On the 19th of October 2023, the ELTE Alumni Centre organised a successful event entitled "The University Opens its Doors" in the ELTE University Library.

The ELTE alumni were given guided tours of the library. In the frame of our programmes the visitors could learn about the pneumatic mail, get an insight into our Reading Hall, our Historical Storeroom and the Director General's Room, where they could admire a copy of the Perczel globe.

During the library tour, our guests were able to learn new information about the sgraffito in the lobby, the ceiling frescoes in the Reading Hall with muses representing the sciences and arts, and the painting by Mór Than. Our book launch from the material of our museum collection revealed the pages of our book collections, while the guided tour at our Eötvös Exhibition gave visitors an insight into the life and work of the physicist.

For more details about our library and our programmes, please visit our website. You can see our virtual library tour here. All visitors are welcome!

Two hundred and fifty years ago, in 1773, Pope Clement XIII dissolved the Jesuit order, accelerating the process of the university's transfer to the state. Between 1635 and 1773, many distinguished Jesuits of great knowledge taught at our university, leaving a lasting mark on the history of the institution. In October our feature is on László Sennyey, a former university lecturer, rector and head of our library.

László Sennyey was born in 1631 in Kistárkány, Zemplén county. He entered the Jesuit order in 1648. From 1666 he was a theology professor at the University of Nagyszombat. He was rector of the University of Nagyszombat three times: from 1671 to 1675, from 1686 to 1690, and from 1700 to 1702. In 1691 he was the head of the University Library. He visited Rome serveral times and wrote accounts of his travels. During his rectorship of the University he kept a diary, which he began in 1686, the year Buda was liberated from the Turks. The diary is now in the manuscript collection of our library. László Sennyey died on 12 January 1703 in Nagyszombat.  

Picture: signature of László Sennyey as rector of the University of Nagyszombat (Coll. Pray 20. 207.) 

EBSCO has offered a trial access to the MLA International Bibliography with Full Text database. The testing period begins on October 18, 2023, and runs until December 31, 2023. The database is accessible through the EBSCOhost platform.

This resource combines an extensive collection of full-text journals with the definitive index for the study and teaching of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric, writing studies, folklore, film, theater and other dramatic arts. Users gain access to the MLA’s essential database, free online teaching tools and a deep full-text collection that includes backfiles to the first issue for dozens of full-text journals.

Database statistics: 1 202 full-text journals; 841 full-text, non-open access journals; 645 active full-text, peer-reviewed, non-open access journals; 309 active full-text, peer-reviewed, non-open access journals with no embargo.

The ELTE University Library and Archives was represented at the unveiling of a memorial plaque in Sopron, the hometown of Dr. Marianne Czeke, the first Hungarian librarian who worked at our institution for two decades, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of her birth.

At the initiative of Zalán Biczó, local librarian and historian, the valuable and substantial life's work of Marianne Czeke, PhD was commemorated in the library of the Evangelical Parish of Sopron, by her biographers Klára Gráberné Bősze and Edit Fabó. Judit Gerencsér, Deputy Director General of the National Széchényi Library and President of the Association of Hungarian Librarians, gave a speech on behalf of the Association of Hungarian Librarians in front of the memorial plaque unveiled at her birthplace in Sopron. In his speech, Mayor Ciprián Farkas also praised the work of the librarian and thanked the sponsors of the plaque.

The supporters of the memorial plaque are Zalán Biczó, librarian of the Széchenyi István University University Library and Archives, the Association of Our Homeland Győr, the Association of Librarians and Libraries of the Kisalföld Region and the Association of Hungarian Librarians.

For more details on the life and work of Marianne Czeke, please visit our website.

At the third quarterly report of the K21 Quality Coordination Committee 2023, the leaders of the working groups reported on the results of the past quarter, ongoing work and changes.

The reports on the Electronic Content Usage Survey and the ELTE Staff Survey, prepared with the assistance of the Primary Research Working Group, were unanimously adopted. The data for the 2023 Student Needs and Satisfaction Survey have been aggregated and the analysis is in progress. Preparations are underway for the revision of the Quality Management Manual.

The Process Management Working Group has finalised the consolidation of the tasks in the Task Catalogue, and the process inventory and the definition of key processes will be prepared in the future.

The Communication Working Group provided information on the tasks and achievements of the K21 Quality Coordination Committee through our website, newsletter and short film entitled „3 months – 3 minutes”, and contributed to the success of the preparation and administration of the K21 reporting days meetings. News was published about the University Library Service's honourees, as well as the functioning and services of the ELTE Library Network for first-year students.

The Green Library Working Group will organise an awareness training for the staff of the University Library Service in the autumn.

The library managers held two meetings in the third quarter to discuss, among other issues, the lessons learned from the survey on the use of electronic content, the 2024 EISZ orders, the ELTE staff survey report and current issues.

The staff of the University Library Service participated in a strategy workshop this summer. Joint work is planned to continue early next year. The review of quality objectives is ongoing.

An update on the achievements of the K21 Quality Coordination Committee and our new developments will be posted on our website soon.

The object of the month – Statue of Miklós Radnóti made by Imre Varga

The bronze statue of Miklós Radnóti leaning against the railing and looking in front of him is a scaled-down copy of the life-size statue of Radnóti in Mohács in 1970 by the Kossuth Prize-winning sculptor Imre Varga (1923–2019). Size: 48 x 40 x 24 cm.

Miklós Radnóti’s name was adopted by our school in 1959, on the 50th anniversary of the poet’s birth.

In 1985, on the 25th anniversary of the naming, Radnóti’s statue became the property of the school, from a teacher’s donation. The statue stands in the hall on the ground floor of ELTE Radnóti Miklós Primary School and High School, on its marble pedestal you can read the last two lines of Miklós Radnóti’s poem „Őrizz és védj”.

