Rózsa György (szerk.): The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1826–1976.

I. Historical outline

were János Arany, Cyrill Horváth, Ányos Jedlik, Tivadar Pauler, Ottó Petzval, Gusztáv Wenzel as well as two librarians, Pál Hunfalvy and József Budenz, all of them prominent scholars and scientists. The restricted initial activities of the Committee were more and more extended; from 1875 it was responsible for almost all the tasks of the Library, i.e. the ways of processing and using, providing additional staff, new stackrooms, possibilities for acquiring new large collections of manuscripts and books (the library of Dániel Szilágyi, the manuscripts of Sándor Kisfaludy etc.). The Library Committee worked till 1949, the year of the Academy's reorganization. József Eötvös, minister of education supervised the situation of the greater libraries in Pest in 1869, and he tried to co-ordinate their activities. On the proposals of Ferenc Toldy, director of the University Library, the minister prescribed the field of collection of the Library of the Academy. According to it the Library collected publications of scientific societies and institutions abroad, the most important scientific periodicals, dictionaries, works on linguistics and literary history, encyclopedias and handbooks, as well as more important monographs. The annual budget of 1 000 forints for foreign purchases did not make it possible to maintain the collection at a contemporary level, since the holdings mainly consisted of heterogeneous donations and purchased collections. That is why Eötvös granted the Library 5 000 forints annually for purchases from abroad. In this way and with the growth of exchange relations (the number of partners increased from 100 in 1865 to 230 in 1910), the Library managed to get valuable publications in those years. Important additions were the acquisition of Pulszky, Gusztáv Hadik, Waldstein, Siskovits, Reiner and Lajos Katona-libraries, especially the Ráth-library containing mainly Hungarian books published before 1711, and the Kaufmann-collection consisting of Hebrew books and manuscripts. Although signs of crisis had appeared in several respects at the end of this period (processing slowed down, the scientific character of the holdings faded with 'non-scientific publications flowing in, adequate space for stack-rooms decreased etc.), it was World War I which created a catastrophic situation. The number of deposit copies of Hungarian books decreased, exchange relations were either cancelled or limited to institutions of the allied countries, the readers also decreased and the Library grew more and more isolated from the developing trends of other Hungarian libraries. The situation was not more favourable till the mid-1920's. Because of financial troubles of the state the endowments of the Academy lost their value, inflation hindered purchases of books from abroad, the lack of the Academy's own publications made it impossible to reestablish exchange relations. Some of the academies abroad (London, Edingburgh, Rome) continued sending their publications without compensation. Apart from this, a small number deposit of copies of the Hungarian publishers was the only means of acquisition. Because of heating problems the reading rooms were almost empty. They could not provide the library with proper personnel, and it only made the situation worse.