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
13 It is essential that the frequently mentioned "information explosion " should be re-formulated. The exponential increase of special literature has brought in its wake the multiplication of secondary information. An excess of information tends in the long run towards too little or imprecise information, clouding the needs of the user. In this respect, automation can help only partially. There is a congestion also in the flow of secondary information. It appears, therefore, that whether the traditional or the mechanized information processing is used, it is necessary to introduce between the researcher and the information processes a new communication link which could be referred to, as is now the practice in specialized literature, as "information officer". There already exist such research teams in which the exclusive task of one or two members is to provide the team with the required information on the basis of the primary and secondary sources of literature. These members of the team have the same status as the research members. We might introduce a "tertiary " information function with the role of "information officer" who would analyze, on a level with researchers, documentary publication (abstracts, bibliographies, etc.) and notably bring material to the attention of individual researchers, which is relevant to their research. Another effect of the processing of the secondary information would be to draw attention to new topics and in this way stimulate research. The present maximum of the processing work of documentation would THE SCHEME OF THE FLOW OF INFORMATION ^ primary publication: R + D + documentation + "information officer" users of \ secondary publication: documentation + "information officer" "information officer": R + D
