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 has always treated Europe as a whole. It is inter- and multi-disciplinary, and its staff come from a wide rangé of different social science disciplines, and in addition have all been seconded from different institutions in different countries. The Vienna Centre is fully aware that bilateral cooperation is experiencing a generál boom, among others, fostered by the European Community, and that not much space may be lefl to multilateral cooperation. Especially in view of this, the Centre itself, its staff and the Board of Directors, and - as we understand many of the fiinding agencies, are in favour of supporting multilateral cooperation, however implemented within a changed organisational and programmatic scope. So the Vienna Centre still has a distinctive profilé in modem European research. It combines a number of features not yet found in many other organisations in Europe. Most are of course changing in the light of recent developments, and will no doubt continue to change in the Centre's direction. The role of a truly European Centre is more feasible than ever before. There are several statutory determinants of the Centre's role in the international social science community: — its essential relation is with the international social science community through the ISSC, UNESCO and the different National Funding Agencies (NFA-s); — its scope is Europe; — it is primarily a non-governmental organisation; — it is a multilateral organisation; — it is a facilitating organisation. The Vienna Centre is an autonomous body' of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), which means that the ISSC oversees its appointments and accounts. It was established by a UNESCO decision, and a number of projects are still directly supported by UNESCO. NFA-s contribute the major part of the Centre's budget, nominate members of the Board of Directors, and second scientific staff members, most paying the expenses of the former and the salaries and associated costs of the latter. These factors create the ffamework of the activities of the Vienna Centre by way of a "negotiated order': The Director and seconded staff members, the interests of the international organisations and the NFA-s, and the wishes of the Board of Directors are involved in a continuous process of negotiations which clarifies what the actual common denominators are and what the priorities for scientific work are or should be. In practice this framework was fiinctioning more or less effectively but at present the Centre is engaged in defining its new structural and organisational model, which is to be presented in its new Statutes to be adopted this November. The draft in its present form, apart from deleting the political issues of balanced „ Gondolatok a könyvtárban " 155