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)
The author’s introduction
6 out of the present and of the analysis of the past. Consequently it has to reckon with factors that had not existed even in terms of claims at the time of writing the scenario. It is desirable that forecasts should have a tendency to stimulate claims whose basis is made up of development trends in information, the economic and cultural background of nations and of the research potentials of scientists and scholars. The realistic scenario for the future is the one that can account for the process as claims are being transferred into needs. Mixing the two might result in confusion, push the principle of gradual growth into the background and thwart the changes of attitudes necessary in introducing new elements in information. Yet the change is a must, together with the building of the infrastructure and the continuous induction aimed at "repackaging" the information of both macro and micro levels. Furthermore, it has to be recognised, that information will provide building blocks in future decision making. Claims turn into needs by way of a process which includes the tasks of organising scientific research — in a certain sense — in great scientific libraries. It is done by reading "correctly" those trends that are threading through scientific literature. Apart from the daily information service this "correct reading" gives specificity and extra value to the tasks of those who work with information. Mostly in the form of essays the papers in this volume endeavour to express this view by concentrating on the three groups of questions set above. The author hopes that these writings will, in some measure, contribute to the effort whose goal has been sketched by Victor Hugo: "To connect the country's mind with the nation's heart." At the time of great changes, such as modernisation (the informatisation of society) formulating hypotheses and debatable points could, in themselves, serve the very interest of economics, of science and of technical development * * * The author takes pleasure in acknowledging the valuable contribution of dr. Thomas Kabdebo, Ph.D., F.L. A., the Librarian of the St. Patrick's College, Maynooth (Ireland) in the compilation of this volume.
