AZ ORSZÁGOS SZÉCHÉNYI KÖNYVTÁR ÉVKÖNYVE 1971-1972. Budapest (1973)

II. Nemzetközi könyvtári élet - Gombocz István: Az IFLA Nemzetközi Kiadványcsere Bizottságának 40 éves működése - Forty Years of the IFLA Committee on the International Exchange of Publications

of official pulications and dissertations. It was during his term —in connection with the reorganization of IFLA— that the Sub-Committee was transformed into a Committee. KÉSSEN emphasized, that the Committee should do more than simply registrating, it should influence further development. The year 1955 represented an important step forward: the Committee finally abandoned the narrow scope of university dissertations and assumed responsibility for all kinds of publications. (Cf. the report of Madame S. HONOKÉ on official publications and J. DARGENT'S authoritative study on the role and cultural-political significance of exchange.) From the middle of the 1950s, on the initiative of UNESCO, the concept of a more centralized organization began to gain ground, but KÉSSEN was reluctant to embrace it whole-heartedly. The next chapter deals with the activities of the period 1959-1969. At the 1959 Warsaw committee-meeting already KESSEN'S successor, J. DARGENT took the chair. The next stages were the meetings of the experts in Malmö (1960) and in Budapest in the same year. The necessity of establishing centres for the exchange of duplicate copies and the importance of the role of bibliographies was pointed out on these occasions. For the 1963 Sofia meeting J. DARGENT worked out her proposals to be integrated into the Long Term Program of IFLA. The editors of the Long Term Program took up only one or two items from the many proposals, mainly on the evaluation of the role of exchange. The 1964 Rome meeting brought a change in organization: the Committee was divided and the Sub-Committee on the Exchange of Official Publications was formed. There were personal changes at the 1966 meeting held in The Hague: S. HONOKÉ was elected Chairman and I. GOMBOCZ became Secretary together with Madame M. SCHILTMAN. At the IFLA Conference of Copenhagen (1969) I. GOMBOCZ submitted an interim report on the economic aspects of the international exchange of publi cations. There were other changes, too

: I. GOMBOCZ was elected Chairman to succeed Madame HONOKÉ, and the Sub-Committee on Official Publications was transformed into a Committee, once more taking into its hand the cause of the Union Catalogue of African official publications. The work of the last years (1969-1973) are naturally not discussed in details, the author only refers to the achievements of the conferences held in Moscow, Liverpool and Budapest. Finally he surveys the results and draws the conclusions, specifically mentioning — the provisions for obtaining material for exchange, — the questions of organizing international exchange, — the theory and history of exchange and the problems connected with it. 105.