In the framework of our book adoption programme, our conservator and reference librarian gave our adopters a detailed presentation of the supported volumes.

Representing Kék Zóna Közösség Kft., Zoltán Gazsi, the Eisberg Kft. and his wife Andrea Andrek adopted the book of István Illyés entitled Készület a jól meghaláshoz (’Preparation for Dying Well’). István Illyés (1650–1711/1712) was born in 1650 in Csíkszentgyörgy (Ciucsângeorgiu) in Szeklerland, as the younger brother of András Illyés, later bishop of Transylvania. He was educated in his native village, at the Franciscan school of Csíksomlyó (Șumuleu Ciuc), then in Ungvár (Uzhhorod), Szepes (Spiš) and Pozsony (Bratislava).

As an alumnus of the Pázmáneum, he studied in Vienna from 1672, where he obtained a master's degree. He completed his theological studies at the German-Hungarian College in Rome, after which he was ordained a priest (1677). On his return to Hungary he held several posts (e.g. parish priest of Nádszeg [Trstice]), canon of Esztergom and parish priest of Somorja (Šamorín) in 1688, archdeacon of Hont in 1689, archdeacon of Zólyom (Zvolen) in 1690, provost of Szenttamás (Србобран) in 1691, and later abbot of Szentjobb (Sâniob). In 1693, he became custos of Esztergom, in 1696 cantor, in 1707 lector, in 1708 grand provost of Esztergom, then vicar general and bishop of Szendrő (Smederevo). He died in 1711 or 1712. 

The first edition of the Készület a jól meghaláshoz (’Preparation for Dying Well’) was published in 1693 by the Academy Press in Nagyszombat (Trnava), together with his psalms and funeral hymns, but a second, slightly revised edition was published in the same year (the University Library's copy contains the latter edition). After the greeting of the readers, the author presents in two parts how Christians should prepare for death: the first part deals with the necessary actions in a healthy age, the second with those necessary in sickness. Each of these two parts is divided into 10 further chapters. More than half of the volume is taken up by subsequent prayers, which are also necessary to prepare for death: a creed, a prayer for forgiveness of sins, a prayer against the fear of death, a prayer to the guardian angel and Mary, prayers for the terminally ill, etc. The whole work concludes with the text of the Litany of Loreto before the list of errors and contents. 25 leaves are bound behind the print (later hands numbered the leaves in pencil), on which several 17th-18th century hands inscribed prayers in Hungarian and Latin. The subjects of the hand-written prayers are diverse: a sinner's prayer to Mary; a powerful prayer to be said every nine days; a prayer for the peace of the Church and the kingdom; a rosary of the Holy Trinity against pestilence; a prayer to Jude the Apostle and Saint John of Nepomuk. 

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

Our adopted book: RMK I 346 Illyés István: Készület a’ jól meg-haláshoz, szép oktatásokkal, bíztatásokkal, főfő jószágos cselekedetek gyakorlásával, imádságokkal, és Istenhez-való fohászkodásokkal, fel-készíttetett, és először francziául, az-után olaszul, és deákül bévebben : most pedig Illyés István … által, magyarul rövidebben, és némely változással, ’s néhol hozzá-adással is, ki-bocsáttatott, a halandók, és halálos betegségben vonakodók vigasztalására, segédelmére, és az őket vigasztalók üdvösséges foglalatosságára

Nyomtattatot Nagyszombatban: az Academiai bötükkel Hörman János által, M. DC. XCIII. [1693] esztendőben

Object of the month – Memorial plaque of the ELTE Radnóti Miklós Teacher Training School

Miklós Radnóti was born 115 years ago, on the 5th of May 1909, in Budapest, in an assimilated Jewish family. He attended the University of Szeged from 1930, obtained a Hungarian–French secondary school teacher qualification in 1936, but did not get a job.

