Conception of the governmental information policy in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

In Czechoslovakia scientific and technical information has increasingly become part of the general leadership the government excercizes. The development of this type of information into an up-to-date system was based on extensive research work in 1967-70. This research project was one complex task included in the national research plan, and has produced significant results in such fields as theoretical informatics, system and specialization of special and research libraries, information handling, mechanized information systems and the related problems of professional manpower.
All this made it possible to start building up a national integrated scientific and technical information system between 1971 and 1975. In this context, further researches and operative measures to be taken are included in the five-year program of the state information policy. Showing the high rank of this program is the fact that it is one of the eighteen major programs of the state plan, determining the country's technological development.
The program is divided into four thematic groups: theoretical investigations; tasks relative to organisation and planning; professional training; development of multiplication and reprography techniques.
The nation-wide, integrated, and considerably automated systems of information is required to be built up so that it might be fitted into the information system of the individual COMECON countries, as well as into other International information systems and services (e.g. UNISIST).
The program, furthermore, starts integrating this type of information into other fields of communication, primarily into social, economic and planning information.