LIBER Conference, Budapest 1-4 July 1992

Abstract

Coping with change! - As known, this was the slogan of the 1992 Annual Meeting and General Assembly of the League of European Research Libraries, LIBER. The conterence, opened by József Antall, Prime Minister ot Hungary and patron of the meeting, was held in the National Széchényi Library, Budapest. Prior to the meeting, management problems of principal research libraries in the Central and East European region were discussed at a two-day workshop.
The present Journal, Scientific and Technical Information, in its issue No 10 of 1992, published two of the papers by Hungarian authors, those of Gy. Rózsa and B. Mader. Now, the papers of those authors are published here who submitted their manuscript to the editors. They were arranged to form a West European and an East European group of papers. It is interesting to note that, in both sides of Europe, information and library matters suffer the same basic problem: management under shrinking budget and financing conditions. The differences, of course, are associated with different levels of the available computer and telecommunication technologies as well as those in the social development of the two groups of countries representing a very significant factor.
The majority of papers are focussed on the adaptation of particular libraries to the more severe market-oriented conditions. More or less comprehensive papers were presented on the British Library by S. P. Green, on the Royal Library of Denmark by K. Krarup, on the University Library of Mainz by A. Anderhub. on the University Library of Göttingen by E. Mittler. and on the Slovak Technical Library of Bratislava by J. Kurak and M. Ehnová. There were some broad review papers, like Coping with change in European libraries by E. Hakli; Libraries in the former Socialist countries: A new situation by R. Davies; Towards 2000: A future for European research libraries by B. Moon; and some talks on theoretical issues, including Manage-riai decisions In the introductlon of library automation into a research library by A. Bossers: and problems of financing the culture in the case of libraries by M. Marschall.
A fairly unlque future image of libraries and library use can be deduced from the papers presented at the meeting. The number of those library users will continuously grow who will never appear in the library but the library will appear at their desks or laboratories with its electronic catalogues and databases and its document delivery services. In addition to restricted financial support, better informed users will force libraries to close cooperatlon and shared operations.