Spoiled for Choice – NSZL’s Collection of Posters and Small Prints is 80 years old

The Collection of Posters and Small Prints is both an organic and a unique division of the Hungarian national library, which became an independent division in 1935. The current exhibition was organized in order to celebrate and commemorate the event that happened 80 years ago. The aim of the exhibition is to present the diversity, variety and manifoldness of our collection.

The exhibited items were made between the 17th and 21st centuries. On the show will be items which are still used (e.g. graphic poster, postcard or obituary), and those which were characteristic of a certain period of history but today are kept and preserved only by private collectors, libraries and museums (e.g. crest of death, bill, guild charter). And all of them are part of our collection.

The following items will be exhibited in the display cabinets: charter, product catalog, peace loan, admission cards (to a parliamentary session, execution), concert and exhibition tickets, insurance slip, guild charter, PhD theses, license, wine label, menu card, ex libris, machine gun score sheet, graphic poster, obituary, other death reports, children’s drawing, drug info, crest of death, notice, playing cards, driver license, card calendar, chimney sweep calendar, postcard, exhibition catalog, campaign speech, campaign song, book, bookmark, envoy pass, foldout, elevator ticket, lithography, magistrate, animal passport, invitation cards (to wedding, inauguration, event), menu card...

...engraving, art sheet, program, visiting card, dismissal letter, diploma, money (war money, emergency money, Kossuth banknote, accessory money), parliamentary speech, parking ticket, poster calendar, planet card, yellow back, puzzle, grid poster, shares, leaflet, lottery ticket, loose-leaf album, invoice, bill, illustration, icon, grief report, text poster, birth notice, membership card, dance card, travel brochure, passport, board game, competition rules and discharge.

Organizers of the exhibition hope that everyone will find something interesting or memorable among the 183 documents, and that identifying object types can even be an entertaining game.
Curators of the exhibition are Ágnes Kopcsay and Attila Tasnády.

The exhibition will be open from October 24, 2016 in the corridor adjacent to the Collection of Posters and Small Prints on Floor 5 of the Library, during the opening hours of NSZL. Latest admission time is one hour before the Library closes. Visitors who are not registered readers of NSZL can attend all of our chamber exhibitions for a flat fee of HUF 400.

Some of the exhibited rarities selected from items included in NSZL’s 80-year old Collection of Small Prints and Posters are as follows: