Search

The author, who worked at the Library of the Hungarian Parliament for 42 years and was head of the access services department for 25 years, has previously written about the activities of the institution’s directors in library journals and in a monograph as well. In this paper, he outlines the career of the deputy directors by examining two significant periods in the history of the library, which is still in operation today. The first period lasted until 1950, when the Library Committee, a permanent unit of the House of Representatives, which had played a key role in the oversight and management of the library for eight decades, was abolished. In the second era, formally from 1952 to 1991, the library remained in the building of the Parliament, but was removed from the parliamentary organisational framework and placed under the control of the Ministry of Culture, and we can follow the life of the library through the personalities of the deputy directors. (In the short transitional period from 1950 to 1952, when the oneparty dictatorship was already well established and the Presidential Council took over the majority of the powers of the Parliament as a new body, the preparation for the second era was actually taking place.) In the 110 years examined by the paper, the second men of the Library’s leadership have often played a very important role, first of all in the development of a cultural institution that provided information to the deputies and then to the public at large. Many of them also made their way to the managerial position. The negative role played by deputy directors, who had a detrimental influence on the life of the prestigious library, is also discussed. The deputy directors are introduced through brief biographical sketches and portraits of the heads of the bodies that oversaw the Library of the Hungarian Parliament (the two heads of the Library Committee in Part I were the President and the Clerk-Recorder, and in Part II the Minister was the main person in charge of the ministerial control). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preparing for the BIBFRAME workshop in 2021 it is worth reviewing what happened at the 2020 event, at which 275 participants were present from 29 countries. Papers were read by representatives of the Library of Congress, Stanford University Libraries, OCLC, Casalini Libri (Italy), @Cult and Kungliga biblioteket (Sweden), University of Alberta Library Memorial University Libraries in Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada), and the National Széchényi Library, Budapest. This annual event provides a forum for institutions and professionals wishing the renew cataloguing, experimenting with the BIBFRAME format for exchange. Last year's event was organized online because of the pandemic. It provided a wide spectrum of implementations and a proof of the performance of this new communication format elaborated to replace MARC 21 by the Library of Congress. Papers and the round-table discussion informed about other solutions based on linked data. It was a general opinion at the conference that institutions should co-operate and exchange data more extensively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author’s research topic was "Electronic library services in the 21st century", and his main goal was to promote the active and decisive role of libraries not only in the preservation and transmission of culture and science, but to increase their participation in research, innovation, in the promotion and implementation of start-up ideas at universities, thus enabling the system to help and possibly implement the sustainability of libraries. Based on and using these experiences, he developed a new, Web 2.0 system, named UnInLib (University Innovation Library System). In this paper he describes the preliminaries and the importance of research, the need for this research, as well as the main elements (subprojects) of the UnInLib system: WIKT system, start-up course, coworking in libraries, start-up exhibition, start-up conference, start-up camp, GenILib (General Innovation Library) subproject. In addition, discusses the usability of the system, implementation steps, the Innov Research Institute and the Invention (patent). In the summary he highlights the advantages, the potential, the implementation fields and the role of the UnInLib system in national and international library innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the recent discovery of a 13th-century notated breviary of Esztergom (Strigonium, Gran) in the Metropolitan Library of the Archbishopric of Zagreb (Metropolitanska knjižnica Zagrebačke nadbiskupije). The codex was found in 256 fragments that had been glued to the covers of 126 books printed between the 15th and 17th centuries. These books were bound at the end of the 17th century on the order of Aleksandar Mikulić (1688-1694), the bishop of Zagreb. The fragmented codex is the missing sanctorale part, i.e. the second volume of the "Breviarium notatum Strigoniense" (BNS), now kept in the Strahov Library of the Premonstratensians in Prague (Strahovská knihovna) under the shelf mark DE I 7. Only these two volumes preserve the 13th-century office of Esztergom Cathedral with musical notation. Both of them are notated by two masters, who used the so-called "Esztergom notation", which had been developed in that particular city by the end of the 12th century. The sanctorale consists of the offices of saints celebrated from January to December, the common of the saints and the common of the dedication of a church; it lacks, though, the office of the dead and the calendarium. (The first volume, on the other hand, contains the temporal feasts from Advent to the Sundays after Pentecost.) The reconstruction of what had been the sanctorale codex from its fragments was a complex task. In the paper I use a new iterative method based upon a careful analysis of the contents of the fragments and a comparison with the breviary of Esztergom as printed in 1484. Using the preliminary liturgical sequence of parchment-pieces that resulted, and taking into consideration the bookbinding process, I was able to identify the original fascicles of the manuscript and to determine the identity of the ambiguous fragments. The end result was more precise than that of the preliminary content-based reconstruction. I also show that four fragments kept in the University Library, Budapest, surprisingly belong to the BNS sanctorale. Although, I have been able to reconstruct a considerable part of the manuscript from its ruins, the longest lacuna remains from the 1st to the 15th of August. The codex constitutes the earliest-known record of the legend of Saint Ladislaus, the king of Hungary (1077-1095), and offers insight into the 13th-century readings for the matins of Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary (1000/1001-1038). The antiphons and responsories venerating Saint Andrew Zoerard and Saint Benedict, the hermits of Mount Zobor, in the BNS sanctorale, are the earliest-known musical examples of the 11th-century office for these holy men. A section of a very rarely documented legend of Saint Francis of Assisi, the so-called "Vita brevior" of Thomas of Celano, was also