Rózsa, George: Some Considerations of the Role of Scientific Libraries in the Age of Scientific and Technical Revolution. An Essay and Approach to the Problem (A MTAK kiadványai 50. Budapest, 1970)

18 In outlining the different approaches we started from the assumption that the relative backwardness of theoretical studies is one major reason for the virtual incompatibility of these approaches and of trends in library policy reflecting them. Virtual indeed, since theoretical investigation in library science (used as a collective term to denote the related investigations) and in science organization (showing presently and hopefully in the future, too, an upward tendency) do not furnish a sound basis for the assumption that the differences between studies termed as library science (moreaccurately: the theory of library work), theoretical studies in documentation and historical investigations, i.e., between these disciplines are more significant than their coordinatedness or their common features. These common features are definitely predominant, and the controversy over terminology, classification and organization reflects the backwardness of theoretical studies which is even deepened by the fact that the classification and theory of science have not had much to contribute to the solution of this complex of problems. The fields discussed here (library, documentation, historical research) may be considered as a dialectic unit, all the three fields with their peculiarities form, an organic, part of a uniform cultural and science policy, and this, in turn, organically includes — to use a general collective term a uniform library system and librarianship whose conception and interpretations also raise their particular problems. V. THE CONCEPTION OF THE UNITY OF THE LIBRARY SYSTEM AND LIBRARY SCIENCE NEEDS TO BE FURTHER DEVELOPED. THE SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY HAS TWO FEATURES: IT APPEARS AS PART OF THE UNIFORM LIBRARY SYSTEM, AND AS PART OF THE ENTIRE BODY OF SCIENCE, AND AS SUCH IS A SUBJECT OF SCIENCE POLICY Varying from one country and period to another, the type of the supervising body (or bodies) of libraries is what indicates the "administrative" conception formed - or not formed — about the scientific library. Consequently, the theoretical elaboration and classification of the above-discussed problems may only permit the theoretically well-founded elaboration and further development of the conception of a uniform library system and librarianship. The scientific library — including the special library and documentation, too — is an organic part of culture and of the uniform library system involving the various types of public libraries, and is also part of the entire body of science, an integral part, a component of the scientific and technical revolution, thus having a double feature. This being so, the concept of the unity of library system and librarianship, taken by itself, is nothing but a fiction much in the same way as unity of education, were it to appear without any differentiation of the various types of schools. Differences between the individual levels of school-types and of libraries indicate certain qualitative differences in requirements and purposes rather than in value or order of rank. In the case of librarytypes this involves a differentiation in their holdings, in the organization of their holdings, in their methods and services. In this sense, the scientific library is a subject of science policy and organization, and as regards planning, it should be dealt with within the given country's scientific and technological