The school took his name in 1959, and at the naming ceremony on the 9th of May, literary historian Gábor Tolnai (1910–1990), Radnóti’s former university student, gave a speech:

„He wanted to be a teacher. He considered education and teaching to be the most beautiful task of man. Education for the truth. He was already a teacher when he was a university student. He raised us, his friends, primarily with his human behavior, honesty, and love of justice. Miklós Radnóti spoke the truth until the moment of his death.[…] Dear girls and boys, be proud that your school is named after him, and try to be worthy of the poet and unusually pure and unwavering man, Miklós Radnóti.”

The commemorative plaque depicts the facing portrait of the Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti (1909–1944), with the inscription: „RADNÓTI”. The current version of the ELTE Radnóti Miklós Teacher Training School commemorative plaque is the school's award, it was founded by the school in 1983. It is awarded to the most deserving 12th grade student for excellent academic work and for the school community.

Written by Hedvig Kocsis, Georgina Schlay

The Foundation for the University Library held this year's meeting of the Board of Trustees, where Dr. Péter Kiszl, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Kulcsár Szabó Ernőné Gombos Annamária, Director General of the ELTE University Library and Archives (ELTE ULA), Márta Csikós, Head of Cabinet of ELTE ULA, Dr. Edit Madas, academician, professor, and Judit Osskó, certified architect, monument protection engineer, television editor-director, participated in the meeting.

During the meeting, the financial and professional report of the Foundation for 2023 was approved, and members agreed on the strategic orientations of the plans for this year, defining the steps and workflows for implementation. At the end of the meeting, the members of the Board of Trustees attended a presentation of the restoration workshop and some special volumes of the museum collection.

For more details on the activities of the Foundation for the University Library, book adoptions and donations, please, click here.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Hungary's accession to the European Union, a chamber exhibition is waiting for the interested visitors in the lobby of the ELTE SEK, using materials from the ELTE EKL Savaria Library and Archives and the European Documentation Centre.

The display cases contain documents related to the theme, while the screens show a list of the most important EU-funded projects and pictures of the projects that our institution has won over the last 20 years. The exhibition, which also includes free publications on the subject, is open until the 10th of May 2024.

Oxford University Press offered trial access to its product, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) until end of May. The service is available at ELTE after logging into the university's Internet network or remotely via VPN.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and usage of 500,000 words and phrases past and present, from across the English-speaking world.

As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from dictionaries of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You’ll still find present-day meanings in the OED, but you’ll also find the history of individual words, sometimes from as far back as the 11th century, and of the language—traced through 3.5 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts, song lyrics, and social media posts.

In the framework of the Book of Your Life project, the new community space of the ELTE University Library and Archives was inaugurated for international and domestic students with the opening speech of Rector Dr. László Borhy.

At the opening ceremony, Dr. Kulcsár Szabó Ernőné Gombos Annamária, Director General, welcomed the guests and praised the students' initiative and cooperation in the joint creation of the space. In his speech, the Rector emphasized that the University Library and Archives, in addition to meeting the information needs of students, places special emphasis on promoting multicultural relations, meeting the needs of students and supporting their mental well-being, in line with the University's objectives and internationalization strategy. As a user-oriented cultural institution, the library is committed to fulfilling its mission as a community-building and community-developing institution, in addition to supporting education and research. The new student community space will also serve as a venue for intercultural events and student pop-up exhibitions. Szilva Szöllősi, Head of the Office of University Strategy, gave a brief presentation on the Book of Your Life project, the first milestone of which was the inauguration of the space.

The opening was also the occasion for the presentation of the facsimile edition of Rusalka Dnyistrovaja (Mermaid of Dniester) and the accompanying study volume. In response to questions from the Director of the ELTE Institute of Slavonic and Baltic Philology, Dr. Róbert Kiss Szemán professor, Dr. Viktória Lebovics, senior lecturer and author of the accompanying study, stressed that the adventurous almanac was the first publication in the vernacular Ukrainian language in the Western Ukrainian region, which was published in 1837 in Buda, with the permission of the Hungarian censor, at the Royal Hungarian University Press, after the censorship of the church authorities in Lviv had been banned by the censorship authorities in Vienna, based on the opinion of the church authorities in Lviv. The volume became the first publication written in the vernacular in Galicia, and its importance is seen in the context of the linguistic and cultural revival of the Slavic peoples that began in the early 19th century.

