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)
II. International relations in the field of scientific information
107 Information transfer in the social sciences Role and mechanism The status, role and significance of information in general is closely interrelated with the characteristics of a given discipline. Social sciences develop under the influence of different ideologies which in tum reflect various economic, political, social and cultural approaches to relations among countries. 5 Different value systems make different demands on the social sciences thereby limiting the intensity of information transfer. However, numerous countries of different social structures share important general problems in the realm of what U Thant proclaimed the three Ds: decolonisation, development, disarmament. Social science information transfer is but one example of shared concerns in an area of peaceful coexistence and widening international division of labour. An important characteristic of most of the social sciences is the significance of written communication representing both the source and product of research. In view of the fact that the methods of social science information transfer has for a long time remained unchanged, the recent use of computers for such transfer has aroused international interest. In order to understand the mechanism of information transfer better, it should first be stated that over 100,000 volumes of monographs and some 5,000 to 6,000 journals are published yearly in the field of the social sciences. In addition, research reports, reports of banks and large enterprises - the so-called grey literature, not usually commercially available — and results of statistical, sociological and other surveys, increasingly play an important role in information transfer. This enormous quantity of data in social sciences needs to be processed. This processing must take into account the fact that social science information, unlike information in the technical and natural sciences, is not only aimed at experts but at everyone. That is to say, social science information must meet the demands of research, management, medium-level specialists, educators, mass media, etc. Institutional structures The processing of this complex social science information is promoted by a network of institutional information systems structured along the lines of international co-operation. Mention should be made of various systems which promote specific social science information transfer, such as EUDISED in the field of education, the Documentationsring sponsored by the Rationalisierung Kuratorium der Wirtschaft at Frankfurt am Main (Federal Republic of Germany), in the field of management, and the information services of the International Statistical Institute and the International Association of Law Librarians respectively. Regional, political and economic co-operation also points to an increasing transfer of social science information. For example, in 1976 the academies of sciences of the
