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)
23 scientific and technical libraries as regards their development, or broadly speaking, libraries should be developed so that they might be able to meet the prospective requirements at a time when free time will be incomparably more than now, when popular masses will pursue such "sublime activities" as science, literature, arts, and when not only the specialists but also the masses relieved from the burden of narrow specialization will also study their "prehistory" out of being interested in it, and finally, when scientific work will become a massive activity. Preparations for all this should be started just now — and carried on continuously — with the organization of the holdings and with the acquisition on a large scale, and arrangement of documents (old and rare books, manuscripts, and general scholarly works covering the individual fields of the humanistic studies) whose "moral amortization" is negligible, if any. These are theverv documents the handling of which will certainly constitute a considerable part of "sublime activities" and will contribute to the many-sided development of the personality as against works of rapid "moral amortization' which are indispensable today, but will become obsolete in a few years because of the rapid development of science and technology (this applies primarily to technical works, but, to a limited extent, to scientific works, as well). Envisaging a renaissance of the humanistic studies and considering the "two cultures " and the two world outlooks as a unity, scientific libraries have deliberately to make preparations for all this, and have to work on the formation of this unity. It is only with this that scientific libraries might successfully play their particular role in scientific and technological development and might adequately add — not only in the scientific and technical field but also in the humanistic education, in the formation of human character and society — to the many-sided development of the individual with their particular methods. VIII. SCIENTIFIC LIBRARIES ALSO HAVE PARTICULAR TASKS IN ELIMINATING BACKWARDNESS,IN REACHING THE WORLD STANDARD IN THE ECONOMIC, SCIENTIFIC, AND TECHNOLOGICAL FIELDS AND IN INCREASING THE „PER CAPITA KIND FEELING" IN THE HUMAN FIELD As has been referred to above, the tasks of scientific libraries in promoting research work and technological development, along with the related methods and forms are dealt with by an extremely sizeable special literature. Much attention has also been given in the literature to the general tasks, situation and to the questions of developing the scientific library 1 3. It is obvious that scientific libraries also have tasks — even though indirectly or through transmissions — in the peaceful competition of the two great political systems of the world and they have to contribute to solving the immense problems of the developing countries. In the economic, scientific and technical fields, this may be formulated in the following way: scientific libraries can also be of help in catching up with the world standard. This is precisely what 1 3 Illustrative of how libraries try to find new ways and means is P. GYÖRE'S article: Mooers törvénye. (Megjegyzések az információ használatának lélektanához és szociológiájához.) Tudományos és Műszaki Tájékoztatás, 1964. p. 748 — 763. (Mooers' law.) (Remarks on the psychology and sociology of the use of information.)
