Molnár Klára et al. (szerk.): Színházi Évkönyv 2007/2008-as évadra (Budapest, 2009)
Bevezető
ám Foreword It is several decades ago that we started to publish ouryearbook-thisyearweare presenting it in a more eye-appealing form with the contribution of the Fekete Sas publishing house. As a background to the publication serve the databases which have been continuously built for two decades by now, with the aim of collecting and structuring the events of the Hungarian theatre life. This year these separate databases are finally united and opened to the larger public. Due to the grant of an over-embracing national program of information technology development, named after inventor Ányos Jedlik, we are able to present the data and make it available for the interested public, to elaborate on the four decades of the Hungarian theatre history after the communist takeover of 1948/49. But not only up to 1 989, but until our days one could carry out research in the data of the theatrical performances, illustrated by photographs, newspaper reviews, and even can find further information, if a video recording is available of the performance, while their query is helped by a variety of search options. This virtual and multi-dimensional space gives a large overview of the theatrical achievements of all Hungarian companies and of the individual work of theater artists. The printed yearbook offers a more limited flexibility than the electronic format. Size constraints are unavoidably shaping the range of information such a book can cover, just as other limiting factors: the editor's concept, the readers' needs, and our tradition. The richness of life, just as our own interests, points beyond these boundaries. But it must be considered whether all this make the publication of such a yearbook needless. We still hope that also in the future there will be a need to have an overview of a season to document the theatrical facts, therefore, in the frame provided by fate and the budget figures-the Ministry of Education and Culture still strongly supports the publication of the volume - we will be standing out with a theatre yearbook each year also in the future. But what those volumes will be like remains an open question until the complex informatics system, which is being implemented at our institute, will clearly show its powers, and until the important readers' needs clearly state what their expectations are. The basic structure of the book still follows the framework set up several years ago. First we publish the data concerning the theatre companies. The information line of the venues and companies Színházi évkönyv 2007/2008 9 Introduction
