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 — that they must study the cultural context of the phenomenon they are studying. This they can do by analysing a given phenomenon in other cultural environments, for example in another country and another language. When repetitive sampling in different cultural settings produces similar outcomes, one can begin to discern a probabilistic pattern or predictable regularity in human behaviour. The central case for cross-national research is the observation and assessment of the cultural environment in which a particular phenomenon occurs. Such comparisons are often compared to controlled experiments in the natural sciences, and whilst they might not confer exactly the same statistical rigour on the investigation's results, they undoubtedly increase the validity of most research findings. Change as a general problem of methodology The current activities of the Centre represent a broad array of international scientific undertakings. This fact results in overloading the Centre's capacity and not allowing a more structured architecture. And as the mutual links among different types of activities are not sufficiently well developed, the potential synergic effects are not fully realised. The proposed activities have their origins in very different sources. This situation is recognised and this is one of the reasons for creating an improved strategy. The Centre should strive to place more emphasis on cross-national developments. Until now it has encouraged the analysis of the impact of science and technology on social life, but not the analysis of the social and cultural bases of such a development. To correct this bias, the Centre should pay more attention to the meaning of cultural and political differences in Europe. It should try to create better developmental models. In this respect the interdisciplinarity inherent in producing new developmental approaches in multi-level research could relatively quickly become one of the Centre's comparative advantages. It is not easy to define in a more concrete way the most appropriate subjects for the Centre's future activities, especially in the short term, because there are many intervening factors which could either catalyse or hinder each option selected . Unavoidably, the Centre will pay attention to studies aimed at the creation of new theories of all-European development, using all the experience gained hitherto, and being sensitive to new occurrences. At present many activities in the field of theory-building and methodology are geared to the analysis of social phenomena or social problems within different national contexts. Moving in the Gondolatok a könyvtárban " 159