Battle Of The Budapest Reading Rooms

Battle of the Reading Rooms

Welcome to a Hungarian Library

•Expect to show the guard a card or permission to enter the library The university is an exception

The public library allowed us in with a 1 passport

Expect to be required to use the free cloakroom

Expect closed stacks and electronic book request systems.

For more definitions and details see my blog.

http://janlw.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/tale-of-two-libraries/

Most impressive book transport system we have ever seen!

Széchényi National Library

Expect to read your materials in a beautiful reading room

•It’s expected that students will all want the same books

• Library may but multiple copies

•Last copy that can’t be checked out and must be read in the reading room

BUTE has three beautiful reading rooms but often the majority of the students were found at tables in the bridge working with their laptops.

Like the U.S.--•Special Collections are being digitized

•Large libraries are part of a European joint catalog

•Hungarian libraries use the same electronic journal resources as U.S. libraries

•University libraries have wireless networks and many students have laptops

Electronic Reference Room at BUTE about 13 cents a page for printing

I really felt at home in the library when they brought out a sale book cart. ($1.00)

Hungarian Academy of Sciences Library

2 ½ million volumes, some stored off site (in tents?)

Loads of librarians doing original cataloging. (I saw five)

They use Cyber Dewey and add to the European Catalog

The Special Collections Librarian whispers

Hey, they’ve got Science Direct from EBSCO !

Besides a beautiful dark wood reading room the library has a beautiful auditorium

Two art galleries

A special Near East (Oriental ) collection.

The National Széchényi Library

Itsa Matte asked our Modern Language department librarian to write and ask for a special tour which we got.

Located in the castle district of Budapest

Anyone can come in and read books. (Darlene Rickett did.)

A special room devoted to library science

There are lots of school tours

Like our Library of Congress mainly a research library

Demonstrating a fancy microfilm reader for us

A room with a card catalog and online databases

A special room devoted to the library science collection

Notice they don’t turn on any lights

There are lots of school tours. They had puppets and costumes to teach Hungarian history.

The best part was the view from their private balcony!

View to Gellert Hill and the liberation monument

View down to the street

The Fovarosi Szabo Ervin Konyvtar main branch of the public library is a neo–baroque palace.

The mission statement or purpose of the Library would work for a public library here.

Fovarosi Szabo Ervin Konytar Homepage is typical of any vibrant public library as is it’s purpose.

“Erin Szabo -from a middle–class family which had got poor”

Like the National Academy of Science they use(Cutter? )Dewey call #s

Can you see the corvina?

Use of the premise is FREE but book check-out & internet use is not

Charge is $21 for membership to Szabo and $35.00 to join the main library and the branches.

The amazing thing about this public library was that the have kept the neo-baroque ballrooms and turned them into reading rooms

When we were there students were studying everywhere!

The library that seemed most like home

Central European University

3000 card carrying members (No card no entrance)

Homepage http://www.library.ceu.hu/

It felt like home sort of….

In spite of two sets of guards and the mandatory coat check

(Please don’t take away my backpack!)

“Food, drink and smoking prohibited” but there is an espresso cart with snacks just out the library door

I met and interviewed the librarian

The librarians are Hungarian but all classes are in English

Mainly an international graduate school

Two required instruction sessions: Library orientation/ specific databases

150,000 volumes and rapidly growing about 8000 per year

Catalog: Dewey Decimal for most books; international law collection uses LC.

AV collection (videos/dvds) even some fun ones

Periodicals databases and e-books – lots!

More open stacks than closed stacks!

They called this a reading room but it looked like a library to me.

Although cloak rooms, door guards and NO FOOD OR DRINK seems archaic Hungarian libraries are headed into the virtual word.