The article considers several stages of the development of the Czech information system oriented in technical information. The beginnings of technical reporting are appearing with the development of industrial enterprises in 18th and 19th century. That period is characterized by efforts to introduce some types of technical news which would inform tradesmen about production and products of potential competitors. In the beginning of the 20th century technical literature can be found in technical libraries and in the departments of main industrial companies. Later in 1944, Technical Information Centre determines the future structure of complex nationwide information system later called VTEI (Scientific, Technical and Economic Information) which is divided into three stages. The first stage is characterized by the tendency towards the centralization of the split information centres, the second one starts by the release of government Decree No. 606/1959 about unified system of libraries and continues by the establishment of the Czechoslovak system ÚVTEI (the Centre of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information), the third stage is characterized by the automatization of information process and by the utilization of foreign database centres together with building up the system of ÚTZ (Central Technical Base). In 1991 ÚVTEI-ÚTZ transforms into NIS (National Information Centre) which provides services till 1997. After that its competencies are divided among some ministries and state departments. The period of the 90s is characterized by the development of telecommunications, technical infrastructure and input of computer technology into library systems. New conceptions of informational services are being created as well as new projects concerning the free usage of the Internet.

The Dialog was established by Roger Summit inside Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in 1964. The commercial service started in 1972. Dialog provided access to well-known databases of different branches and during the eighties the number of databases raised rapidly. Knight-Ridder, Inc. bought Dialog in 1988 so Dialog could start developing and extending its services and products, such as Dialog Alert, Dialindex, or Dialog Select. In 1993, Data-Star joined Dialog and helped reinforce its position in Europe. In 1997, Dialog was bought by MAID which focused on intranet solutions and established Dialog Classic and other services. From 2000 to 2008 Dialog was under the leadership of Thomson Corporation and launched products based mainly on competitive intelligence. Different platforms were made during last twenty years in order to meet the potential needs of end-users and information specialists. Since 2008, Dialog has been under ProQuest leadership and is working on integration of all its databases on a new platform.

Roger Summit was one of the founders of the world information industry. He was born in Detroit, Michigan on 14th October 1930. He studied psychology at Stanford University in California. During his M.B.A. studies at Business Faculty in Stanford he started to be interested in computers. In 1960, he started to work for Lockheed & Missiles Space Company in Sunnyvale, California, and after that he established Information Systems Research Laboratory within which Dialog Information Retrieval System was developed. He continued to work on his Ph.D title at Business Faculty in Stanford under the leading of Dr. Dan Teichroew, who influenced him very much, and finished his studies in 1965. In 1972, Dialog was established as a commercial information retrieval service and Summit was its president until 1991. Then, he retired but still continued to help and support Dialog business. Nowadays, he devotes his life to yachting, playing the trombone and sometimes playing tennis. With his wife Ginger, he has got two children – Jennifer and Scott.