In any fíeld, actors may cooperate at different levels, depending on the weight given to common activities in comparison with activities which remain proper.
The first step is to make partners aware of what one is doing, of the data he makes use of and of the results he attains. Beyond this mutual awareness is the possibility of an exchange, either of intellectual or of physical goods. Exchange is a process which generates benefit for both partners. If the relationship is asymmetrical, giving most benefit to one of the partners, exchange is replaced by help or assistance. Help may take the form of giving ideas or advice as well as giving money or materials. Cooperation may alsó go as far as working together in order to reach common goals.
188 „ Thoughts in the library "
Cooperation may be undertaken between people or institutions within the same country, or between different countries; it is then intemational, its possible forms being the same.
The field of social science information and documentation (SSID) may be defined by the matters it includes and the means with which one deals with them.
The matters are social science information, or more precisely carriers of infor-mation. Most widely used are written documents, among which traditional pub-lished documents keep an important place: journal articles, books, government reports, etc. Much information is alsó carried by non-commercially disseminated documents, pertaining to what is called grey literature: dissertations, research reports, business documents, etc. It is clearly more difficult to submit them to bibliographie control.
Knowledge not yet incorporated into published documents is alsó of great interest, specially when produced by ongoing research. Pertinent information may then be provided by published or unpublished documents. Frequently alsó their sources are oral, and are provided by the researchers themselves, or the institutions they are connected with.
More and more people interested in the social sciences demand information not yet incorporated into documents, but provided under the elementary form of data. These may be numerical or statistical, as are data on industrial or agricultural production, on demographic movements, on electoral returns. Others are factual, e.g. biographical data, chronological data or data on institutions. Most of these data, when they are preserved, are eventually collected and offered for use in directories, surveys, data banks. But firstly they have to be seized as early as possible after the moment they emerge from the social activity which produces them, and only then do they acquire an information value.
To deal with this information and data, information workers put into use means which are less specific to the social sciences, with the exception of somé methodo-logical tools. The documentary languages developed to represent information, either thesauri or classification schemes, are necessarily proper to each field of knowledge. But other tools, such as standards on documentation, software for computer processing, etc., are common to all fields of knowledge.
The same holds true for the infrastructures needed, such as equipment and furniture, computer hardware, communication and telecommunication networks.
Another essential element for an efficient processing is dependent on humán resources. People at work have to be qualified in documentary tasks; they alsó need good enough knowledge of the subjects to be covered, and here again a social science specificity is introduced.
Last but not least, ideas are the key to properly deal with information in any field. Ideas are the constituent elements of judicious planning and programming,
„ Gondolatok a könyvtárban "
prerequisites for a good information system. They are needed at each stage of the whole process, beginning with the knowledge of end users which is the departure point for a definition of the objectives to be aimed at.
In the field so delimited, international cooperation is much wanted, specially when social science information is not bound by political frontiers but is inter-national by its very nature. It has many opportunities to be put into effect. A first way is to exchange with foreign partners information about what is published, this secondary information being one preeminent part in SSID. Networks may be constituted, in which each node describes publications relevant to a specific interest in its own area and exchanges these records with each of the other nodes.
Such bibliographical networks may be as many as there are definite interests and areas in the world. One may even conceive, after many years and efforts, a global coverage of world literature which would establish a Universal Bibliographic Control, making available everywhere a record of any item published elsewhere.
Without waiting for this brilliant to-morrow, it is possible to-day to facilitate an overall circulation of the primary documents, and to take steps towards a Universal Availability of Publications. Availability at distant places may be en-sured by way of real exchange, or by loan, either free of charge or at a price.
Documents may be substituted by reproductions or by microcopies, modern tech-nology providing easy production in both cases. The same may apply to unpub-lished documents, provision being made for legal or regulatory limitations, and for the risks incurred when sending by mail a document which cannot be replaced if it is lost.
Data may be communicated more easily than documents, for physical reasons.
The availability of a number of diverse telecommunication networks opens the way to the transfer of data at any distance, as gift or exchange as well as sale -thus giving rise to the legal and economic problems of the so-called transborder data flow, which are matters of policy. Data transferred may be relevant to all aspects of societies and their economic or political activities, to people (including social scientists), to science and research (concluded or ongoing), to ideas, plans, projects, proposals. Many channels are open to communication; it depends on people to use them.
Travels also have been made easy, so that people may be physically agents of international cooperation. They may go abroad to exchange ideas, to give advice, to bring new technologies, to take part in some training exercises. They may as well receive foreign colleagues, interns or students. Mutually beneficial coopera-tion has an important role to play in the professional development of informacoopera-tion workers.
Cooperation is at its highest level when partners are able to plan and undertake joint actions in any of the fields of SSID. The availability of physical networks
makes possible, which does not mean easy, the establishment of information networks, bibliographical or other. Many other types of joint enterprises may be foreseen.