Informatics-Based Support for Research and Education in the Field of
Contempory Studies

Zoltan Lux, Data Archive of the Institute for the History of the 1956
Hungarian Revolution, Budapest


I. Developments in informatics at the 1956 Institute The 1956 Institute
deals with research into Hungarian history since the Second World War,
with emphasis on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and its development,
subsequent effects and international aspects. Since its foundation in
1990, the institute has been amassing databases containing the documents
gathered and used in the researches or descriptions of these. This has
resulted, for instance, in a bibliographic database of books, articles and
films about the 1956 Revolution.

The 1956 Institute also holds an oral history archive of more than a
thousand life-span interviews. The subjects of about 500 of these took
part in the 1956 Revolution on one side or the other. These interviews
(the transcripts of which cover 1000-2000 typewritten pages in some cases)
have been used to compile a database of abstracts, which allows detailed
searches to be made for persons, events, institutions and places mentioned
in the interviews. Furthermore, it is possible to search from these
details back to the interviews in which they are mentioned.  More than
20,000 trials were held in Hungary during the reprisals that followed the
1956 Revolution. Exploring these trial documents is not simply important
to an understanding of the 1956 Revolution and the subsequent reprisals.
The database of those appearing in the trials is an essential resource for
researchers into contemporary history and sociology in general. The 1956
Institute has been continually engaged for several years in compiling a
database of these trials and those who appeared in them, in conjunction
with several partner institutions, mainly libraries.  The databases were
built on a Hungarian-developed, network, free-text database-handling
programme called TEXTAR. However, this was not capable of storing the full
text of lengthier documents or multimedia documents, for example. In 1996,
work began on transferring the databases to an ORACLE-based handling
system. The new platform, apart of receiving the old databases, allowed
new functions to be incorporated that the old system would not have
supported (e.g. storage of complete texts and multimedia documents). The
range of document types for database inclusion was expanded (to include
audio-visual documents). The several separate databases were merged into a
single database and the parallel records (of persons, institutions, etc.)
were combined.

The 1956 Institute does not aspire to become a vast virtual data archive.
As a research centre dealing with contemporary Hungarian history and its
international context, it is primarily a data producer, gathering data
during its researches. The primary purpose behind this data gathering is
to provide information of use to the Institute in its researchers' work
and its publishing activity (books and web pages alike), and in
instruction and public education. This need not be in a direct way. The
Institute is also seeking opportunities to cooperate with larger virtual
data archives.

II. After briefly introducing the 1956 Institute, the lecture turns to the
following problems in the process of data compilation and provision.  -
Researchers and databases. The problem of sharing individually possessed
information. Disposal and control over information. Do researchers have a
personal stake in sharing (or not sharing) information?  - The scope for
automatic gathering of information important to researchers and the
practice in this respect. Identification of authentic sources of data.  -
Compiling digital publications-much more difficult without databases.  -
Multimedia databases-the foundations.  - The costs of operating and
expanding databases. How the Institute can finance the costs of keeping
pace with the revolutionary development in informatics.  - Data-structure,
communicational and software standards (absence of these).


III. There will be a presentation of a public section of the 1956 Institute
database (chronology, photo documentation, Romanian historical documents,
trial data archive) utilized by researchers and accessible on the web:
www.rev.hu. Also presented will be an internet and CD-ROM publication
based on the databases.


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Lux has worked at the Szabó Ervin Metropolitan Library's Informatics
Department as a systems-organizer and participated in the planning and
development of an integrated library computer program.  From 1997 he was
director of the databank of the Documentation and Research Institute of
the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and from 1998 he has been managing director
of the 1956 Research and Publishing Company.