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)
10 Hence it follows that information on special literature is a subordinate concept of the intellectual communication system of society. The specific weight of the importance of information on special literature within the intellectual communication system of society largely depends on time, the subject field and the purpose of application. Information on special literature in every respect forms only a part — and a part of variable specific weight — of information. Information on special literature or rather special literature information as has been referred to above, which — taken in a broad sense and as a collective term — represents a "collective memory", the continuity of knowledge and intellectual assets, involves information on special literature, both primary and secondary, i.e. its collecting, storing, processing and transmitting institutions, the types of services which functionally and organizationally materialize (in the historical sequence of their evolvement) in library, bibliography and documentation. Special literature information in this sense is not identical with documentation. Moreover, documentation is not a synonym for organized information or otherwise: documentation —» special literature information —• information system Starting from the most general conceptual sphere, this process may also be represented this way: ( library bibliography documentation Documentation forms the most mobile part of special literature information and plays the most active role in economic and technological development, taken in a strict sense. Documentation is concerned with that par tof the entire body of knowledge which, more than anything, is subject to "moral amortization" , i.e. to obsolescence. It is characterized by a vast amount of data. In view of the fact that the bulk of data is partly readily applicable in economic and technological development, partly more-or-less ephemeral in character, the speed of their processing and transfer seems to be the most important factor. Attempts at solving the mechanization of documentation follow from these three factors or rather from the demands for them. Besides its content, form and the circumstaiices of its diffusion, special literature is also determined, to some extent, by the handling of the actual documents. A price-list in a company (in its calculation section) is an aid of "consumable supply" nature, while in a national library it is looked upon as a domestic print, a specimen of "museum-value", or in a special library it is handled as special literature for research purposes. This poses the question of whether a statistical survey (published in 50 to 100 copies or "non-published") designed for a restricted circulation is "special literature" ? And again, whether standards, patent specifications, prospectuses, catalogues of industrial fairs, market-reports in foreign trade (in a few dozens of copies for official use only) may be regarded as "special literature"? In this sense, we may speak of the double feature of documents. In a broad sense, the afore-going categories may all be qualified as documents. However, as regards content, special literature
