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Human thinking is mostly language-independent. However, human information exchange is massively language dependent, therefore the process of information retrieval is obviously language dependent too. Natural languages are still not commonly used as information retrieval languages, as despite that the idea itself seems to be promising, it poses several serious problems as well. Nevertheless, there have been scientific researches and achievements targeting this domain since the early 90's. Traditional information retrieval languages have rather poor syntactic structure compared to natural languages. Many times, vaguely represented queries can be replied only by „noisy‟ irrelevant answers filled with imperfect information. In this case, progress can only be expected from information retrieval languages with more versatile syntax, which can model not only discrete concepts (or their conjuncts), but their natural language relations as well. The paper is going to outline such a new type of information retrieval language with a better expressive power. The paper shows that there are knowledge representation languages which can faithfully represent the logical fine structure of natural languages, and to which both natural language texts and background knowledge (ontologies, thesauri) can easily (almost automatically) be translated, while the query itself can also be represented by .the same language. A full explanation can be given by a step-by-step tracing of the generated answer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To meet the requirement of the universal availability of publications, having finished the retrospective conversion of catalogues in various libraries with national responsibilities and in county libraries, the time has come to continue this work in smaller special collections as well. The paper wishes to compare the work processes and results of two recent large projects. Each project applied an automatic solution for retrocon-version, but the approaches were completely different. One of the projects - in the Library of the Hungarian Museum for Military History - processed more than 20,000 catalogue cards, while the other one - at the Library of the Hungarian Dance Academy-covered 16,000 cards. The method of retrocon vers ion was completely different with the two projects. In the first case, each entry in the online catalogue originated in printed catalogue cards. In the other case the records were downloaded from a shared catalogue system after they had been retrieved using certain data elements detected in the scanned text of catalogue cards, and the entries were completed with local data. In the first case the segmentation of data and data groups was carried out after the migration of data strings, based on punctuation, as available from a database using the Huntéka ILS DBMS software. In the other case the scanning and text analysis of cards was done only to obtain some identifying units for the retrieval of bibliographic records. The database of cards having been scanned and segmented based on punctuation needed naturally more operative work in the second part of the project as compared to the database built of downloaded records, especially because of the big amount of non-identifiable authority records. The article gives an overview for both projects of the considerations which have led to using the methods chosen, indicates the problems that occurred during the project, presents the costs of both solutions, and finally, tries to conclude general lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper outlines the concept of a nation-wide ICT infrastructure system available for all citizens, allowing symmetric and broadband electronic access and communication. The setting up of the public infrastructure should be driven by the Hungarian state, in order to balance the shortcomings of the information market and ensure that the objective of equal opportunities in accessing and using digital information is fulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research guides represent an important element of the web-based content services offered by academic libraries worldwide. They aim to support library users in getting familiar with professional literature and scientific information sources as well as in making successful searches. The author, working at Library of the Faculties of Law and Economics of the University of Pécs set up a research guide in the field of economics, adapting the service model to local conditions and needs. This paper presents the structure and the content of research guides, describes how such a service can be set up and gives an outline for further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contradiction between the theoretically unlimited access to information and the efficiency of information searching has been pressing researchers and IT professionals to enhance the collaboration of computers and human workforce in the processes of information and knowledge acquisition. The importance attached to information retrieval methods has expanded beyond the library environment, resulting in the increasing respect of the professional background of traditional information retrieval languages and in the utilization of their theoretical principles even by business organisations. Having set the objective of the quick and comprehensive searching of portal and webpage contents, the professionals engaged in the development of the so-called semantic or intelligent web are working towards the creation of a web-based open and distributed system, that aims to apply standard descriptive languages to the online information sources, and will reach its full potential when the automatic distribution of data becomes possible. New programs and methods are being developed with the collaboration of software engineers, and the milestones of the progress are reported on by VV3C working groups. The coordinated and computer-based development of various traditional and automatic cataloguing languages demonstrates remarkable achievements, however, automatic solutions are only provided by a few softwares. As far as computer-based classification tools are concerned, a group of experts in the theoretical issues of information sciences regard taxonomies and related tools as an easily adoptable classification system (a controlled vocabulary with a low level of hierarchy) that can be generated relatively quickly. Thus this paper primarily concentrates on taxonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]