Mechanization of the Current Awareness Information Service of the Hungarian Central Technical Library and Documentation Centre (OMKDK)

Abstract

Based on the abstracting service of the OMKDK, the Current Awareness Information Service (CAIS) established in 1955, is providing continuous selective information in the form of abstracts from the broadest available literature basis so that each subscriber receives differentiated information relevant only to his particular needs. The system ie remarkably flexible and adjusts itself easily to the alterations of the subscribers' requirements. Though not mechanized yet, the CAIS may well be regarded as a precursor of the computer-based systems for Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) first developed in the late fifties. In the first half-year of 1967, the total monthly output of the CAIS amounted to 160.000 items correlating with the multiple subscriptions to 1486 subjects.
Considering the actual state-of-art in mechanized literature processing human intellectual activities seem to be indispeneable in some working processes of the CAIS (e.g. selection and abstracting of literature, proof reading etc.). Partial mechanization based on computers may be applied to the following working processes:
Preparation of an intellectual control device - i.g. a KWOC-index, registering each particular subject according to all possible descriptors in order to facilitate the collation of the already followed-up subjects with the newly submitted ones:
Producing classified lists of the subjects according to the various fields of technical sciences,
Print-out of information sheets for the CAIS;
Processing of statistical data concerning the CAIS;
Accounting and bookkeeping.