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
155 In its paragraph on the "Typology of international STI/SS " (scientific and technological information systems and services), the Freeman-paper 1 8 identifies and analyses three major types: development-oriented, research-oriented and implementationoriented systems. A DEVSIS study, in turn, identifies two types: discipline-oriented and mission-oriented ones. 1 9 The approach of the present study is different from the former: there are three major types of information systems, but the criteria for them are at variance with what has been proposed by the above-mentioned two papers. Taking into consideration the aforegoing nine aspects of categorization, the present study proposes the following identification: (1) By major types/subject coverage It is possible to identify three main types: mission-oriented, sector/discipline-oriented, and normative systems/programmes. (a) Mission-oriented systems are acting horizontally, covering all or most branches of activity, and of disciplines, irrespective of the interests of one or more particular sectors of socio-economic activities. Their objectives are global, trans-sectoral and functional, and are not branch-specific. UNBIS is one example for this type of system, covering all UN activities: politics, economy, law, science and technology, population, industry, and so forth, by controlling and indexing all UN documents concerned with the above. The UNEP's 1RS (International Referral Service) is another case in point. In fact, what kind of activity is not concerned with and affected by the problems of environment? It is also the case for another two systems, the DEVSIS (Development Sciences Information System) and the SPINES (the UNESCO-initiated informations system for science and technology policies). They also aim at comprehensive coverage. If a population information system, concerned with human biology, public health, sociology, psychology, economics, environment and the like were set up, it would also be classed into this type of system. The specific feature of the mission-oriented systems does not merely consist in their inter-, multi-, or pluri-disciplinary character (this being only one aspect of their consideration). Practically, all sector/discipline-oriented or branch-specific systems are, to a certain extent, multi-disciplinary in character (e.g. information system on the food problem), however, the latter may be deemed as an activity oriented to one or more disciplines or sectors. This is not the case with any of the above-mentioned information systems, because neither the United Nations, nor the environment, nor development, nor science and technology are based on one particular discipline, nor are they representing only one or a few sectors of activity, bot are aimed at a horizontal coverage of international co-operation, embracing all (or the overwhelming majority of) types of branches, sectors of socio-economic activities. On this account, the most adequate term for this type of information system seems to be "mission-oriented". (b) Sector/discipline-oriented or branch-specific systems are vertical ones, being concerned with a relatively well-specified socio-economic activity or with a discipline affecting one certain sector of public policy. In this respect, systems like AGRIS/FAO, INIS/IAEA, INDIS/UNIDO are all covering certain sectors or branches. In spite of
