György Rózsa: Information: from claims to needs (Joint edition published by the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Kultura Hungarian Foreign Trading Company. Budapest, 1988)

I. The socio-professional aspects of the development of the scientific information with special regard to social sciences

12 of scientific information. The applicability of research results and its information thereon do not belong to the social system. The results of basic research are not affected by the time, but on other levels of research the durability of information rapidly decreases. In development research the results can be directly measured economically. The processing of vast amounts of information and data require the use of automated methods and techniques. The "technical depreciation" of a large part of information is extremely rapid. On account of the time factor, periodic publications, pre-prints and research reports are of decisive importance. The social sciences have for the most part a verbal character, but the value of the results in the different branches again varies in practical applicability: historical scholarship and humanities, on the one hand, and concrete organizational and administrative branches on the other. The rate of the "technical depreciation" is slower. Information has to some extent an ideological aspect. The applicability of research results and its information are related to the social system. In general, the demand for retrospective research is greater, and beside the automated methods and techniques, traditional information forms, like catalogue cards, bibliographies are very significant. The information value of books decreases less rapidly, and among the periodical publications the weekly and daily press also represent a considerable reference source. The recent tendency (in the last two decades) to satisfy users' needs for information is formulated by establishing computer-aided systems. It is concerned with the part of the entire body of knowledge which is subject to "technical depreciation" i.e. to redundancy and characterized by a vast amount of data. Considering that the bulk of data is in part readily applicable in technical and economic development, and more or less ephemeral in character, the speed of processing and transfer is the most important factor. Attempts at solving the automation of information follow from these factors. In the social sciences the role of these factors is less important. In some fields the volume of data needs the same treatment of information as in natural sciences and engineering, i.e. statistics, demography, planning, but the speed-factor could be disregarded. Although no strict demarcation line can be drawn between these two large fields of science in their use of information, the distinctive features enumerated above afford a certain basis for differentiation. II. The "tertiary" information function or a new communication link Concerning the information needs of a part of the social sciences requiring a great volume of data storage and retrieval, e.g. applied economics or management, the problem could be approached by "huge machine memories" as in science and technology. But social sciences are more literature-oriented; therefore, the approach of textual information needs to open new ways, new solutions parallel with the computer-aided programmes.