STUDIES
Vitalising metadata culture: TOCs of the journal Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények in the Hungarian Electronic Periodicals Archive and Database
DUDÁS Anikó
Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények (ItK, Bulletin for Literary History) is one of the oldest scholarly journals in its field in Hungary. It has been published by the Institute of Literary Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 1891. The bulletin’s issues between 1891 and 2003 have been recently digitised and are now publicly available in the Electronic Periodicals Archive and Database (EPA), the e-content service of periodicals at the Hungarian National Library. EPA provides tables of contents for individual issues in XML format with the aim to improve browsing, visibility, searchability and accessibility of articles; it co-operates with some Hungarian databases in exchanging and reusing metadata. The article reports on how the students of arts and of LIS at three faculties of humanities in Hungary (at the University of Szeged, the Western Transdanubian University and the Pázmány Péter Catholic University) were involved – as a pilot – in preparing TOCs for the digitised issues of ItK as part of their practical training. The related courses for students provided a special opportunity to gain knowledge about metadata, digitisation, proof-reading of texts; to obtain skills in processing metadata, to practise philological accuracy, to get acquainted with content services and one of the most important Hungarian scholarly core journals in the humanities.
FerSML supporter avatar files in the library
BÁTFAI Norbert – BÁTFAI Mária
In this short communication the authors investigate implementation issues of a supporter avatar database on the FerSML (Footballer and Football Simulation Markup Language) platform. These supporter avatar files are small XML files that describe soccer teams and coaches from the point of view of supporters. Supporter avatar collections manage avatars created by supporters. From another perspective, the data provided by supporters make up a sort of football bibliography. In the present work some ways to achieve this goal are considered. In addition, the authors suggest publishing supporter avatars as linked open data on the semantic web.
Old UDC – new UDC
MÁNDY Gábor
The author analyses the deficiencies of the old UDC (pre-coordination, subject heading nature, mixed content, sophisticated analogies, special subdivisions, missing notations, difficult UDC language) from the point of a practising subject cataloguer. Further, he illustrates the major changes appearing in the new edition with examples. He draws on a rich collection of examples when illustrating in which fields the new UCD performs better and in which it became more difficult to use. He makes a proposal for establishing an organic connection between bibliographic description and subject cataloguing, as well as for introducing full post-coordination in order to facilitate use. Finally, he gives ideas on how to introduce the new UDC in Hungarian libraries. (Old UDC in this article means the abridged Hungarian edition prepared in 1990 based on the 1989 edition of UDC, used by most Hungarian libraries even today, while new UDC means the Hungarian translation based on UDC Publ. No. P057.)
Some remarks on Gábor Mándy’s study (by Mária Prok-Palik and Rudolf Ungváry)
According to Mária Prok-Palik computerised databases offer an opportunity to search for parts of compound notations with an independent meaning. She proposes to create an authority file in order to manage notations unanimously.
Rudolf Ungváry finds Mándy’s approach to the subject mistaken, because he mixes up the issues related to the system and its usage; it is not UDC’s task to enable searching by sub-divisions or elements of the system, as Mándy espects. It has not been mentioned that the new Hungarian edition lacks a detailed elaboration of literature and history with national details. The full Hungarian edition of UDC should be digitised and various editions should be regularly managed.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Planning a modern bibliography of periodicals
VASS Johanna
The study describes the retrospective bibliographic activities at the Department of Press History of the National Széchényi Library. The works rely on a plan (2006) under the title „A bibliographic database of newspapers and journals having appeared on the territory of Hungary or anywhere in Hungarian, in the period 1705-1985”. Professional works with periodicals require more time and effort than usual in libraries, because this material type is of rather varied nature, and the changes in cataloguing standards may cause confusion. The study presents the difficulties faced by editors, the lessons learned and the experience to be shared with the profession. The author summarises how to make plans corresponding to today’s library environment – concerning database planning or selecting a data exchange standard – as well as the dilemmas related to bibliographic description. The annex includes examples illustrating various solutions for a full description.
