Domsa Károlyné, Fekete Gézáné, Kovács Mária (szerk.): Gondolatok a könyvtárban / Thoughts in the Library (A MTAK közleményei 30. Budapest, 1992)

KÖNYVTÁR ÉS HAGYOMÁNY – LIBRARY AND TRADITION

The Main Library-Science Information Centre in Prague (such was then the name of the Masaryk's Academy of Labour). The processing of stock was thematical. At the end of 1952 the Library kept more than 30,000 items of mainly foreign periodical literature, unique in Czechoslovakia. This Library together with stocks of the Society Library and the Academy Library created the Main Library of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (ML). Other libraries' stocks or their parts were also included in ML. ML created a high quality working team from employees of these libraries, from among whom department leaders gradually grew up. Some of them are still working in the ML. On November 17 1952, the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences was founded, which represented not only a society of scientists, but also the network of a fundamental research system. The foundation of the ML (§ 4) was a part of the basic premises for the development of scientific works and for the acquisition and processing of scientific publications. These realities were naturally reflected in the ML's activities, too. It was an advantage provided by the traditions of scientific libraries it had been founded from, and it differed from the Soviet model mainly by the refusal of enforced centralism; the basic difference being in the existence of the ML and the libraries as separate institutes which were parts of these institutes and whose work was coordinated and methodically directed only. Owing to the Soviet model, only the rather unsuitable word "Main" has remained in the name of the Library. During the first period - let's say in the 50s - the whole conception of work in the ML was elaborated, and some activities began, e. g. the international exchange service among libraries, the co-ordination of foreign journal and book acquisition for the whole Academy, and the obtaining of depots. The research on the "Registration of Czech and Slovak prints from the ancient era to the end of the 18th century" and its elaboration, a great work originated in 1925, was the most important activity of the institution. A photo-lab was equipped and graduate qualification courses for librarians were held, too. Nevertheless, there were marks of a certain separation of the ML and its activities from the needs of the libraries in the institutes. Also, the work of librarians fell gradually behind of general development in the field of scientific information. These realities evoke a lot of criticism, which could hardly be balanced with some advantages, such as e.g. the law of obligatory presentation copy certainly was. Critical situations were created by lack of space, which were, nevertheless, brought about by the ML's wrong acquisition policies when, e. g. the whole production of some East European countries was taken into stock in multiplicates. Criticism became ever sharper and sharper, until a commission was created in 1966, which critically oversaw the ML's activities. Its conclusions were characteristic for the epoch of the "Prague Spring" just approaching. Conceptional „ Gondolatok a könyvtárban " 109