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

CLAIMS OF AN INFORMATION POLICY AND THE LIMITATIONS OF THEIR IMPLEMENTATION IN HUNGARY* An information policy in the social and the natural sciences There are three focal points to this argument. The first is: "is it necessary to have an information policy?", the second is (if the answer was yes to the first question): "in what kind of situations" and the third is: "what are the limitations of an information policy?". This argument represents an individual point of view and should rather be considered as a thesis for discussion than a plan for a solution. I believe that a scholarly/scientific communication has as much scholarly content as wide a discussion it induces. Scholarly/scientific agreement is hardly the norm: the same must be true to questions of principles and theory in the field of information. But, first of all: is there a need for an information policy? My starting point is that Hungary is a small country as regards to its size and population yet not small in an economic sense and particularly not as regards to its place in science. According to some surveys Hungary's place is twentieth to twentyfourth as regards to its per capita gross national product. As for the country's ranking in science the measurements were provided by the Team of Science Analysts working for the Informatics Service of the Library of the Hungarian Academy. By and large it was found to be commensurate with statistics and rankings traceable in UNESCO and UN and other similar statistics. The scientific ranking of Hungary as twentysecond is based on the placing of scientific fields (e.g. mathematics has a "higher" rank than the rest). These are some objective criteria which should be considered when deciding whether an information policy was necessary. Added to these are the following: in Hungary more than 40% of the gross national product devolves on economics of external trade. This open economics should be parallelled by an open technological development and an open information economy. (Not yet a policy.) In addition to these starting points one must consider that Hungary is poor in natural resources. Consequently it is vital that knowledge should yield growing dividends in the gross national product. Hungary cannot really export her natural products because there aren't enough of these. No gold or diamonds which could pay for necessities. Knowledge is Hungary's diamond. Knowledge contains information consequently it is vital that information should be an available commodity in Hungary. * Based on the author's paper: "Information policy in Hungary in the context of modern technology and international cooperation." UNESCO - Computing and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences - Technoinform Seminar, Budapest, 18 June, 1986.