Abstracts – 4/2000

Why isn’t it, if there is…? Outdated library image and lacking terminology in the copyright act
 
Pallósiné Toldi Márta

The study gives an analysis of the copyright law of 1999 from the point of view of the digital culture in library practice. Since definitions are not included in the law, enumerations (cases, types) are meant to enhance the interpretation, however, the law is not unambiguous even in this form. The copyright workgroup of the Association of Hungarian Librarians and the Alliance of Libraries and Information Institutes has compiled a material for discussion on those parts of the law which are most difficult to explain. Legal regulations, as a matter of fact, have to protect intellectual works, and the rights of authors on the one hand, but they also have to make access easy in the case of free-use material for the sake of the whole community on the other.
The material rights of the author can be limited in the case of free use (i.e. free services), if the law has regulations concerning this. However, owners of related rights represent the interest of the market, and fees are the means of meeting these interests. The concept of „use” (multiplication, distribution, public performance, broadcasting for the public, etc.) is therefore the key issue of the law. Copying and recording on some physical medium are mentioned as multiplication in the law. However, on the basis of the law is impossible to clearly state whether electronic media are considered as independent physical media to be treated in the same way. The concept of public performance was broadened by displaying the piece on the screen, considering all types of transmission as broadcasting. The definition of the electronic data file is also missing, thus it is impossible to say for sure what kinds of databases belong here. There are problems with the interpretation of interactive uses. If libraries have to cover copyright fees for digital services from their budget, then a part of the public collections will not be able to raise the sums. If they have to make their users pay, the function of prividing equal opportunities in libraries will be hurt.

It is the interest of librarians to keep digital services in the sphere of free-use for libraries.
New forms, subjects and uses of electronic grey literature
 
DOBÓ Katalin

The older definitions of grey literature all shared some features, namely that grey literature is difficult to access and stays outside the commercial network of publishing and distribution. Mainly documents issued by governments and scientific institutes belonged to this category. Thanks to national and international regulations, the bibliographic control of these documents is not hopeless anymore. Well-organised document supply systems and centres have come into being (e.g. BLDSC, INIST, NTIS, etc.). The problem is not availability, but how one learns about these sources. The databases of grey literature are organised within a discipline or a broader field, e.g. GL Compendium for the grey literature of economy and business, ERIC for that of education and pedagogy, etc. According to a 1993 estimation, the quantity of grey literature is 3 or 4 times that of traditional literature. The genres and the contents of grey documents varies to a great extent according to the intentions of the publishers. An Italian survey of grey literature put on and cited on the webservers of research institutes (D. Luzi) has shown that 61% of the institutes have published grey literature, and meanwhile cited the grey literature and sources prepared by the institute. Technical reports and conference proceedings got the most citations. Researchers are more and more ready to rely on electronically available information, grey literature, as opposed to unaffordable journals or books. Academic institutions make their grey publications available free of charge or at very reasonable prices. The majority of grey literature issued by governments is also available free, and an increasing portion of this literature appears on the Internet for free use.

Grey literature on the internet. The European SIGLE project and database

SALGÁNÉ MEDVECZKI Marianna

Grey literature is an innovative form of scientific communication including significant data on researches, their results, new processes, etc. The EU has established EAGLE (European Association for Grey Literature Exploitation) in order to manage the SIGLE (System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe) project the aim of which is to process European scientific grey literature in the fields of social and natural sciences, applied sciences, medicine, technology and economy. The programme started in 1980 and its most important achievement was an English language multidisciplinary database to which 15 countries contribute.
Member states are represented by their national centres which are responsible for the collection of grey literature published in the given country, and the database is available through them. The SIGLE database contained 685 thousand bibliographic records at the end of 2000. Economy and natural sciences have the most records. From the genre point of view, research and technical reports, PhD dissertations, theses, conference papers, and materials for discussions constitute the database. Half of the records come from the London centre. The database has the national database of German grey literature (FTN) under its umbrella, too. National centres provide input records with a standardised structure. Each record contains the bibliographic data of the original document: title (in English and/or the original language), authorship, research institute or academic institution, date of publication, type of document, pages, language of the document. The system uses alphanumeric subject codes for subject processing. The database can be accessed online through Blaise or STN International from the EU member states.

The documents that are included in the database are available through the national centres as well. In Hungary the Central Library of the Budapest Technical University is the national centre, but they submit records of technical dissertations defended there only.

