Training cources for university students in library orientation and literature search at Hungarian technical universities

Abstract

The article gives an account of the authors' paper read at the Loughborough Conference of IATUL (International Association of Technological University Libraries), and also of the related discussion. An English language preprint was also prepared, giving a full account of the subject. This article, containing the oral part of the authors' paper, tends to emphasize the theoretical aspects of the subject, and responds to some of the problems expounded by other participants either in the form of a paper or a preprint.
The authors start out from the conception that library work is traditionally considered as having three basic factors: the holdings, the librarian, and the reader - or broadly speaking: the user. While earlier the importance of the holdings used to be emphasized, our present-day position is to place the user in the centre of library work. To describe a certain library, it is no longer sufficient to supply data on the holdings, but it is essential to give the fullest possible information about its users and the number of volumes used.
It is highly advisable, therefore, to educate the users for the reasonable orientation in libraries. The use of scientific libraries and of technical literature is not an the in itself, but forms an integral part, means and method of any scientific activity. This is the underlying philosophy behind the training of students in library orientation and literature search at Hungarian technical universities
The training of users takes place at two levels in accordance with the students' actual studies and the related demands on technical literature.
At the first level, at the beginning of their university studies students are given information on the neccesity and importance of library use and its role in the system of advanced studies. This course is part of a series of lectures aimed at introducing the students in university life. At the Technical University Budapest, having the largest student body, this takes the form of a one-hour lecture in each faculty, and students are also given a printed instruction on the essentials of library use. At the two other technical universities with a smaller student body, freshmen are given on-the-spot-training in library use on the occasion of a guided tour in the campus.
The second level of training students is part of more advanced studies (in the third or fifth year of studies) and deals with the problems of literature search. This subject was prescribed as compulsory for the technical and economic universities by order of the Minister of Education.
To comply with this order, three Hungarian technical universities included 6 to 10 hour courses, theoretical and practical, in their curricula. Practical training is closely linked to the students' actual research work, or mostly to their "diploma work", a fact particularly important as regards the maximum concentration of attention. The effectiveness of training in literature search is remarkably promoted by such aids ae manuals, handbooks written and published in accordance with the particular characteristics of each faculty. Besides giving theoretical and practical instruction, these handbooks also contain a rich bibliography on the basic sources of the given branch of science. By several examples, the authors illustrate the established forms and patterns of training in literature search. In minor faculties training is one of the core (compulsory) studies, while in major faculties, it is only optional due to the inadequate number of library staff engaged in education.
With reference to one of the lectures held at the Conference, the authors outline the educational and professional background, as well as the language proficiency of the members of the Literature Search Training Section of the Central Library of the Technical University Budapest. It is to be noted that the staff engaged in education has to meet rather high requirements.
By way of conclusion, the authors point out that technical university libraries must actively contribute to developing the new type of students, being highly proficient in literature search, and that this task has to be solved in close co-operation with the faculty members of universities. They also express the demand that these university libraries must be raised to the level of other departments of their respective university.
At last the authors' comments on ths discussion are concerned with such problems as the instruction of foreign languages in Hungary, the national system of translations, the acquisition of foreign technical literature, the implementation of compulsory training of users, etc.