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

Comparative research in Europe: the Vienna Centre and member countries regarded the Centre as a symbol of cooperation. Even if it was linked to UNESCO in Paris, it was sited in the heart of Europe. The task it was given was to coordinate social science projects in Europe. Ostensibly, this task was the same as those of other régiónál UNESCO social science centres established during the same period. In the sixties, the social sciences were still far from being fully accepted in quite a few European countries, and their infrastructure was often weak. Under these cirfcumstances, intemational cooperation was seen as one way to strengthen national social science structures, advance methodology (and especially comparative research methods) and create intemational networks. As a part of this, documentation was seen as a way of supporting cooperation and the exchange of information. For UNESCO all these functions were necessary and urgent; they became the outward, visible tasks of the Vienna Centre. However, given the conditions - a completely divided Europe with competing political systems - there were additional roles which the Centre had to take on. For almost 30 years the Vienna Centre has contributed to a certain extent in shaping the ability of European social scientists to understand other nations and cultures. It has done so with greater influence than university-based centres and area studies programmes because joint projects of the Vienna Centre have been explicitly designed for multi-national and multi-disciplinary teams of high-quality specialists with good reputations in their disciplines. Obviously the results were sometimes dependent on political and ideological limits shaped by the Cold War, but the experience gained, even if a negatíve one, is valuable and could serve as a point of reference for future activities. The Vienna Centre was charged with maintaining East-West contacts in the social sciences, with building a bridge across a very deep intellectual gap. Of course, it could not react adequately to many of the pressing questions in Europe. Pressing questions are usually those considered most contentious, and, as cooperation was in contention itself, less controversial questions were deemed more acceptable for comparative research between Eastern and Western countries. This does not mean that the tasks selected as the subjects of the Centre's activities should be characterised as peripheral. On the contrary, the themes studied within the framework of intemational cooperation organised by the Centre have been lodged within central concems of the social science communities. They have been largely topicai ones but their elaboration, in terms of theoretical background, methodological equipment, and generalisability as well as explanatory power, has not been sufficiently developed on the transnational level but rather according to the standards of the individual nations. Of course, there have been serious obstacles to harmonising the different culturally and ideologically bounded national standards in order to achieve a new intemational quality. Even in the „ Gondolatok a könyvtárban " 151