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

72 The authors of this paper hope that their readers will not attribute their somewhat unusual approach and freedom of style to their complete ignorance. Annex: Outlook Development in the world today and in the SSID as well points towards the creation of large, international data bases specialising in different branches of science, from which information can be obtained on line by the main users. International cooperation is based on a unified data processing technology and moreover on a compatible form of data recording structure and on a unified system of information retrieval (a simplified, on-line retrieval language). The further development of electronics and telecommunications is decisive in this field. We may also reckon with the further growth of the capacity of memory units and the decrease of data searching time. With the extension of computer networks an increased number of data bases will be linked to one another. All over the world small computers are linked to large computers which operate the data bases by large capacity communication channels (relay transmitters, optical cables or satellites). There are significant changes concerning access to complete texts of information sources, and a very fast development is to be expected, e.g. CD/Rom-system, the Telefax-system etc. The new technology of SSID means that a new sphere of knowledge must be studied and acquired by both SSID staff and the users of SSID (education and training). New structures of work are created in information. Complex, inter-linked units are born which enable the computerized information processing in international systems and the availability of the complete texts of necessary documents. One of the authors of this paper (Gy. R.) believes that the rate of this development depends largely on the rate at which computerized information in SSID becomes a marketable commodity which has to be paid for (economic and sociologie information for example). Socialist countries today make an effort to develop SSID within the sphere of social services, as it is the case in the MISON-system. Obviously this will be necessary for some time. It seems that with computers the main problems in east-west SSID cooperation are not so much of a technical character, but are caused by the differences between the natural retrieval languages (English and Russian). There are also problems with differing notions, lexica and thesaurii. In cooperation with other international organisations financed by UNESCO, with the FID, the CIDSS (the so-called Meyriat-Committee) and along with the international bibliographic research, the ECSSID is a suitable organisation for promoting international cooperation, which is the main trend of development today. Ifit does so, the ECSSID will not only fulfil its tasks, but it will become part of a great social achievement as well. That is the utmost we can expect of an organisation. In: Place of Information in the Global Problems of the World. Study Committee FID/RI. FID Publ. 659. Moscow. 1987. 95-104.p.