AZ ORSZÁGOS SZÉCHÉNYI KÖNYVTÁR ÉVKÖNYVE 1974-1975. Budapest (1978)

I. Az OSZK 1974-1975-ben - Somkuti Gabriella: Az Országos Széchényi Könyvtár 1974—1975. évi működése - The Activities of the National Széchényi Library in the years 1974—1975

Reference Service On average the Library is used by 65 000 readers yearly, who use about half a million units. (The high number of units per persons is explained by the nature of the collections at the Departments of Posters and Small Prints, and of Manuscripts respectively, where many one-leaf units are used.) The number of readers registered is about 13 thousand and a half. (The detailed figures are to be found in Table 3.) The fact that at present 40 per cent (but a further increasing part) of the holdings are kept in various buildings, from where they can be produced only by advanced ordering (within one to three days), makes it impossible to keep the standard of the service on an up-to-date level, let alone to develop it further. In spite of the overcrowded ness of the reading rooms and the unfavourable working conditions the members of the information staff are doing their best to provide the readers with everything they require. Our reference service continued to give written answers or offered bibliographical advice to a number of institutions both at home and abroad, or to researchers not' having access to the holdings of the Library. The requests show both an increase in scholarly interest inside Hungary, and the international reputation of some of our collections, e.g. those of music, manuscripts, and old books. Storage, conservation, and reproduction The stacks in the new building of the Library are being put into use. After transferring a part of the books the special collections have also started to take the new stacks into possession. For many years one of the primary tasks of our conservation programme has been the microfilming of the complete collection of Hungarian newspapers. This served a double aim: the old and worn newspapers could be withdrawn from daily use (in 1974 twenty per cent of the material requested in the reading room of the periodicals was produced on microfilm), and by means of our positive films this important sourcematerial is available for research elsewhere, too. (Many provincial and foreign libraries and institutions are making use of this possibility.) In 1974—75 another 5.4 million newspaper pages were filmed making up 3.25 million negative microfilm frames. We have started microfilming from other collections the documents missing from our collection by using a portable microfilm recorder. A further one million frames were made from the material of the other special collections. Our long-term project is to develop the present Microfilm Collection into a Microfilm Service Centre covering all the Hungarian libraries. Considerable financial funds were required — like in previous years — by the traditional forms of conservation

: binding, repairing, restoring. Our reproducing installations are continuing to meet all the demands. Inter-library (central) services In nearly all the central services 1974 was the year of the initiation of reformschemes, emphasis being on theoretical ground-work. Much of this continued in 1975, as in most fields the tasks went well beyond the frames of our Library: their solution touched upon all Hungarian library affairs. One of our major achievements is the introduction of the International Standard Book Number (ISBN). Hungary was the first socialist country to do so. In 1974 the publications of the established (professional) publishing houses came out already with the ISBN, and in 1975 the scheme was expanded to cover the non-professional publishers as well. The ISBN numbers are allocated by the Hungarian ISBN office, which operates within the national library. We have started the preparations for introducing standard numbers for the serials (ISSN), too. The quantity of the copyright deposits delivered to the Library continues ist slow increase

: the number of copies sent in is over one million in a year. The Library keeps about 16 per cent of this quantity, the rest is distributed among the other Hungarian libraries according to their spheres of collection. A reform of the system of distribution is in the offing. 71