AZ EGYETEMI KÖNYVTÁR ÉVKÖNYVEI 13. (Budapest, 2007)

I. Könyvtártörténet - Klimes Szmik Katalin: Horváth Árpád Néhány szava az Egyetemi Könyvtár rendezése ügyében. Szilágyi Sándor igazgató kinevezésének előzményei

Horváth Árpád néhány s^ava 'Some Words on Reorganizing and Cataloguing the Holdings of the University Library'by Professor Árpád Horvát. Antecedents of the Assignment of Sándor Szilágyi as Director of the University Library 1879-1899 Summary The inauguration of the actual head of the University Library in the year of 1876, according to the prominent role hold by the library in the higher education of the Hungarian Kingdom recovered the constitutionalism and provoked its includible institutional and professional renewal. Árpád Horvát, professor of diplomatic who was made director of the library in January 1874, had to confront the problem of how he could reconcile the increased expectations of the University Senate and the contemporary readers of the 250 years old library with its old cataloguing and classification system and what to do withh the absence of professional staff aggravated by the scarcity of the institution's budget. Professor Horvát presented the state of the library several times and he described the method to follow in reorganizing and renewing the library but in spite of his efforts for clarifing the guiding principles in librarianship the Senate desided for propositions of supporters who promised to catalogue the whole amount of the holdings in some few years ignoring the professionally correct indications of the director. "Some words on reorganising and cataloguing the holdings of the University Library of the Royal University [actual Eötvös Loránd University] of Budapest" published in September 1876 by professor Horvát was the recapitulation of both his criticism on the condemned practice ordered by the Senate and the passionate and detailed argue to follow the internationally adopted principles and rules of librarianship as a system consequently constituted of congruent elements. The merit of the explanative leaves of the "Some words" consists not only in perpetuating the memory of professor Horvát as the first scholar to offer systematic rules of cataloguing and organizing the sientific university libraries in Hungary. The subsequent facts vindicated both his point of view and his posture adopted as well. On the contrary, the precipitouse choise of the Senate had to be remembered with its consequences for several generations as an example for misunderstanding what the development of science required in the field of the librarianship. 25