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)

I. The socio-professional aspects of the development of the scientific information with special regard to social sciences

71 on the present state and prospects of social science information. ECSSID conferences (I—IV., but in particular I. and IV.) help to review the European and general international development, but in some cases we get quite detailed information on the situation in certain countries. We should not forget Madame Hogeweg de Haart's review on "the state of the arts" either, which was published in 1980 (Characteristics of social science information. FID/SD, Discussion paper, 1980/2.) and which gives an excellent review of this subject, at least as far as the western approach is concerned. (Among its 64 references there is only one front a socialist country.) No doubt a similar report will once be published on social science information in the "other" (the socialist) part of the ECSSID. Owing to the existence of these excellent reports, we think it inopportune to discuss questions such as SSID-technology or usage-analysis, on which we have plenty of information at our disposal. Only in the Outlook-Annex of this paper shall we mention a few points that, although not new, represent our own ideas in this field. However, hie et nunc (here and now) we should like to discuss certain practical aspects that complete the theoretical ideas we outlined in previous chapters. These are as follows: — The SSID will only be able to perform its tasks fully, if it can ensure the complete (primary) text, that is if it is based on library services (as well). — For certain fields of social science research — humanities in particular — the main source of information will always be the library, (the study of old books and manuscripts, etc.). Nevertheless, computer technology is an important, supplementary aid in this field, too. — Direct information is an integral part of social science research, so SSID cannot be alienated from research. — From what we have said so far it follows, that the widely spread computer euphoria does not mean a reduced demand for reading in the social sciences; it is reading that we find at the top of the spiral of knowledge, too. — The users of SSID are not only the researchers, a "circle of privileged people", but the participants in social and economic fields and — with the intervention of mass media - the general public as well. — This potentially wide-range usability of SSID suggest that it would be expedient to make the users cover directly — to some extent at least - the cost of investment. This would also enable the assessment of actual demand for SSID. — In the process of discovery-cognition, the factographic and data sources become part of the results of scientific research, they are compiled and diffused as new knowledge. And finally let us conclude these theoretical (hopefully not theorising) considerations — by way of excuse — with an anecdote, which may not really be suited to a serious topic like this. There are two speakers at a meeting. The first man rattles off his speech from a paper, the other talks without notes and makes a spirited speech. Someone in the audience says to his neighbour: "What a speaker! He pretends to be an orator yet he is illiterate, he can't even read! "