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

J. Meyriat many technical aspects of information processing. In spite of the efforts of the International Organization for Standardization to promote international standards, a number of national standards and specifications differ from each other. Methods of work also differ, as well as the legal and institutional framework. Linguistic barriers are also difficult to get over. They evidently impede direct oral communication between people; in order to efficiently participate in international cooperation, one has to master two or several languages. The difficulty is the same when documents of a textual nature are the object or the carriers of a cooperative endeavour. They may be translated, but translation is always costly and in the process some information is distorted or lost. In the case of numerical data, or of other data which may be coded according to an internationally accepted system, a transfer does not meet with the same obstacle; but even data coded under the form of digits have to be accompanied and explained by some textual caption. It has to be remembered that textual components occupy a wide place in social science information. Psychological barriers, which cannot be lowered by mechanical or technical means, are not overcome any more easily. They are met with at every step. Potential partners wotkin different environments, which generate different modes of thinking; problems apparently similar are not perceived in the same way. A professional used to routinely be assisted by sophisticated equipments has to make an effort to understand the situation of a colleague who simply has no money to acquire primary documents. One has to take account of the legal and regulatory framework: many problems are felt differently by people who live under a different legislation, for instance in matter of protection of privacy or of public access to administrative documents. Political environment obviously is of consequence: not only does it limit (or not) the freedom of exchange and communication, or give a privilege (or not) to the public sector vs. private enterprises, etc., but it also exerts an influence on the mentality of people. Nationalist or even chauvinist behaviours are sometimes the stumbling-block which induces the failure of a useful project. Such obstacles are more likely to appear in the social sciences where a political flavour is frequently present. A more commonplace circumstance is (hat cooperation, specially international cooperation, consumes time and energy, in addition to physical resources; and most people active in SSID are short of time and energy to only deal with their local or national duties - or they are convinced that they cannot spare time, with the same negative effects. Cooperation is a kind of investment: whatever the value of the expected return, many people are not disposed to invest - maybe more so in the social sciences, which seldom constitute a profit-making field. 192 Thoughts in the library "