Compiled by Hedvig Kocsis

From Information Acquisition to Publication Skills, an online course in Hungarian is available at ELTE between the 9th of October and the 30th of November 2023, with a flexible schedule.

Participants will gain knowledge on library and database use, publishing, information retrieval and learning methodologies, as well as research data management, copyright and ethical use of information.

Applications are open until the 10th of November 2023.

Registration and more information is available here.

For further questions or requests, please contact the course coordinators Krisztina Egri (egri.krisztina@tatk.elte.hu) and Ferenc Sot (sot.ferenc@barczi.elte.hu).

This booklet, printed during the era of the great religious debates of the 17th century, contains the views, arguments and thoughts of three Protestant thinkers. The volume was printed in Frankfurt, probably because of the small number of Protestant printers in the Kingdom of Hungary, and possibly also because of the strictness of censorship. This is probably why neither the printer nor the publisher is known.

The title-page is printed in red and black two-colour, but the slip of the lines shows that the printer may not have had much experience in the art of printing in multiple colours. Balthasar Meisner (1587–1626), the author of the first work, takes up and gives a worthy Protestant answer to the cunning theological questions posed by the Jesuits, usually to confuse 'the good, pious simpletons'. The orthodox Lutheran theologian Nicolaus Hunnius (1585–1643), later superintendent of Lübeck, was mainly interested in religious controversies, and he repeatedly attacked the Roman Catholic Church, mostly in writing. Another great exponent of Lutheran orthodoxy, Johann Friedrich Meyer (1650–1712), already had a considerable collection of books in his day, and in the early 18th century his library was one of the largest private collections in addition to coins and portraits of the great figures of Protestantism by the great painter Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The book is part of the book adoption program of the Foundation for the University Library. Save a book, adopt a book! For more information visit our website: https://konyvtar.elte.hu/en/support-us/adopt-a-book

RMK I 335

Balthasar Meisner

Catholicus valasz az esaviták eretnek kérdésére: hol volt Lutherus előtt az igaz vallás avagy Anya Sz. Egyház? Az pápisták között szorongatásban lévő minden evangelicus keresztényeknek Ao. 1627. ki adatott Meisner Boldisar a Sz. Irás doctora, és wittenbergai professor által. Mostan pedig az ecclesia nyomorúságin keserves könyveket hullató egy nevezetlen személy nemzetének hasznára, s az, veszedelemben tántorgó lelkek javára magyar nyelvre németből fordítván nyomtatásban ki adott.

együtt nyomtatva:

RMK I 336

Nicolaus Hunnius

Rövid fundamentomos tracta, mellyből a kegyes olvasó a romai és evangelica ecclesiakról ítéletet tehet, Isten igéjéből elő adatott Nicol. Hunnius d. és lübecki superintend. által.

RMK I 337

Johann Friedrich Mayer

A pápista vallásra hajlott Lutheranusok lelkek isméretinek kinnya, mellyet edgy Sz. Írás magyarázó Mayer Frid. János nevű doctor és p.p. eleikben irása által ki bocsátott.

Francofurti : [s.n.], anno 1692.

On the 28th and the 29th of September 2023, the ELTE University Library and Archives, in cooperation with the National Széchényi Library, the Institute of History of the Humanities Research Centre and the Archives of the Hungarian Order of the Society of Jesus, organised a series of scientific lectures to mark the 250th anniversary of the dissolution of the Society of Jesus and the 300th anniversary of the birth of George Pray.

As the opening event of the conference, Dr. Kulcsár Szabó Ernőné Gombos, Director General of the ELTE University Library and Archives, welcomed the guests, followed by the opening speech of Dr. László Borhy, Academician and Rector of Eötvös Loránd University. In his speech, the Rector commemorated the very first Jesuit period of the University, and praising the work of the Jesuit scholar György Pray, he emphasised that "we should not forget his huge collection of manuscripts, with which he created the basis for the manuscript collection of the University Library, and it is thanks to him that the manuscripts of the great Jesuit collectors of sources, Gábor Hevenesi and István Kaprinai, also found their way into our library".

For the Jesuit monk Father Zoltán Koroknai, SJ socius provincialis of the Society of Jesus of Hungary, was a special pleasure to organise the event in the building of the library palace, where György Pray once served as second guard. Recalling the serious negative consequences for György Pray of the dissolution of the Jesuit Order in 17773, he mentioned that, despite the hardships, Pray had remained a dedicated and faithful academic and library director.

In his welcome speech, Máté Vincze, Deputy State Secretary for Public Collections and Cultural Development, referred to the foundation stones laid by György Pray in the Hungarian scientific and public collections field, which can be built upon today. The way to pass on our cultural heritage to future generations is to cherish the memory of our ancestors and role models, for which this event is an excellent opportunity and example.

On the first day of the two-day conference, lectures on the educational activities of the Jesuits, the dissolution of the Society of Jesus and the work of Jesuit scholar György Pray were held in the Reading Hall of the ELTE University Library.

On the second day of the lecture series, expert presentations were given at the National Széchényi Library on the Pray Codex, the Funeral Sermon and Prayer, Latin (liturgical) language and vernacular.

On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Budapest University Athletic Club, the ELTE University Library and Archives joined the initiative as a sponsor and donor.

Our library supported the „Books in Hand!” project by donating sixty carefully selected books on various topics related to sport and healthy living. The selection included volumes on the history of the university and a recent biography of Loránd Eötvös. The books are part of the club library of ELTE BEAC Pluhár István Football Club in District 11, which is available free of charge to players using the football pitch. We wish all those interested an enjoyable time and reading experience!