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)
III. „The elephant’s head” and integrated information infrastructure for developing countries
154 DEVSIS/sponsored: by several organizations within or without UN INDIS/UNIDO: INIS/IAEA: INPADOC/WIPO: IRS/UNEP: ISIS/ILO: SPINES/UNESCO: UNISIST/UNESCO: UNBIS/Dag Hammarskjöld Library: Development Sciences Information System Industrial Information System International Nuclear Information System International Patent Documentation International Referral Service for Environment Integrated Set of Information Systems — a package of computer programmes (used by several organizations) Science and Technology Policies Information Exchange System World Science Information System (it would be better to call it a Programme) — a normative programme sponsored also by the ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions) United Nations Bibliographical Information System The above-listed information organisms are representing a variety of types of systems/programmes/services. Most of them are already operational (AGRIS,INIS, DEVSIS, etc.), all of them are computer-based and are operating on a world-wide scale. Apart from those mentioned above, there are several computer-based systems of technical character , not affecting the substantive problems of information, like the ISDS (International Serials Data System), the ISORID (International Information System on Research in Documentation) and services which are concerned with a region like the CLADES/ECLA (Centro Latino-Americano de Documentación Económica y Social) or are not directly related to the transfer of information for development. These services are highly useful for development information, too, like the Monthly List of Selected Articles produced conventionally by the UN Library in Geneva. Information systems in general can be categorized by their major tasks, and by their main characteristics: (1) by major types/subject coverage; (2) by other aspects of categorization, namely by purposes, i.e. to whom is information addressed? (clientele) by input, i.e. what kind of data are processed? by output, i.e. what kind of information is produced? by geographical coverage, i.e. what area is concerned? by language, i.e. what language(s) is/are used? by the method of processing, i.e. what kind of categorization is used? by organizational factor, i.e. what kind of institution is managing the system?
