The object of the month – Candle from the funeral of Mór Jókai

The writer Mór Jókai was born on 18 February 1825 in Komárom. After high school, he began to study law in Kecskemét, and in 1846 he qualified as a lawyer. However, he soon left his profession and became a journalist. He was an active participant in the events of 15 March 1848 and worked as a journalist and editor during the War of Independence and after its fall. 

Jókai wrote his first novel in 1846. However, his writing career really took off after the fall of the War of Independence in the 1850s. His novels were published in succession and he became very popular. He was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1858, then a full member in 1861. In 1894, on the occasion of his half-century jubilee as a writer, his works were published in a national edition, celebrations were held in schools, his plays were performed in theatres and a ball was held in his honour. Our university also took part in the national celebrations, and on 18 February 1894, the writer was awarded an honorary doctorate and received a delegation from the university in his apartment. Aladár Schnierer, Rector, Lajos Láng, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Zsolt Beöthy, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, accompanied by seven students, welcomed Mór Jókai with toasts, a handshake and an honorary degree. His death in 1904 shocked the whole country, and on 9 May thousands of people escorted him from the foyer of the National Museum to his final resting place in the Kerepesi cemetery. The funeral was attended by the director and staff of the University Library, who honoured the memory of the prince of letters with a wreath bearing the inscription „Keepers of your immortal works – the University Library of Budapest”. After the funeral, Zoltán Ferenczi, Library Director, was presented with a candle from the funeral, which is still kept in the University History Collection.

The wax candle, 60 cm long and in a black paper box, is bound with black ribbon. Next to the candle is an obituary addressed to Zoltán Ferenczi, Director of the Library, on the death of Mór Jókai.

On Sunday, 13 April 2025, on the occasion of the International Day of Special Needs Education, the exhibition Traces of the life of our namesake, Gusztáv Bárczi was on display in the library of the Faculty of Special Needs Education, as well as an exhibition on the history of special needs education, which was also held in another room, provided also by the Faculty Library and the Special Needs Education History Collection.

A detailed report of the whole event is available on the Faculty’s website: https://barczi.elte.hu/en/content/we-celebrate-the-international-day-of-special-needs-education.t.3719

Elsevier is offering trial access to its service called Scopus AI from June 10 to June 24, 2025. The service can be accessed from the Scopus homepage, by connecting to the ELTE internet network, or outside the university using a VPN service.

Scopus AI, integrated into the Scopus platform, is an intuitive and intelligent search tool based on generative artificial intelligence. It helps users navigate the vast amount of information available in Scopus. It allows users to find articles using natural language queries and provides easily understandable summaries of research findings. The tool supports the exploration of research areas and helps identify opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

The provider is organizing a training webinar entitled Scopus AI in Action – Smarter Research, Sharper Decisions on the first day of the trial, which will demonstrate how Scopus AI works in practice.

Date and time: June 10, 2025 (Tuesday), at 11:00 AM (CEST)

Registration: https://elsevier.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TCGWvtNyRWCdhngZhCDjjg

Ametican Chemical Society – representing Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) offered a trial access to a new Life Science solution, CAS BioFinder Discovery Platform until June 13, 2025.

The platform is only accessible to those who already have valid login credentials to CAS SciFinder Discovery platform. You can access BioFinder using your active SciFinder login ID at https://biofinder.cas.org/.

With CAS BioFinder you can explore connections between ligands, targets, and diseases and run AI-enhanced predictive bioactivity models with data derived from existing literature. This ensures you always have the most relevant results.  In addition to existing and predicted bioactivity, ligand, sequence, disease, and biomarker data, CAS BioFinder also integrates 3D protein models and details to save time and advance your drug discovery program.

Live training and demo webinar

Wednesday, June 4th at 2pm CEST

Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 279 610 113 556 7

Passcode: Va9Do2Th

Demo videos:

Starting a search in BioFinder: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1049695836/bb495454e8 (4:43 mins)

Working with results in BioFinder: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1049695902/c13ab24a1e  (6:23 mins)

Scaffold search by target name: https://vimeo.com/1050284847/152eb771e7?share=copy (6 mins)

Explore ligand's details: https://vimeo.com/1055907704/e4bb4de421?share=copy (5:30 mins)

The inauguration ceremony took place on 28 May 2025, the innovative solution further enhances the range of library services.   

