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

III. Special collections - Department of Manuscripts and Old Books

Márton Roska, István Szabó, Gyula Szekfű, Zoltán Tóth, Endre Veress, Béla Zolnai and a rich collection of the correspondence of Nobel-prize winners (W. Heisenberg, M. Planck, György Hevesy, Jenő Pál Wigner, Albert Szent-Györgyi). Since 1952 the Manuscript Department has been in charge of the doctoral and candidate's theses. Following its reorganization, the Manuscript Department also became the recipient of the following materials: manuscripts from museums, materials from the former memorial rooms of the Academy, the Széchenyimuseum, the Goethe-room, the Vörösmarty-room, the Mikszáth-room, and the manuscripts of the Kisfaludy Society which had carried on its activities in the building of the Academy until it was suspended. At present there are more than 388 000 items on file in the Manuscript Department. Formerly, manuscripts had been kept in the Secretary-General's office under the supervision of the archivist in office (Ferenc Toldy, Gergely Czuczor, László Szalay). It became an independent collection in 1865. The archaeologist Flóris Rómer was the first to be the keeper of records. At the time the Department had been moved to a ground-floor room facing the court-yard of the building, and after the reorganization in 1949 it was given four re-furnished rooms of the Secretary-General's former offices. The older material of the Manuscript Department was arranged in subject order, and the last subject of this classification scheme made in 1865 was reserved for manuscripts, and this subject group practically made up an independent subject order inside that of the Library. Until 1954 every manuscript was incorporated in this subject order. In 1954, the Department — preserving the former order made according to subjects — introduced a more practical, new order based on current numbers which made it possible to shelve the related manuscripts together according to provenance. A shelf-list and two kinds of alphabetical catalogues (one for manuscripts and analects, another for letters) recorded on cards were made from the manuscripts in subject order. The cards of manuscripts processed since 1954 were arranged in a single alphabetical catalogue covering both author and subject. The new shelflist is issued in book-form. The handbooks Catalogues of the Manuscript Department of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences have been published since 1966. The antecedents of the Old Book Collection were the incunabula which, in the subject order of 1865 had been a sub-class of old Hungarian literature within the class of Hungarian literature. The Collection of Old Books was fused into one Department with the Manuscript Department in 1954. It is made up of the following parts: 1. The collection of incunabula. It contains approximately 1 200 incunabula, of which 391 items belonged to the Teleki-collection, 429 to the Vigyázó-library, 147 concerning Hungary belonged to the Ráth-collection. 2. The collection of old Hungarian books consists of 6 372 volumes, of which 4010 were either acquired by the Library or originated from various other sources, 2 362 belonged to the Ráth-collection.