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

140 If mutual interests support it, the national development of information pools must precede their international sharing. 3. National needs for international cooperation The national programme should include communication techniques, telephone, telex, electronic mail, etc. Another criteria is to agree on the modes of cooperation. Effects of cooperation in acquisition which do not build on mutual interests are futile and seldom get further than declarations of interest. Acquisitions policies could only be pursued permanently with the well known budgetary and space constrains if the given library may rely upon an internal and international interlibrary loan system. Cooperation on the field of information is easier than in Stockbuilding. Cooperative acquisition is not even a national scale reality yet — mainly due to finances. There are, however, examples of super-national cooperation such as in Scandinavia where there is a regional scheme for sciences. Library groupings in a given country are not infrequent for cooperative acquisition or cataloguing (U.K., U.S.A.) aided by the computer. E.g. SWALCAP, BLCMP. In mid and Eastern Europe one may refer to MISON which is the cooperative venture of Scientific Academies in socialist countries for the promotion of international social science information. The union list of their social science serials has already been published as the starting point of a further range of publications. Depending on te development of communication and the exchange of information, stockbuilding may reach an international stage where the emphasis will be laid on scientific method rather than on administrative modes. It will span to books, periodicals and reports. The necessity to move cooperatively will, perhaps, be recognised in broader areas of science too. The need is already in existence and signs show that it will further increase. Conspectus in Canada, Britain and Holland show that resource identification is a means of coordinated collection developments. The growth of needs will squeeze out cooperation. Let us not repeat the motto "one product - multiple use" automatically. The user is the significant factor and the continuity of large collections. In Stockbuilding cooperation will necessarily be restricted mainly by traditions. Yet whatever is possible should be inbuilt and never carried out by campaigns or dictates. In 1983 there were administrative periodical reduction campaigns in various countries, Britain, Hungary amongst them. The Hungarian example should warn others that enforced cuts may be counterproductive. 4. Pertaining questions Cooperation in acquisition cannot be limited to the coordination of buying and exchanging national and international documents. The principle of a network is part of the Stockbuilding scene whether by way of voluntary cooperation as in the U.S. or by state agreements as in the socialist countries or through international cooperation as in Scandinavia. Cooperative acquisition is a reality in Scottish universities and West German libraries. But the principle goes well beyond the framework of coordinated stockbuilding.