An exhibition on the life and work of Gusztáv Bárczi has opened in the library of the Gusztáv Bárczi Faculty of Special Education.

Gusztáv Bárczi was a prominent figure in the field of curative education, which began in 1899. Between 1942 and 1963 he was the director of the College of Curative Education, the predecessor of our Faculty of Curative Education. Today, his legacy is preserved in the Collection of the History of Special Education of the Gusztáv Bárczi Faculty of Special Education. An exhibition of interesting and unique documents from the legacy presents the most important stages of Gusztáv Bárczi's life.

The 2025 calendar of the ELTE University Library and Archives features a selection of images from the atlas Theatrum orbis terrarum (The Theatre of the World's Lands).

The Theatrum of Abraham Ortelius, considered to be his major work, was printed between 1570 and 1612 in several languages, in continually expanded editions, with artistic decoration, most of the maps praising the work of other cartographers rather than Ortelius. The maps covered the world as known at the time, with brief descriptions of the topography, flora, fauna and population of the area. The popularity of the atlas lay not only in its cartographic accuracy, but also in the artistic execution, enhanced by the hand-colouring of each copy. The depiction of marine creatures served not only decorative purposes, but also to promote a broad understanding of the world's wildlife. The ELTE University Library and Archives preserves six different editions dating from 1575 to 1601. The most spectacular of these, from 1592, contains illustrations of animals which, based on the books accepted as authoritative at the time, were considered by scholars to be real creatures. An electronic version of the calendar is available here.

The representative wall calendar was published under the management of the Prime Minister’s Office, with the support of the National Cooperation Fund, the Bethlen Gábor Fund Management Ltd. and the Foundation for the University Library.

For information about the support options of the Foundation for the University Library, please, visit our website. More details about our book adoption program can be found here.

At the fourth quarterly report of the K21 Quality Coordination Committee 2024, the leaders of the working groups reported on the results of the past quarter, ongoing work and changes.

The committee members approved the new Quality Manager of the ELTE University Library Service. The working groups prepared the work plans for 2025. The Primary Research Working Group completed the staff service survey questionnaire provided by the ELTE Quality Office, with modifications and suggestions. The Process Management Workgroup will complete the description of key processes from the revised process inventory as a task for the 2025 work plan.

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, as well as to the publication of the University Library Service news on the ELTE Libraries platform. The Green Library Working Group completed the update of the Virtual Green Collection data and finalised the Green Library Questionnaire.

The library leaders held three meetings in the third quarter to discuss, among other things, the current tasks of the theses digitisation project, the steps of the process, the problems encountered, the actual tasks for the coming months, the ELTE regulations on the new thesis repository and the future thesis service, the process and tasks of Aleph–SAP data transfer, as well as the adoption of the key processes of the University Library Service and the work plans of the coordination committees for 2025.

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

On 6 December 2024, the exhibition Fruits of Discord. Portraying the Ottoman Presence opened at the Slovak National Gallery. The exhibition presents the interesting and dramatic history of Hungarian-Ottoman relations in the 16th and 17th centuries through the example of the cultural relations, including the Tamás Pálffy volume on loan from the ELTE University Library and Archives. The exhibition explores the period of Ottoman expansion in Hungary and the intercultural exchanges, with a special focus on Ottoman material culture in Central European art.

The volume on display (RMK III. 316:1) contains a speech by Tamás Pálffy (1620-1679), Major Canon and Abbot of Bath of Esztergom, later Bishop of Vác, Eger and Nitra, delivered in the Church of St John the Baptist in Nagyszombat on 26 November 1652 on the occasion of the funeral of four members of the Esterházy family, victims of the battle of Vesekény with the Turks. The speech in Latin is accompanied by a full-page depiction of the castrum doloris and a fold-out engraving of the funeral procession, printed on two leaves, made by Mauritz Lang in Bratislava from drawings of the scene by Hans Rudolf Miller. The illustrations on display are of particular importance for the history of art. The exhibition is open until 18 May 2025.

In Christmas time 2024, Schmidt Tamásné, bibliographer and processing librarian of the Collection Development Department, was awarded the Pro Bibliotheca Universitatis Certificate of Merit by the ELTE University Library and Archives, thanking her for the high quality and prestigious professional work.

Schmidt Tamásné has contributed significantly to the professional development of the University Library and Archives with her three decades of high-quality and conscientious work, especially in the field of modern book processing. Schmidt Tamásné has been working at the University Library and Archives since 1993, initially as a public services officer and later as a modern book processor. She plays an important role in the Collection Development Department in the integrated library system for books for sale, in the National Széchényi Library in the sorting of legal deposits, in the management of almost all deliveries and in the professional support of the staff of the University Library Service. She is actively involved in the tracking of purchased publications and the timely submission of invoices. She is also excellent at handling the recently increased volume of her duties. Her faithfulness is exemplary, she is a colleague who always performs the work entrusted to her to a high standard and can be relied upon for any ad hoc task outside her narrow remit. Schmidt Tamásné has been a stable and reliable colleague of our institution for many years, who carries out all the tasks entrusted to her with outstanding carefulness and precision.

