Web portal for libraries of settlements

Municipality as service provider - this is one of the key ideas of information society: its creation is determined as a fundamental aim in the National Information Strategy. Municipality as service provider - alongside with information concerning its own operation - must provide wide accessability to the local and the national level of - among other things - culture, education, arts and other useful information.

The main provider of information in an information society is the public library system which guarantees free access to information as civil right.

The end points of the library system, that is the libraries of settlements, do not exploit this possibility at the moment. Due to the lack of infrastructure and the necessary system of equipment, libraries of settlements are not yet capable of transmitting electronically the information treasures of local and higher levels to the people living there.

This situation calls for research and essential developments

Research is necessary because we do not have an exact picture - based on the elaboration of real needs - of the goods that people would like to access electronically. Development should provide applicable solutions necessary to satisfy the public's needs.

The consortium hereby applying will undertake the following:

It will carry out a survey to find out the information needs of those living in (small) settlements.
The information R&D activity aims at determining the most modern Web technology that may help to create a Web portal highly adapted to the special needs of libraries of small settlements. For those living in small settlements, this portal will ensure access to settlement-specific information and the continuous updating of this information. In short: we wish to fill the somewhat abstract slogan - "digital library - at everybody's service" with real content, based on real needs.
The portal - besides the accessability of traditional library functions - will be there to satisfy all the information needs that may be supported electronically and belong to profile of the library. It will be open towards all information systems already in existence or to be developed later or at the same time - whether these systems are concerned with agriculture, health, education, municipalities etc. - and it will build on its own development results (e.g. access to on-line library catalogues), in order to create a "well-informed" country where citizens have access to information.
The portal also contains a target-oriented distant teaching program which will help leaders and employees of libraries of small settlements to learn the use of the portal, that is the technique of providing information on the basis of Web technology and due to the nature of distance teaching, this learning process will take place in a cost-effective way, independent of space and time. The results of this activity are a study and a detailed system plan.
Thanks to a government grant - "Program for the Development of Information Society and Economy" - 169 libraries of settlements were given access to Internet via a national network in 2001. However, content development and user formation do not follow quickly enough in the footsteps of technical conditions. The consortium hereby applying undertakes to realise the Web portal of libraries of settlements based on the system plan and to gurantee it - in the framework of this grant - for all the 169 libraries. In the future, further users may join the created service without limitation.

Participants: MTA SZTAKI - ITAK; Országos Széchenyi Könyvtár; Volf György Library, Törökbálint