Ever since information technology was introduced into the work of some special libraries in the 1960s, there have been predictions that end-user searching of online databases would make librarians unnecessary. The enormous developments in automated information retrieval since then, and the coming of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s, have led to claims that a process of disintermediation is well advanced. To some commentators the special librarian is already becoming irrelevant. However, if we use Thomas Allen's concept of the technological gatekeeper, identified in his seminal work of the 1960s, we obtain a clearer idea of the role of the intermediary. The gatekeeper is a member of the scientific and industrial research group who can be observed performing an informal information counselling function with colleagues. It will be argued that this indicates a fundamental human preference for information mediated by human interaction, and this argument will be supported with illustrations from information behaviour in both the industrialised and the developing world. The work of the librarian, although not identical with that of the gatekeeper, can be seen as drawing its strength from this basic preference. Finally, it can be suggested that already a process of reintermediation is identifiable. Librarians are identifying new roles and developing new competencies for the era of electronic information and, arguably, they are proving their worth in the information transfer process even more strongly than before.
