Fráter Jánosné: Részletek az Akadémiai Könyvtár történetéből 1865–1875 (A MTAK kiadványai 45. Budapest, 1965)

A BRIEF GLANCE AT THE HISTORY OF THE ACADEMY LIBRARY 1865-1875 I. THE LIBRARY MOVES INTO THE NEW PALACE OF THE ACADEMY In the spring of 1865 the Academy Library moved from its rented quarters into a palace. This was of extreme importance for the lack of adequate storage rooms in the previous place did not permit the Library to fulfil requirements and even its storage system and method of book handling proved insufficient at the time of the building of the palace in 1863. Then it was imperative to locate and set up the steadily growing acquisitions in an up-to-date manner and make them available to the public. A new system had to be evolved since the Academy Library was composed of two separate collections: a steadily growing basic collection of thirty thousand volumes donated by the Teleki family and the Academy's own collection. Until 1865 both were set up and handled separately; they were arranged according to an outdated system. In the new building the two were to be arranged according to contemporary requirements. The board of directors of the Academy assigned this work to a committee in 1862. By April of 1863 the appointed body proposed — and had accepted by the Academy — a classification of books comprising XXIV main branches which were described in a paper. Storage according to this system found general acceptance in the 19th century and most of the significant systems of classification of the libraries were founded on some sort of philosophical system of classification. But in the Academy's case no singn of philosophical arrangement can be found. Therefore its system of classification was more primitive than those of the Széchényi Library of the Hungarian National Museum or of the University Library, but at the same time it had several advantages: it was flexible and it was possible to extend the individual subjects, or rather to form additional main and sub-categories. Hungarian abbreviations were employed for the designation of subjects and the books were marked with simple numbers (numerens currens). In 1865 the two separate sections of the Library were unified and the collection was arranged according to the new classified arrangement which was further divided into fifty-four branches, a system effective until the reorganization of the Academy, or rather of its Library, in 1949 and 1950. Two scholarly head librarians, P. Hunfalvy and his assistant, J. Budenz, carried out the moving of the hundred-thousand volume collection into its new place in less than ten days. The Library was placed in the sout-west wing of the place, with two large reading rooms (containing eighty seats), one for the members of the Academy and one for the general public. One large storage room facing the Danube was divided by means of two partitions into three sections. This 53