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In his essay the author deals with human factors of the library: readers and different forms of reading. The books on the history of reading, by Roger Chartier and Alberto Manguel, published at the turn of the millennium in Western Europe, brought a revelation, because they have directed attention on a way of research into reading which is independent of the issues of writing. In the past millennia, always aligning to the needs, mankind has created many ways of reading. The revolutions of communication - i.e. the „switch‟ from rolls to codices, then from codices to printed books, or from printed materials to electronic formats - always started by questioning the old rule. New formats came up as a replacement, an improvement, and resulted in their own „genres‟ only later. The literacy of new eras has always combined the old with the new. In our days, in the information age, new, corresponding reading methods and techniques have evolved again, which make us reconsider the role of reading both in cognition, and in learning. The history of reading points out for us rules that are valid not only in reading and communication, but in accessing and managing knowledge, in learning and thinking as well. Many issues of library history must be reconsidered too in the context of the history of reading. Today education must - in co-operation with libraries - convey new reading forms, such as non-linear (electronic) reading, browsing and scanning reading, reading and interpreting image and text together, the use of electronic search tools, critical thinking on information from combined searches, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education and libraries have always been closely interconnected, despite all the changes that educational systems and libraries have undergone over the past centuries. In our times, the collaboration has become even more important and the new forms of education, together with the development of ICT tools used in education urges libraries to renew their services in a radical way. In order to meet the newly arising needs of educational institutions, libraries must undertake new tasks which have not been tested in library environment before. One of these tasks is the active support of e- learning management systems. There are many unclear issues concerning the role of libraries in e- learning. Intensive work is being done by experts of ICT and education worldwide in order to elaborate and fine-tune effective models. Hungary has also started to investigate the ways of setting up and operating a national digital collection of text- books and learning resources. One of the ongoing projects carried out in the framework of the Hungarian Strategy for ICT in Education is called the e- Learning Library. The project aims to gradually replace print publishing of textbooks with digitally stored educational contents. Another aim is to set up digital resource centres which primarily serve customers, but also operate as centres of competence in educational innovation and methodology. The paper intends to give a definition of e-learning libraries and clarify their role in the educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]