A Fővárosi Szabó Ervin Könyvtár évkönyve 1994-1995-1996
Angol nyelvű kivonatok
social environment - the essay demonstrates, relying on six Hungarian prose works conceived from the 1920s to the 1960s, which librarian types and characters had attracted the authors prior to the investigations mentioned. The essay’s methods are very special: the portraits of librarians figuring in the works of fiction are compared with the findings of later sociological analyses. The “gallery” of librarian portraits, gained from Hungarian literary works, can be well compared with a sophisticated French gallery of characters based on research for a decade. Karner Katalin: Budapest waiting for tourists. Metropolitan hospitality and tourism in a developing capital (1873-1930) The joint exhibition of the Hungarian Museum of Commerce and Catering Trade and the Budapest Collection of the Metropolitan Szabó Ervin Library - an event related to the series of millecentennial celebrations - invited visitors to a special city tour of Budapest. In the second half of the last century, thanks to the tourist traffic having started all over Europe, the rapidly developing Hungarian capital turned into a frequented travel destination of foreign visitors. In these decades of construction and embellishment (in the period between 1873 and 1930) a spectacular and harmonic town view has developed; with boulevards, splendid squares, impressive public buildings, mansions, bridges on the Danube. These architectural solutions have further raised the exceptional beauty and tourist attraction of the panorama of Budapest originating from its geographical potentialities. The traveller of this period was awaited by several hotels and restaurants, a number of entertainment opportunities in the flourishing city. During the imaginary city tour a confectionery and a cafeteria was visited and the night life of the city was presented. The exhibition demonstrated the efforts made to organize tourism and the first successes, emphasizing the importance of turning Budapest into a city of spas and its expected role as such. Horváth Tamás: Forgotten plans in the Budapest-Collection: the funicular of Buda The holdings of the Budapest Collection include several documents from the history of town building, among them unrealized plans and initiatives that have nevertheless made a contribution to the history of the capital. The turn of the century was especially rich in such plans: the extensive social and economic changes of the period fully changed the town’s image, new traffic means (tram, cog-wheel railway, underground etc.) appeared on the regulated roads of the city. The Buda side of the city was somewhat backward as acompared to the Pest side. Its development would have been largely assisted by a plan in the 1890s to build a funicular between the Tabán area and the Buda hills. This profit- oriented venture adapted well into the concepts of town development and the idea of the funicular found supporters. The plan was subsequently modified with the train traveling into the inner city of Pest. It was, however, later turned down by the City Council because this plan was supposed to disturb the reconstruction of the inner city that has just started. The negative decision prevented the implementation of not only this plan but also of the original, more modest plans. 157
