Academic and Specialized Libraries in Hungary

Our library history research is still to provide the comprehensive history of Hungarian specialized libraries. The history of public collections was one of the research topics of Krisztina Voit, PhD of literary science, emeritus Head of the Library Science Department at ELTE Faculty of Humanities. The present work of analysis and data collection on the Hungarian specialized libraries between 1932 and 1952 that she completed before her unexpected death on 29 April 2010, is a contribution to this area.

The introductory essay gives an overview of the formation and development of Hungarian specialized libraries. The six volumes of Magyar Minerva published between 1900 and 1932, describe the book collections of all the associations and institutions of that time. However, in the archives there is no trace of any continuation of this work. As the material of most of the academic associations and institutions was destroyed during the war and the following dissolution of associations in 1947, to pursue research on the period after 1932, lists from abroad must be used apart from the lists of the National Library Center. Voit’s essay presents and evaluates these sources, and offers insight into the post-war situation of the Hungarian specialized libraries and the consequences of their nationalization. The data of the institutions and associations providing sources make up a data bank of 486 items organized by settlement and completed by an index. An appendix of two lists of the archive material of the National Library Centre adds further information.

The author of this work wanted to retrieve some lacking pieces of the past, with the presentation of the specialized collections that once perhaps flourished, helped the work of different areas of science, and reflected the contemporaneous environment of Hungary.