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

KÖNYVTÁR ÉS KORSZERŰSÉG – LIBRARY AND MODERNITY

E. Hakli ography from the pre-1988 period on magnetic tape to be used as a source of records for their local databases. In addition to the more technical development some important organizational changes will soon take place. The Automation Unit of Finnish Research Libraries has during its whole existence been a part of the Ministry of Education, although libraries have been able to influence its policy through its Steering Committee. The Ministry of Education has now made the decision that the Unit will, in 1993, be transferred to the National Library, i.e. to the Helsinki University Library, where it will become a department. The National Library will also be made responsible for the running and development of the joint system. This gives Helsinki University Library a totally new responsibility for library development in Finland. The Library's position as the National Library will from the beginning of 1992 be also otherwise strengthened through a new University Act. Other libraries will still maintain their influence on the development of common services. The Automation Unit will have its Steering Committee also in the future, and one half of the seats on the Board of the National Library have been reserved for representatives from institutions other than the University of Helsinki. What have the libraries in Finland learned during the process? Finnish librarians have learned a lot from their efforts during the past twenty years, which it took to achieve the original, goal. I will try to summarize some aspects which have been considered important. (1) Ultimately it is an achievement of librarians that the Government is investing today in a modem and expensive library automation project. Leading libraries agreed in the middle of the 1970s on a common policy, which they have since then tried to push forward with united efforts. This unanimosity was the basis on which the Ministry of Education was able to build its decisions. Finnish librarians were not wiser or more realistic than their colleagues elsewhere when they decided not to become rivals. Libraries quite simply did not have resources enough to start their own large-scale automation development. On the other hand, Finnish librarians were keenly following the development in other countries. It was obvious that the way which was chosen e.g. in the Federal Republic of Germany, where the systems of individual libraries in most cases were incompatible, was not the way Finnish libraries wanted to choose. The 146 Thoughts in the library"