In the Hungarian library profession there has always been consensus about the need for the standardisation/unification of LIS terminology. In the past decades a number of mono- and multilingual dictionaries were compiled (most of them in the 70s and 80s). Hungarian professionals also contributed to several international initiatives (Vocabularium bibliothecarii ac supplementum Hungaricum, Terminologiceskij slovar' po informatike, Praktisches Woerterbuch fuer Bibliothekare etc.). The present projects in Hungary include both private initiatives (of LIS students and professionals) and the efforts to edit a shared electronic dictionary.
The Hungarian Library Institute (and its LIS Library with a rich collection of materials on library and information terminology in several languages) at the National Széchényi Library represented Hungary in the project. Our participation had been to a great extent motivated by the range of participants, i.e. the neighbouring countries whose situation is in many respects similar to ours, regarding their "isolated"or "small" languages and their infrequent inclusion in multilingual dictionaries.
The two translators relied on the following sources: the Vocabularium…, the Hungarian LIS thesaurus, the definitions of Hungarian standards, plus personal knowledge and expert advice. Their comments and suggestions can be summarised as follows: A major part of the work remains to be done to compile a dictionary ripe for publication. It would be reasonable to complement the present source material with terms from recent professional literature. The terms to be found in other dictionaries should be reduced to a minimum and be replaced by "living" terms. Translators (and users!) badly need context: the terms should therefore be ordered at least into broad subject categories.
Final abstract, August 31, 2000