[10] Books Have Their Own Fate In Memoriam of Dr. Akos R. Herman by John Horvath h8801joh@helka.iif.hu In late February 2002, Dr. Akos R. Herman, formerly the director of the National Technical Information Centre and Library in Budapest (OMIKK), died from cancer. Like so many needless and premature deaths in this tiny Central European country, his case had been diagnosed as less severe than it actually was. Yet the importance of Dr. Herman's untimely death was not as another shameful statistic of a country that has medical care and life expectancy comparable to the advanced countries of the Third World. Rather, he was yet another example of a legion of unknown pioneers who describe themselves as a citizen of the Internet, or to use the late Michael Hauben's term, a "netizen", that is, a net citizen. Unlike most hailed as pioneers of the "information society", Akos Herman wasn't a celebrity figure like Jon Postel, Tim Berners-Lee, or Richard Stallman. Nor was his contribution of a technical nature. Yet his work was equally as important. The OMIKK was a library that served the entire Hungarian community and was traditionally in the forefront of progress. A state owned institution founded in 1883, it was open to people and organizations, including small and medium sized enterprises, both as a special interest institution and as a public library in the fields of science, technology and economy. The OMIKK was one of the biggest of its kind in Hungary, with a holding of one million and a half books, serials and other documents. During the Cold War years, the OMIKK was the first public and for a long time the only institution of its kind in the whole of the Eastern Bloc which had subscriptions to western science and technology databases. It had the biggest collection of CD-ROM databases (more than one hundred) and the most subscriptions to journals including electronic ones in Hungary (more than six thousand). Unfortunately, like all public institutions around the world especially since the fall of communism and the advent of "freedom and democracy" the library soon came face to face with a funding crisis. As Dr. Herman himself noted, "one element of the library crisis in the whole world is that in the best cases, budgets are flat while there is the more or less exponentially growing number of publications, the inflation in prices making an ever growing tension. So we had a money shortage for acquisition." This crisis permeated all public institutions, affecting even the very core of the emerging "information society" in Hungary. The Hungarian Computer and Automation Research Institute (SZTAKI), which was in control of the information backbone within the country, had to come up with innovative ideas and practices just to survive. It was not an easy task. Despite this uphill battle, Dr. Herman did his best to keep the OMIKK alive. In doing so, he forged a relationship that attempted to integrate "eastern" and "western" thought on the role of computer mediated communications. In May of 1999, after searching for information on the renown Hungarian mathematician John G. Kemeny, he found the book "Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net" that had been put on-line in 1994, as well as an article by Ronda Hauben that mentioned Kemeny but only briefly. He subsequently wrote to her about how not enough attention was properly given to the work of Kemeny. She then forwarded this e-mail to her husband, Jay Hauben, who had written a biography of Kemeny when he had died in 1990. He promptly answered Herman with a copy of the biography. This exchange led to a lasting personal and professional relationship between the Haubens and Herman that helped open the door on research into the development of science and technology during the Cold War era. Dr. Herman was a pivotal figure of sorts in this area. He studied engineering (the metallurgy of non ferrous metals) in Moscow during the mid 1950s, when science and technology became a focal point in policy on both sides of the Iron Curtain. When asked why he thought there was such public support for science, he said that people so hated war that they wanted to support whatever gave a chance of helping to prevent one from happening. Akos Herman also proved to be a wealth of information on numerous Hungarian scientists. In particular he emphasised the work of Kemeny, better known as the co-inventor of the computer language BASIC and of DTSS, a person he felt deserved more attention. When Ronda and Jay Hauben went to Budapest and met Akos Herman in 1999, she gave him a hard copy edition of her book on Netizens. For many, it's still hard to understand how, even in this day and age, books that deal with science and technology are somewhat of a rarity. During the communist era it was a question of political correctness; in the present era of neo-liberalism, it's a question of price. As Dr. Herman related, "although it [the Netizens book] will be a very useful book for our readers, we will not buy it. I had an exemplar dedicated personally to me. I was afraid that not any other Hungarian library will have this book. I decided one year ago, grudgingly, to give my copy to the library." Concerning his views on the development of the Internet, Herman agrees with Hauben that the ARPAnet and the so called poor man's ARPAnet were very early phases of the "Internet revolution". However, he credits the work that went on at MIT and Dartmouth with the first time-sharing systems as the true beginning of the Internet, not to mention the work of Baran at the Rand corporation. As for his views on the concept of netizens, Herman pointed out that there is a long list of names of people who contributed to this concept. Among them are the ideas of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit philosopher who published nearly half a century ago in "The Vision of the Past" (Harper & Row, New York, 1966), where he mentions the "noosphere", i.e. the man made sphere on the globe. Then there is the Hungarian biologist Vilmos Csányi and his work "Evolution Systems and Society: A General Theory of Life, Mind, and Culture" (General Evolution Research Group, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1989), which concludes with the autogenesis of a global system based on new technology. And finally there is the late Michael Hauben who first coined the word "netizen", who made a significant contribution to exploring the technical and social roots and aspects of the Internet. In many ways, the year 2001 marked a troubling time for the concept of netizens. Most notably, the September 11th terrorist attacks in the U.S. led to a severe crackdown in human rights and gave the green light to law enforcement authorities around the world to monitor and even curtail computer mediated communications. This has been a severe blow to the free flow of and access to information, which lies at the heart of the netizen concept, one in which it's believed that the top-down model of information distribution would be transcended, thus making it harder for governments to manipulate public opinion. Yet even prior to this, two events happened in late June in separate parts of the world which likewise had a devastating effect, each in their own different way. In Budapest, the OMIKK succumbed to its fate. The Secretary of State for Education decided to put an end to the over hundred year history of the library. Against the will of many thousands of users, on June 30th the holdings of the OMIKK were transferred to the Budapest Technical University. In effect, this move has made it more difficult for the general public to gain access to the wealth of information that was at the OMIKK. Meanwhile, in New York City, Michael Hauben died tragically. "Habent sua fata libelli", a Latin phrase quoted in an obituary of Michael Hauben, had a double meaning for Herman. "The books have their own fate" refers to how a work can live through the centuries and still, in the end, find its reader. Yet in this instance, it not only refers to the work, but also to the author. In the end, yet another meaning was added to this Latin axiom: that of the reader. The book he dedicated to the library was read over by him and initially left at the distant left corner on his writing table. He thought that it would be a good beginning for a new period of his life. Indeed, he shared with his friends a long list of projects he was hoping to do now that he was retired. Habent sua fata libelli. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 11 No 2, May 1, 2003. The whole issue or a subscription is available for free via email. Send a request to jrh@ais.org or see http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------