The launch of the first artificial Earth satellite by the Soviet Union led to a revision ofthe American education system that resulted in the U. S. Congress passing the NationalDefense Education Act (NDEA) in order to strengthen national defense by providingfederal financial support to educational programs meeting critical national needs. One ofthe sections in this Act was devoted to establishing a Science Information Service by theNational Science Foundation as the USSR leadership in launching the first-ever artificialsatellite was directly linked to effective collection and dissemination of scientificinformation generated across the USSR. According to the Act, Science InformationService was to provide indexing, abstracting, and translating scientific papers for moreeffective dissemination of scientific information, and develop information retrievalsystems to make scientific information available. Among other issues, it was discussedwhether the USA needed an institution similar to the Soviet All-Union Institute forScientific and Technical Information (VINITI). The paper attempts to analyze the saidprocesses of reforming scientific information services in the USA in the late 1950s and1960s.