New Special Courses for students majoring in library studies at the University of Szeged

Hegyi Ádám <adam_hegyi@hotmail.com>

SZTE Egyetemi Könyvtár

Beginning with September 2000, the Library and Information Sciences major became a five-year course at the University. The new syllabus for library studies includes library and information science core courses as well as special courses. The goal of various special-courses is to introduce students into the field of library information technology in the widest possible sense of the term. Among others there are courses dealing with the digitalisation of texts, the information system of EU and using information technology in the Humanities. The courses offer both theoretical and practical knowledge, which helps students to choose a topic for their major papers or theses.

The course entitled “The Information System of the European Union” is mainly practical in nature. In the first part of semester the students are to learn the theoretical foundations based on assigned readings and in the second part of semester they have to write a report about reference services, information infrastructure or co-operation between libraries in the European Union. To complete their written assignments, the students are required to use the latest statistics, specialist literature and the Internet, as they are expected to report the current state of affairs. Based on the knowledge acquired during the course the students can start their own research projects and discover various reference resources on the European Union. After completing the course the students may carry on their work and write a major paper or a thesis.

The goal of the “Information Technology in the Humanities” course is to provide students with the necessary skills for applying information technology in various fields of the Humanities. Based on the theoretical course material the students have to describe an already existing project, and upon completion of the course they should be able to design an application for solving a certain problem on their own.