The staff of the ELTE University Library and Archives wishes her every success and pleasure in her future endeavours!

The list of our honoured staff members is available here.

Archives services will be available in the research room on the first floor of the library building (1053 Budapest Ferenciek tere 6.). Admission to the buiding is subject to a valid library card, which can be obtained at the information desk next to the entrance.

The research service is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Fridays. Documents can be requested and issued during the opening hours of the research service, but can be consulted during the opening hours of the research room, i.e. until 19.30 every day.

An important change is that we will be able to make the documents available to the researcher on the third working day after the submission of the application form, so it is advisable to send your request in advance to info@leveltar.elte.hu.

The photocopy is no longer available and digital copies of the documents may be ordered, subject to legal and conservation requirements. The fees for copying are the same as those for reprography of the library's special collection documents.

Our temporary exhibition „Under the spell of precision – the life and work of Loránd Eötvös” opoened on 23 November 2019. The aim of the exhibition was to present the life and work of Loránd Eötvös, the eponym of our university, and the exciting world of physics in an experiential way.

The exhibition closed on 15 December 2024. Our online content based on the exhibition, In the footsteps of Loránd Eötvös – Eötvös’ stereoscopic photographs’ is still available.

We are pleased to announce that JSTOR is offering a trial access to its text mining service, Constellate, available until June 2025. This unique opportunity allows ELTE students, faculty, and staff to explore Constellate’s advanced text and data mining tools, fostering research and innovation.

About Constellate
Constellate is a powerful platform designed to support text analysis and data mining. It provides access to extensive datasets and tools for analyzing textual patterns and trends, making it an invaluable resource for researchers across disciplines.

How to Access

• ELTE IP Range Required: Access is available within the ELTE network. Ensure you are connected to the university’s IP range.
• Registration: Users must register for an account on Constellate’s platform. Visit Constellate’s website to create your account.

We encourage all ELTE researchers and students to take advantage of this trial period to enhance your projects and expand your methodological toolkit.

EBSCO has offered trial access to the following databases until 31 December 2024:

• Academic Search Ultimate

• Central & Eastern European Academic Source

• Education Source

• Historical Abstracts with Full Text

• Humanities Source

• Philosopher's Index with Full Text

The databases are accessible on the EBSCOhost interface on campus by connecting to the university's internet network or from outside the university using a VPN.

Academic Search Ultimate offers students an unprecedented collection of peer-reviewed, full-text journals, including many journals indexed in leading citation indexes. The combination of academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos meets the needs of scholars in virtually every discipline ranging from astronomy, anthropology, biomedicine, engineering, health, law and literacy to mathematics, pharmacology, women’s studies, zoology and more. Title list.

Central & Eastern European Academic Source (CEEAS) provides full text (including PDF) coverage for scholarly journals published in central and eastern European countries. This multidisciplinary and multilingual database covers many subjects including business, economics, history, STEM and law. Title list

Education Source is designed to meet the needs of education students, professionals and policy makers. The collection provides indexing and abstracts for more than 2,850 academic periodicals and includes full text for more than 1,800 journals, 550 books and monographs, education-related conference papers, citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews and over 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests. Coverage in Education Source spans all levels of education from early childhood to higher education and also includes educational specialties such as multilingual education, health education and testing. Title list

Historical Abstracts with Full Text is an exceptional resource that covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and much more. This authoritative database provides indexing of historical articles from more than 1,800 journals in over 40 languages back to 1955. With over 800,000 records and access to the full text of more than 349 journals and more than 120 books, Historical Abstracts with Full Text is unmatched in its scope and breadth of historical and related social science literature. Title list

Humanities Source is designed to meet the needs of students, researchers and educators interested in all aspects of the humanities. The collection includes full text for more than 1,400 journals, with citations to over 3.5 million articles, including book reviews. Coverage in Humanities Source includes worldwide content pertaining to literary, scholarly and creative thought. Title list

The Philosopher’s Index™, produced by the Philosopher’s Information Center, is a current and comprehensive bibliographic database covering scholarly research in all major fields of philosophy. The Philosopher’s Index with Full Text, considered the most thorough index of journal literature on the subject, features author-written abstracts covering scholarly research published in journals and books, including contributions to anthologies and book reviews. The Philosopher’s Index contains research published since 1940 including over 680 journals from more than 50 countries with content representing a variety of languages. Title list

EBSCO has revamped its service platform, the EBSCOhost site. By January 7, 2025, only this new site will be available, which will include all old features and will be expanded with many new modern research options.

EBSCO will transfer user profiles to the new platform, so it is expected that data stored in user profiles, quary lists, etc. will continue to be available without any disruptions or errors.

A support site has also been created for the new platform, the New EBSCOhost Transition Center, where you can find help using the new site.