Clarifying issues of press history during re-cataloguing
KÜRTI Afrodité
The author illustrates the importance of autopsy with the example of three foreign journals (Neues ungri¬sches Magazin, Der Rothmantel and Wegweiser und Anzeigeblatt) from the re-cataloguing practice of the National Széchényi Library. She notes that a bibliographic entry may change due to a different approach to processing or due to becoming aware of or utilising new facts. Repeated autopsy may often bring new results as well. The outcomes of re-cataloguing: in case of the journal mentioned as first the full life cycle of the journal could be identified having ascertained the contradictions of earlier bibliographies; in case of the second one the place of publishing could be clarified; in the third case new holdings data have been discovered.
FROM ABROAD
New generations, new media, new literacy
KOLTAY Tibor
The habits of the new generation regarding learning, library and media use are different from those of the earlier one. The study investigates how big is the divide between those born in and after the 90s (“digital natives” having grown up in a digital environment) and the older generation (“digital immigrants” who have, on the other hand, developed the relevant technologies), and also the reality of extreme statements about digital natives.
According to surveys in Hungary one needs to be more circumspect. The younger generation uses computers intensively, they download films and music, establish connections, are active on social sites. The majority of young people are actually more passive than presumed (e.g. a few of them do editing work or create own content). When they look for information, they do it as simple as possible, they spend little time on reading the information found, make decisions based on little information, and do not check data. Some of them, however, resist the challenges of new technologies and do not use Web 2.0 solutions on principle. Further, the author analyses the role of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 in forming information culture and digital literacy. He finds it important that also literacies relying on erudition be preserved.
Measuring, ranking and benchmarking in public libraries: experiments and outcomes (based on American and European examples)
SOMOGYI József
The tool used in the US for library performance measurement and benchmarking is the HAPLR index (Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings) and the Library Journal (LJ) Index of Public Library Service. The BIX index in Germany fulfils a similar role, while in Great Britain libraries are qualified by the reports of the Audit Commission. The Hennen index rates libraries based on broad population categories, while the LJ index relies on total operating expenditures. The author presents in detail the measures used by these two indexes as well as their calculation methods, and summarises the discussions about their usability. The German BIX index is based on voluntary data provision and its structure is also apt for diachronous investigations. This index weights according to the importance of individual indicators for users. The logic of performance measurement in Britain is different from that in the US. In Britain it is a duty of the government to have measurements carried out; the aim being not to rank institutions but to carry out unique investigations – this is why the measures have been developed into standards which serve as patterns.
In the author’s view from among the available comparative statistics the most efficient one is the HAPLR index.
BOOK REVIEWS
Reading, culture and publishing in the Age of Enlightenment and the Vormärz in Hungary
FÜLÖP Géza: Olvasás, kultúra és könyvkiadás Magyarországon a felvilágosodás idején és a reformkorban, 1772–1848. (Budapest : Hatágú Síp, 2010. 249 p.)
(Reviewed by György Pogány)
Two studies on research into reading
Az olvasás védelmében. Olvasáskutatási tanulmányok. Szerk. Szávai Ilona. (Budapest : Pont, 2010. 185 p.); Az olvasáskultúra fejlesztése. Koncepciók, programok és kampányok. (Budapest : Könyvtári Intézet, 2009. 143 p.)
(Reviewed by Anna Stumpf Benedek)
The history of the Hungarian Pedagogical Library and Museum
DROPPÁNNÉ DEBRECZENI Éva: Az Országos Pedagógiai Könyvtár és Múzeum története, különös tekintettel a könyvtári gyűjtemény alakulására. 1. köt. 1877–1933. 2003. 145 p. (2. jav. kiad. 2005. 147 p.), 2. köt. 1958–1990. (2010. 526 p.)
(Reviewed by Lajos Murányi)