Rózsa, George: Some Considerations of the Role of Scientific Libraries in the Age of Scientific and Technical Revolution. An Essay and Approach to the Problem (A MTAK kiadványai 50. Budapest, 1970)

9 statement ihat the scientific library itself, by virtue of its important tasks (and this applies both to data on the research sector and to the sector of scientific libraries), is a subject of study involving investigations in such fields as complex library theory; organization and management science (in harmony with the library's specialized fields of interest or "profile" as it is called); technological development; economics. Naturally, these investigations should be highly differentiated according to library functions (promoting education, research and tecnologica! development) and to the library's "profile" (specialized fields of interest, branches of science). Besides these practical requirements, scientific libraries as cultural institutions or, in the case of big historical collections, museum-type and general cultural institutions, represent certain "intangible assets" which cannot be expressed in quantitative terms or if so, then only with great difficulty. And it is anyhow meaningless, since libraries form an organic part of a country's intellectual assets, and (like other public collections, major theatres, opera houses, etc) also represent the country's intellectual level irrespective of their practical usefulness at a given time. At any rate, it should not be left out of consideration that the concrete and readily applicable results of scientific library work even in the field of. natural sciences and technology may only indirectly and through transmissions make their effect felt (in scientific work and research). Owing to its manifold functions and the social demands it has to meet, the scientific library, acting as a supporter of scientific and practical economic work, as a workshop of higher education and training, as an institution for the diffusion of culture and general knowledge, and last but not least as a scientific institute, thus forms a complexity of scientific problems. This being so, i.e. that the scientific library itself is a scientific problem, it is also obvious hat the solutions may be attained through scientific methods and approached h rough theoretical work only. II. INFORMATION SPHERES IN THE INTELLECTUAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM OF SOCIETY One important junction of theoretical questions concerning scientific libraries is the relation of the latter to sjjecial literature information (the term "special literature information" will henceforward be understood as information given on and from special literature). The socially necessary information on special literature is an integral part of the socio-economic information system (including scientific progress and technological development) and the scientific approach to their problems may only be conceived in relation with the whole (information system) and part (information on special literature) relationship. Society needs every kind of information irrespective of provenience and form which may be effectively utilized within organized social activities (economic, scientific, technological, etc.). What is strongly underlined here is the content

, the usability on the merits of information rather than its form and technical "production", its channels, and so forth. Of course the latter are also of great moment since they render information realizable. From the particular aspects of this study, however, their treatment may be disregarded and this problem has been widely discussed in the special literature anyhow.