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

III. Special collections - Microfilm Collection and reprographical activities

Islamic studies, Igmc Goldziher, which contains 13 600 items came into the possession of the Library in 1932. Several Tibetan, Manchurian and more than 150 Mongolian manuscripts and xylographies were donated to the Library. In the last 25 years the Oriental Collection has gradually grown mainly by means of acquisitions and expanding international exchange. The number of books has been doubled, now totalling some 32 000 items (about 44 000 volumes), there are more than 800 periodicals, 500 of them being current ones. The necessary basic periodicals for oriental studies can be found in complete series. The number of manuscripts is as high as 5 000, and deserving special mention among them is the important Tibetan collection of 3 000 items. An alphabetical catalogue gives information on the various materials. The Oriental Collection consists of two communicating rooms. The first one is the reading room, built in Middle-Eastern style using motifs on the Islamic architecture, it accomodates 8 readers. The reference library in bookcases along the walls arranged by subject fields gives basic information on egyptology, Hebrew studies, Semitic philology, classical Middle-Eastern philology, Indian and Iranian studies, sinology, turcology, Tibetan and Islamic studies. The manuscripts, thus the Hebrew ones of the Kaufmann-collection, Turkish, Arabic and Persian ones of the Vambéry and Kégl donations, the Körösi Csoma-collection, Mongolian and Manchurian manuscripts and xylographies are shelved in the inner room. This opens into a small chamber, where the most important periodicals can be found. The Oriental Collection is well-known in international orientalism, and is frequently visited by foreign scholars for shorter or longer periods. It is regularly frequented by Hungarian orientalists of the present and the future, by university lecturers and students. Microfilm Collection and Reprographical Activities Reprographical activities of the Library of the Academy include photographic reproduction of its holdings, document copying, microfilming, the collection and use of microfilms. The Group of Microfilms and Photographic Laboratory of the Department of Reprography was set up in 1953. In 1958 UNESCO also contributed to its equipping. In the photographic laboratory up-to-date microfilm cameras, processors, printing machines and enlargers are at work. The laboratory and microfilm service can now engage in manifold work by means of equipment and cameras necessary for reading, copying and photoduplicating work of photographs of different types and sizes. For the last 20 years the laboratory has regularly been making microfilm copies of the holdings of the Library, in the first place the most valuable or endangered materials of the Manuscript Department and the Oriental Collection, thus taking proper safety measures to preserve the holdings in case of emergency. Besides this it has extended microfilming to scientific institutions in the country and to ecclesiastical collections in order to preserve them and make them available for study.