24. Libraries: information institutions and centres
A library is a collection of sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed; it is organized for use and
maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. Traditionally, four broad types of libraries have been identified:
school, public, special and academic. The fullest possible collection of sources, resources and services can be found in the National
Széchényi Library in Hungary.
The National Széchényi Library of Hungary was founded in 1802. Ferenc Széchényi sought out Hungarian books in the country and
abroad, brought them together in a single collection and donated it to the nation in 1802. In the following year the public library, open
to all, was opened in Pest. The entire society was making donations as personal contribution to ensure the fullest possible national
library. In 1808 the Hungarian National Museum was set up to collect the historical, archeological and natural relics of Hungary and
incorporated the library founded earlier by Ferenc Széchényi. It became in independent institution again under the name of National
Széchényi Library and moved into the Buda Castle Palace in 1985. The library has the task of collecting:
1. all works published within the borders of Hungary at the given time, in whatever language they may be written;
2. all works written by Hungarian authors, or with the collaboration of Hungarians, not in Hungarian and outside Hungary;
3. all works published abroad in foreign languages with Hungarian aspects.
It is mandatory for producers and publishing houses to place free copies at the disposal of the national library. The National Széchényi
Library collects publications and prints of any kind produced in Hungary, receiving two deposit copies of each, non-book materials
(sound recordings, video materials, documents in electronic forms etc.), works published abroad in Hungarian language, written by
Hungarian authors, translated from Hungarian or related to Hungary, as well as manuscripts in Hungarian or pertaining to Hungary.
The Library also collects literature connected with the Finno-Ugrian peoples and also literature relative to the neighbouring peoples
and countries.
In 1997 the library had holdings of about 7 million units of which more then 2 million books, 330 000 volumes of serial publications
(newspapers and periodicals), 176 000 printed music, and near to 1 million units of manuscripts. The number of maps amounted to
200 000, that of the pictures and engravings to 310 000, of the sound records to 24 000. There were near to 3 million posters and small
prints. The library had microfilm copies of more than 270 000 documents. The collection of some two million books included such
rarities as the first book printed in Hungary, the Chronica Hungarorum, the Collection of Ancient Books, preserves the oldest existing
text in Hungarian, the Funeral Oration, 32 Corvinas from the library of King Matthias, the manuscripts of the National Anthem in the
handwriting of Ferenc Kölcsey and countless manuscripts. National Széchényi Library is a traditional and digital library as well. Let’s
see the differences between traditional and digital library: A traditional library is characterized by the following:
 emphasis on storage and preservation of physical items, particularly books and periodicals
 cataloguing at a high level rather than one of detail, e.g., author and subject indexes as opposed to full text
 browsing based on physical proximity of related materials, e.g., books on sociology are near one another on the shelves
 passivity; information is physically assembled in one place; users must travel to the library to learn what is there and make use of
it
By contrast, a digital library differs from the above in the following ways:
 emphasis on access to digitized materials wherever they may be located, with digitization eliminating the need to own or store a
physical item
 cataloguing down to individual words or glyphs
 browsing based on hyperlinks, keyword, or any defined measure of relatedness; materials on the same subject do not need to be
near one another in any physical sense
 broadcast technology; users need not visit a digital library except electronically; for them the library exists at any place they can
access it
 everything can be stored: (If an average book occupies 500 pages at 2,000 characters per page, then even without compression it
can be stored comfortably in one megabyte.)
 very large databases: This amount of storage is sufficient to house not only all books, but photographs, legislative material, court
decisions, museum objects, recorded music, theatrical performances, including opera and ballet, speeches, movies and videotape.
MEK: In the spring of 1994 a few enthusiastic librarians started the establishment and operation of a future Electronic Library which
is now the Hungarian Digital Library (MEK). During the past few years the MEK became one of the most popular and most
significant text-archives of the Hungarian webspace. Anyone, even with the simplest of methods and means can contribute to the
development of the collections: individuals can offer digitized works. The MEK collects resources concerning Hungary or the Central
European region, in the fields of culture, education and academic research. The collection consists of text-based resources, but does
not exclude other formats such as maps, sheet music etc. The MEK also collects periodicals journals and links to other relevant
resources, services and documents concerning libraries.
Neumann House: The primary mission of the John von Neumann Digital Library and Multimedia Centre is to participate in the
digitisation of Hungarian cultural heritage, coordinate all related activities and manage the network services built on these digitisation
projects. The Neumann House has three divisions:
 Digital Library. The freely accessible collection containing tens of thousands of Hungarian texts and also process still pictures
and sound material, gathers and makes accessible data from public collections.
 National Digital Data Archive. The division coordinates, standardizes the metadata exchange, the cooperative building of
authority files among cultural databases.
 National Audiovisual Archive. Constitutes the legal deposit archive of the Hungarian national broadcasters, collects and digitally
stores, catalogues the programs of the national terrestrial televisions and radios, produced in Hungary.