 
Grey Literature – text structures based on communication models

BAKONYI Géza

The existence of grey literature can be looked upon as a communication process that goes on between the corporate author and the user. The study considers grey literature as a text, a message, and relates its reading to the prevalence of extensive genres, the strengthening of reading without buying books, and the occurrence of electronic texts. Grey literature is processed in meta-databases. Readers’ needs and the special features of grey literature have to be emphasized in the organisation of meta-databases (e.g. the interactivity of the reader and the availability of the texts, etc. has to be ensured). The framework of the description of various types of documents is the MARC format, and Dublin Core and XML-based technology offer themselves as new methods. Metadata has to be defined together with the qualifiers supplementing, or sophisticating the metadata, and the groups of data. Data processing systems need alterations due to the questions and answers raised in connection with the processing of grey literature. In the future traditional document-centred processing must be followed by user (reader) focused processing. Databases, containing any source of information, will be created, making universal availability of information possible.

An outline of local history activities in Hungary

BÉNYEI Miklós

The article surveys the main periods of local history activities in Hungary. In the 18th century knowledge of the dwelling place was already a part of primary education. Studies about the native land and the dwelling place remained curriculum requirements. The development of the bourgeois has given great impetus to local history research, and to the conscious gathering of documents of local interest. The collected documents were stored in the library departments of museums or in archives. The first special collection of local studies was established in Budapest, at the Metropolitan Library. It was them who introduced the collection of press clippings. After the Trianon treaty (1920) increased political attention was focused on the remaining and lost parts of the country, and local history/local study researches and bibliographic activities were also subsidised by the state. Systematic collection development characterised only one or two town libraries, the university library of Pécs, and Gyor besides the Budapest Collection. The school system kept on motivating the search for local values in schools. Where town libraries did not assume these tasks, school and secondary school libraries played this role. In World War II. the majority of the collections have been destroyed, and the new schools did not consider collection their duty. The new period started in the fifties. The Budapest Collection, having become a department of the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library, became the methodological centre of this field, aiding the development of the local history work of other libraries. In the sixties the local study movement had its revival, local history writing had got more vivid, and county libraries were compelled to follow local study work upon a departmental decree. Bibliographies were compiled, methodological guidelines were issued, annual meetings were organised in the field of local history dealing with theoretical issues of collection development, processing, bibliographic work, databank compilation, etc. The enthusiasm in local studies decreased in the eighties, and the work started to develop again only in the new circumstances brought about in the 1990s. In 1994 the organisation of local history librarians was established within the Association of Hungarian Librarians in order to join those involved in this work. The cultural law of 1997 has reinforced that the collection of local history information and documents belongs to the basic tasks of county libraries.

 

A database of the sound documents of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the integrated system of the National Széchényi Library

BÁNFI Szilvia

The establishment of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) was justified by international political relations following World War II. The experimental Hungarian broadcast started in 1950 in New York, and in 1951 Munich became the European centre of RFE/RL that had mediated the opinion of those living in emigration until it ceased to work in 1993. After its closing down a copy of the documents of the Hungarian board was given to the National Széchényi Library, while the material of the Research Institute of RFE/RL was donated to the Open Society Foundation (Central European University). The original documents are stored at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, California. It was a part of the contract that RFE/RL documents have to be processed in a database and made available for the public. Processing takes place in the integrated system of the NSzL (AMICUS) having developed the standards of describing these documents. An analysis of the material already processed (1394 broadcasts) shows that the majority of the copied programmes are from the 1990s, and there are much less from the period of the political change. Considering the types of programmes it was found that informative programmes were preserved mainly. Since documents regarding the activity of RFE/RL can also be found in other Hungarian institutions beside the NSzL, a virtual RFE/RL archive could be established for RFE/RL documents.

Hungarian reading culture over the borders. Review
 
KATSÁNYI Sándor

A summary of the results of research into the reading culture Hungarians living over the borders. The reading culture of Hungarians living outside Hungary can be characterised by their attachment to Hungarian literacy on the one hand, and by multiculturalism on the other. About one tenth of the Hungarian population read more and more frequently in the language of the state they are living in than in Hungarian. So far as the content of their reading is concerned, strong binds with the Hungarian culture can also be felt, and the sources of reading matter are family book collections and loans from friends. Visits to libraries are less important. The frequency of reading is similar to that of Hungary in Transylvania and Southern Slovakia, while in the Sub-Carpathian region and in the countries that once belonged to Yugoslavia reading frequency is less. Readings with high literary value are overwhelming in the regions outside Hungary, and fewer modern pieces are read It was found that minorities were culturally more active if they had a conscious national identity.

 

 

Kategória: 2000. 4. szám | A közvetlen link.

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