In addition to around 100 copies of the Dniester mermaid in libraries and museums around the world, private libraries also have copies. In Hungary, there are two copies of the first edition: one in the University Library of Eötvös Loránd University, which was most probably a required copy of the University Printing House, and the other in the National Library. The publishers of this volume advocated the development of national cultures and literatures in the national language and were the first to use the phonetic notation of the Ukrainian language. The volume is of great cultural importance for Ukrainians and has its own museum in Lviv. The facsimile edition is a faithful copy of the volume kept in the University Library, which is a limited edition and not available commercially.

The event finished with a standing reception and the opening of a photo exhibition entitled Liminal Quarters, by James Clifford Viloria, PhD student (ELTE Faculty of Earth Sciences, Doctoral School), which depicts the dormitory life of foreign students at ELTE.

All visitors are welcome in our new community space!

The ELTE University Library and Archives and the Tianyige Library and Museum shared information about their history and collections in an online discussion. Both libraries were founded in 1561 and have a rich history and collection philosophy.

Tianyi Pavilion is the oldest surviving private library in China, located in a Chinese garden in Ningbo. The library was established in 1561 by Fan Qi, Secretary of Defence during the Ming Dynasty (1561–1566). Thanks to his work as a book collector, at its peak the library held 70 000 volumes of documents, mostly local chronicles and imperial inspection protocols of the Ming dynasty. Today, it holds more than 300 000 volumes, 80 000 of which are special rare books. It is also an integrated thematic museum of book collecting culture. The building complex is divided into three functional parts: the library building, the recreation gardens and the exhibition area.

Following a presentation by the director and staff of the Tianyige Library, the ELTE University Library and Archives, which is the same age as the Chinese collection, also presented its historical, book collecting and architectural history, offering its Chinese-themed museum holdings for possible adoption. The two institutions are committed to continue to enhance international and inter-institutional cultural relations and cooperation.

Henrik Marczali (1856–1940) was a historian, university professor and corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He started his studies at the University of Pest in 1870, and after graduating he became a teacher at the university’s Training School and from 1895 he was appointed a full professor at the university.

Marczali played an important role in the establishment of professional historiography and the training of historians in Hungary. His life and work were commemorated by the Henrik Marczali Research Group at a two-day conference (17–18 April 2024), on the opening day of which a commemorative plaque was unveiled at Marczali’s former residence at 59–61 József körút. The participants of the event took a guided walk around Marczali’s former workplace, including the University Libary, where the Training School was located between 1875 and 1881 and the Historical Seminary between 1886 and 1890. At the conference, Krisztina Tóth, PhD, head of the archives, gave a presentation on Henrik Marczali’s years as a student and his studies at the university.

Statista is available for a free trial until the 17th of May 2024. The database and its services can be accessed after logging in to ELTE’s internet network directly on campus or via VPN for remote access.

Access link is available here.

Statista is a global data and business intelligence platform with an extensive collection of statistics, reports, and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources across 170 industries. The database contains the following packages:

Statistics, Forcasts and Topic Pages

Reports, Studies and Dossier 

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Established in Germany in 2007, Statista operates in 13 locations worldwide and employs around 1,100 professionals.

Object of the month – Commemorative medal of the Pre-school and Primary Education Association

The purpose of the association, founded in 1889, is to raise the professional standards of pre-school and primary teacher training schools, as well as to increase the recognition of institutional and teaching activities. In 2023 Dr. habil. Éva Márkus, the dean of the Faculty of Primary and Pre-school Education was elected to the president of the association.

Years can be seen on the medal image on the obverse. In the middle: „1992”, in the middle of it: „1889”. At the top and bottom of the circular is the name of the organization in Hungarian. The image of the medal on the back shows two hands joining. Below the image of the medal is the maker's mark: an SZ between the letters GY. The commemorative medal was made in 1992 by György Szabó.

Written by Abt Anett