Library Trends

W. Boyd Rayward is best known as the biographer of Paul Otlet and as a historian of documentation, but he has also always been concerned with contemporary services and with the nature of information science. Less well known and certainly less well documented is his exceptional indirect influence through correspondence, encouragement, conferences, and the building of informal networks. We provide an informal account of some of Rayward’s influence during the past twenty-five years in building a more complete and historically informed understanding of information science.