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

From the occupational statistics of the borrowers as it appears from the paper, the members of the Academy, totalling 29.92% of all the borrowers, made the most use of the Library's resources. The next were the lower-grade school teachers, comprising 16.54%. The academicians, university and college professors (who were not academicians), and the lower-grade teachers, totalled 54.57%. Thus more than onehalf of the borrowers used the Library for an exclusively scientific purpose and only secondarily and insignificantly for private study or cultural need. Almost the entire collection was used for scientific research. III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FIELD OF INTEREST OF THE ACADEMY LIBRARY In 1869 the Ministry of Religion and Education, when planning to propose a bill, asked the public libraries—including the three central libraries of Budapest: the Széchényi Library of the Hungarian National Museum, the University and the Academy Libraries — to report on the conditions, the completeness or inadequacies, of their respective collections, their most important needs and how a possible national appropriation would be used. The Academy sent this document to F. Toldy, chairman of the Library Comittee and P. Hunfalvy, mentioning that they should give such a report on the situation which — bearing in mind the interests of the Academy and determining the character of the Library — would provide a basis for further discussions with the government. Thus the first formulation of the field of interest of the Library became the "Statement on the Purpose of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences". It is very likely that the Széchényi Library of the Hungarian National Museum also made a similar report, but it has not been discovered. We do possess F. Toldy's mentioned ministerial ordinance from the University Library which is important because it covers the fields of all three central libraries. This report is of sweeping significance for the history of Hungarian library science as a whole and the further development of libraries not only because it led to the more lucid definition of the material needs of the libraries but also because this was the first attempt to define the fields of interest and to harmonize the work of the three major institutions. IV. CHANGES IN THE ORGANIZATION AND WORK OF THE LIBRARY 1875 After 1870 the circulation of the Library as well as its needs increased. Soon the regulations of the Library had to change. The sorting and cataloging of the collection required speeding up. These, naturally, affected the work and size of the staff. It finally seemed necessary to re-outline the work of the Permanent Library Committee because its work was reduced in the meantime. At the request of the Academy, the Library Committee took on a fuller load. At the beginning of 1875 the Committee made a proposal for increasing the staff, for hurrying the sorting and cataloging and to define the duties of