Simon Mária Anna: A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia kutatóintézeti könyvtári hálózata (A MTAK kiadványai 51. Budapest, 1966)

The library-network of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

THE LIBRARY-NETWORK OF THE HUNGÁRIÁN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES The Central Library of the Hungárián Academy of Sciences and the network of research libraries of the Academy's research institutes play a prominent role in the Hungárián library system. To cope with the new tasks and objectives of the re-organized Academy (1949), the Central Library which has been founded in 1828 as a learned library of encyclopedic field of interest, had to re-formulate its acquisition policy and to re-organize its activities so that old traditions and new tasks and responsibilities should be intertwined. Its acquisition policy is twofold. Functioning as national special library of certain branches of science and scholarship, the Central Library collects the literature of these fields (science policy, history of science, science organization, publications relating to the activities of foreign academies, scientific and learned societies, linguistics, philology, classical and orientál studies). On the other hand, as library of encyclopedic scientific interest, it alsó collects the most important works of every branch of science and scholarship to such an extent that it might meet the needs of complex researches. It alsó collects the literature of the emerging new branches of science and organizes a comprehensive and working information centre by acquiring up-to-date reference material. At the same time the Central Library functions as a methodological centre of the Academy's library network consisting of 45 research libraries (as of June 1966). In an effort to build up a collection embracing all the fields of science and scholarship that are covered by the Academy, the Central Library tends to co-ordinate the acquisition activities of the research libraries. While the individual research library tried to cover the literature of a specialized branch of science (verticai build-up), the Central Library aims at embracing a broader field of sciences in a horizontal line. This twofold tendency of acquisition is meant to face the new situation arising from the interdisciplinary development of modern science. It is not longer a single library but the network of libraries that can meet the needs of research work. Naturally, this higly valuable complex of libraries serves not only researches conducted or controlled by the Academy but alsó the Hungárián scientific community as a whole.