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)
20 within the narrower compasses of defined fields of collecting (profile), and these libraries perform indispensable functions. These functions arc the following. A special library usually covers, to the largest possible extent, literature necessary to current research projects irrespective of the trend, new fields of research or new branches of science and scholarship appearing in the world's scientific literature. In deliberate scientific cooperation (and division of labour) with the special libraries, the task of the general scientific library may consist in acquiring whatever it considers of lasting value in world literature, going into detailed acquisitions only within the scope of its main profile. The meaning and justification of universality derive from such an outlook upon the world, and from an independence of fixed fields, thus permitting one to follow the development of new disciplines (are not a fictitious general collection covering all the existing fields and so necessarily superficial), on the one hand, and, on the other, from the fact that up-to-date scientific work is characterized by complex research assuming the cooperation of several major disciplines, as well as their literature. A scientific library may be considered to have a general profile even if it collects a selected array of outstanding works within some but not all disciplines. A further criterion for universality is the acquisition of encyclopedic, bibliographic, general scientific works, handbooks, union catalogues, directories, and the like which cover all branches of science and whose centralization promotes the information of the special libraries, too. In other words, taking part in the division of general library work are general scientific libraries through their centralized information basis and special libraries through their decentralized and highly specialized holdings. This is one of the most important forms of centralization and decentralization combined in scientific libraries. This can be outlined in the following way: Holdings Information basis Services General scientific library Specialized only in some disciplines; Outstanding works of world literature; Independent of current research ; Literature in complex research; Literature of new disciplines; Special collections General: standard, reference works, manuals, handbooks Nation-wide and covering international relations Special library (and documentation centre ) Detailed as required by the research (educational subject within one or a few disciplines and/or sectors) At sectoral level depending on the profile of the institute Participation in institutional and sectoral cooperation, limited international relations It should be noted here that the conception of the unity of librarianship is closely connected with this problem since public library systems also have an important task to be performed and further developed in the transmission of the services of scientific libraries. The question of what disciplines a general scientific library is expected to cover or neglect in its following up world literature and in its acquisition policy is a practical one to be answered for each individual case as a function'
