Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Surprise meSurprise meSubscribe
Encyclopedia

Documentalist

Type of librarian specializing in documentation science

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated July 11, 2026

A documentalist is a professional, trained in documentation science and specializing in assisting researchers in their search for scientific and technical documentation. With the development of bibliographical databases such as MEDLINE, documentalists were professionals who searched such databases on the behalf of users.

When the field of documentation changed its name to information science, the terms information specialist or information professional often replaced the term documentalist.

01Literature

  • Bowles, M. D. (1999). The information wars: Two cultures and the conflict in information retrieval, 1945-1999. In: M. E. Bowden, T. B. Hahn, & R. V. Williams (eds.), Proceedings of the 1998 Conference on the History and Heritage of Science Information Systems. Archived 2013-05-09 at the Wayback Machine (pp. 156-166). Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc. for the American Society for Information Science and the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
  • Bradford, S. C. (1953). Documentation. 2nd ed. With an introd. by Jesse H. Shera and Margaret E. Egan. London: Crosby Lockwood.
  • Meadows, A. J. (1990). "Theory in Information Science". Journal of Information Science, 16, 59-63.
  • Olsson, L. (1991). "Bibliotekarieyrkets framtidida status". In: Enmark, E. (ed.). Biblioteken och framtiden. Göteborg: Centrum för bibliotekforskning.
  • Olsson, L. (1992). "I&D och profession - en fråga om teknik? Bidrag til 8:de Nordiska IoD", Helsingborg 19-21 maj, 1992. 10 sider.
  • Shera, J. (1960). School of Library Science Annual Report (1960-61). Cleveland, OH: Western Reserve University.
  • Williams, R. V. (1998). "The Documentation and Special Libraries Movement in the United States, 1910-1960". In: Hahn, T. B. & Buckland, M. (eds.): Historical Studies in Information Science. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc. (pp. 173-180).
Watch videos about DocumentalistExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Documentalist”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.

Continue exploring

Related topics

Archivist

An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records that are maintained by an archivist can consist of a variety of forms, including but not limited to letters, diaries, logs, other personal documents, government documents, sound or picture recordings, digital files, or other physical objects.

Information scientist

The term information scientist developed in the latter part of the twentieth century by Wm. Hovey Smith to describe an individual, usually with a relevant subject degree or high level of subject knowledge, providing focused information to scientific and technical research staff in industry.

Information professional

The term information professional or information specialist refers to professionals responsible for the collection, documentation, organization, storage, preservation, retrieval, and dissemination of printed and digital information. The service delivered to the client is known as an information service.