photographs.
The battle of Arnhem Bridge has its veterans and online Netherlands has its cybernauts. This first brigade was active more than
20 years before internet was launched in the Netherlands. Recently this brigade
met at a rare meeting, held in Amsterdam. They got together for a dinner and
shared memories on the early days of online searching. The occasion was the
termination of a foundation, awarding a
stipend for publications on online retrieval. The foundation was affiliated
with the VOGIN, the Dutch Association of Users of Online Information Systems. In
1984 the foundation was launched in memory of the online pioneer, Rik Molster, who
died young, and was one of the founders of VOGIN.
Upon entry of the dining hall, the entrants skittishly
looked around, while people who had already arrived, showed a glance of
recognition. Some people had not seen each other for a long time. Yes, Charles Citroen,
the godfather of online in the Netherlands, was there as well as Jan van den
Burg , the information science emeritus professor John MacKenzie Owen and Peter
Evers. The real eminent grise of the brigade, Guus Mathijsen, arrived late. Also
the younger generation with Hans van Harteveld, former library head of the Royal
Tropical Institute, Ruud Kuipers, former president of VOGIN and ex Kluwer, as
well as the director of TU Delft Library Maria Heijne was present. Hans
van Nieuwkerk, former CID TNO and now an entrepreneur in Hungary, just happened to
be in the country. Altogether some 30 cybernauts were present.
The group of the founding fathers was made up of people
working as online intermediaries in academic institutions and libraries as well as in companies like
DSM, Shell, Unilever and AKZO. Way before Google these searchers knew how to solicit
relevant publications from host computing companiesin the shortest time possible as connect time to the host and connect time to the telecom network was very pricy. To search files, one needed
to have knowledge of a number of query languages. Online services such as the
American Dialog, SDC and BRS and European organizations ESA-IRS and DIMDI had
their own search language. IBM used the language Stairs, while the French
company Bull had Mistral and Kluwer Law bought the retrieval package status.
VOGIN originated in the seventies, when there already was a
close-knit group of scientists and librarians using online for research. There
were no courses yet and there were a lot of rookie mistakes, misunderstandings
and incomprehension. Besides problems with the hosts, there were problems with the
Dutch PTT on data communication matters. The cybernauts had to find out a lot
themselves and be inventive. In order to share experience and to form a group
against the hosts and PTT, the association VOGIN was established on October 28, 1977. One of
its first activities was to start courses for searching databases. In 1980, the
first manual Introduction to online
literature research, was published with the support of the VOGIN members
Lieuwien Koster and Jan van den Burg. Even in the Google era these courses are held.
The association has turned into a foundation in 1995 and is now part of the Royal Dutch
Association of Information Professionals (KNVI).
No comments:
Post a Comment