Dr. Lénárd Darázs, Vice-Rector for General Affairs of Eötvös Loránd University, expressed his appreciation for the library's innovative developments and the introduction of an information service tailored to the public's interest, congratulating the popularity of audioguide, which was the result of a coordinated cooperation and real teamwork. 

The Director General of the ELTE University Library and Archives, Dr. Kulcsár Szabó Ernőné Gombos Annamária emphasized at the opening ceremony: as the first public library in Hungary, the representative spaces and cultural heritage of our institution attract countless tourists every year, so we wanted to satisfy the desire for culture and education of both domestic and foreign visitors by presenting the history, architectural features and hidden treasures of the building. As well as continuing to expand its library services to the university community, and in line with the University's third mission, the library is now also a key focus for cultural tourism visitors, presenting not only the beauty of the building but also the stories behind it. Contents currently available in Hungarian and English are planned to be extended to other languages. Thanking the team for their help and support, and highlighting the efficient contribution of IT specialist Ádám Bollók in providing the IT background and infrastructure, the opening ceremony ended with an audioguide tour and a toast.

The members of the ELTE Heritage Coordination held their first meeting this year on 28 May 2025 at the Natural History Museum of the Faculty of Science.

The network, which was established in 2020, has the important task of managing and making visible the valuable cultural heritage owned by the university, and one of the aims of the meetings, which are held two or three times a year, is to get to know each other's collections and exchange professional ideas. The recent event gave the coordinators the opportunity to see the unique natural history collection and the inventory and processing work used there. After the technical discussion, the rich and unique collection of the Mineral Library was presented by Tamás Weiszburg, retired director, followed by Erzsébet Harman-Tóth, current director, who gave an overview of the history and current situation of the natural history collection. In the afternoon, Katalin Török Júlia and Tamás Hajdu guided a tour of the biological collection, and to round off a rich and informative day, Klára Felkerné Kóthay shared her experiences and good practices on the collection's inventory practices with the participants.

In the framework of our book adoption programme, our conservator and old book librarian gave our adopter a detailed presentation of the supported volume.

Psychologist Andrea Andrek, PhD adopted Rudolph Goclenius' Ψυχολογια [Psuhologia], hoc est, De hominis perfectione, animo, et in primis ortu hujus, commentationes ac disputationes quorundam theologorum et philosophorum nostrae aetatis, quos proxime sequens praefationem pagina ostendit / nunc correctae et auctae a Rodolpho Goclenio. (The title of the volume in English is Psychology, i.e. Treatises and Discourses on the Perfection of Man, the Soul, and especially its Origin, by Some Contemporary Theologians and Philosophers, listed on the page following the Preface / corrected and expanded by Rodolphus Goclenius.)

Rudolph Goclenius (1547–1628) was a German philosopher who taught at the University of Marburg from the 1580s. He first published the above-mentioned collected works of several authors in 1590. The book was the first printed document to include the term psychology in its title (although the word was a somewhat earlier invention, used by Goclenius in his lectures). The University Library edition is the third revised edition, published in Marburg in 1597 by Paul Egenolff.

The work contains, among other works, Hermann Vultejus's treatise on the philosophical perfection of man, Johann Ludwig Havenreuter's reflections on whether the soul is implanted in us by God or not, Caspar Peucer's reflections on the essence, nature and source of the human soul, and Rudolph Goclenius's theory on the origin of the soul. The work is accompanied by a Latin translation of Sophocles' drama The Women of Thrace, published in Strasbourg in 1588, which is missing the title page.

The volume was used by the Lutheran rector David Kilger of Bratislava in 1605, but by 1692 it was kept in the library of the Jesuit College of Bratislava. The book’s English translation is available here.