discovered. We might possibly find a few other books bound with the fragments of the BNS sanctorale in other libraries in Zagreb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the first measures of János Szily (1735–1799), the first bishop of the Diocese of Szombathely, was to open a library. Initially, István Schönvisner (1738–1818), the custos of the University Library of Pest assisted him to compile the library’s fund. In the present paper, I would like to explain a detail from the process of the library’s foundation, which is specifically related to Schönvisner. After describing the process of handling the banned books from the monastic orders’ libraries dissolved by Emperor Joseph II, an attempt to present the thematic distribution of the works acquired by Schönvisner will be made. I aim to elaborate the copies of the section Historici Profani. Based on the examination of their provenance, identification of the dissolved monastic libraries, from which the books of the new library originated, will be offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to consider the use of technologies including GPS, QR codes and RFID tags to personalise the learning environments in academic libraries. It reports on the use of QR codes at the University of Huddersfield, UK, including information on how the QR codes have been received by users. It also outlines other technologies used elsewhere and reported in the LIS literature. The paper finds that, although location-aware technologies are being used, for most libraries they are impractical. Instead, one could use QR codes (which have significant barriers to their use) or preferably RFID tags (already widely used for other purposes) to create smarter libraries. Libraries are increasingly using RFID tags in their holdings, occasionally as part of library or campus smart cards as well. When considering how to use, or justify the cost of, RFID tags in libraries, one should also consider the potential additional benefits outlined in this article. While most of the technologies described have been used in experimental ways within libraries, no one has yet used RFID tags for much more than circulation and control. This is the first article to suggest using them to access the wealth of data in order to personalise the learning environments of our libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to explain what academic and national libraries can do to continue to offer services and facilities at a time of economic difficulties. It identifies a number of methodologies and opportunities that are open to libraries and takes the view that it is never wise to waste a good crisis, because all threats are really opportunities in disguise. This paper draws on themes used in both presentations, and introduces a new one on the topic of copyright reform. The paper looks at the initial economic context for European research libraries and then examines ways in which libraries can tackle the threats which the current financial crisis poses. Joint procurement is one way in which libraries can achieve value for money, and the paper examines the role of JISC Collections in the UK. Innovation through collaboration, and shared services, are also ways in which libraries can innovate/make savings in a cost-effective way by sharing the burden of costs around the partnership. The paper gives two examples one which is now well established, the DART-Europe portal for Open Access e-theses; and one which is in the early stages of being discussed a cloud-based solution for true collaborative cataloguing amongst the UK's research and national libraries. The European Research Area (ERA) and the contributions that libraries can make to this infrastructure through innovative EU project funding are analysed in some detail by looking at LIBER's EU project portfolio. Finally, change and growth can come through changes to legal frameworks, and the paper looks at the Hargreaves review of copyright frameworks in the UK and the launch of the new library-based EU lobbying group for copyright reform, Information Sans Frontières (ISF). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author, a member of the HAS-NSZL Res Libraria Hungariae Research Group, while working on the database of codex fragments, which is being prepared for the Manuscripts Collection of the National Széchényi Library, became aware of a dozen parchment leaves of different ages, content and size. These all had been marked with a mysterious inscription: "PAZL 1671", an abbreviation for Placidus Abt zu Lambach, Placidus Hieber, Abbot of Lambach (1640-1678). The library of the Benedictine Abbey in Lambach was enriched with books and manuscripts over the centuries. However, by the 20th century, the troubled historical circumstances and the financial difficulties of the Abbey had made it necessary for them to sell the majority of their books. A significant amount of these was acquired by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, where they came to be studied by Robert G. Babcock and Lisa Fagin Davis and became the subject of two monographs. A dozen Lambach fragments were brought to Budapest at the end of the 19th century as items in Elemér Varjú's 114-pieces large palaeographical collection. He had probably found the manuscripts in the Batthyaneum Library in Gyulafehérvár (today: Alba Iulia, Romania). Most codex leaves were used as binding material for the books of Abbot Placidus' library probably in Lambach in the 17th century. This is proven by two fragments, which originate from the same codices as some pieces in the NSZL, and whose host books, in the binding of which they have been preserved, are known. One of them is preserved in Toronto, the other at Yale University. Both were printed in Munich in the 17th century. The second half of the paper consists of the description of the twelve manuscript fragments, most of which originate from liturgical books from a monastic milieu. Nevertheless, some folia from theological works and classical authors make the collection more varied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The library services of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest have traditionally been provided in a fragmented structure, and.that had a detrimental effect on their standardised and quality delivery. An audit by the competent professional authority in 2007 and a self-evaluation conducted in 2010 indicated that the library network consisting of more than 50 units will only be capable of providing better services in a renewed organisational structure. The K21 quality development project launched by the librarians of the university in 2008 taught the staff members of library units to work as a team, in panels, and to share their knowledge and experience with one another. This, in turn, injected into the organisation a novel type of innovative energy relying on internal resources. The new forms of co-operation will empower library units to realise projects jointly. The paper describes how the outputs of the quality development project based on the TOM philosophy and applying the measurement and evaluation tools of CAF contributed to the transformation of the organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]