The Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

The Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences established in 1826 disseminates knowledge and promotes scientific research. Historically, it is a national institution and special national research library making available traditional (printed, manuscript and archival) holdings as well as other information media. It has been building a reference and lending collection of ancient history, classical philology, world literature and international literary studies, linguistics and Oriental studies. The library’s core collection has included the publications and periodicals of the Academy since the beginning in all the fields of studies. The MTA LIC is a founding member of the Hungarian Shared Cataloguing Project and a participant in the National Document Supply System. Drawing upon its unique holdings, handles a substantial portion of interlibrary loans in Hungary.

The library has two special collections. The Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books was founded in 1861. The bulk of the present-day manuscript collection consists of codices, bequests of the most outstanding Hungarian authors, scholars and scientists from the 16^th century onwards and the archives of the Academy from 1825 to 1849.

A second, internationally renowned special collection, the Oriental Collection was opened in 1951 and became the main reference library of Hungarian Oriental research.

It was created by selectingthe East-related stock from the old divisions of the Library. In addition to contemporary monographs, the Collection became enriched by 16th–18th century books written about the Orient or in Oriental languages. The holdings also include the most comprehensive Hungarian collection of periodicals of Oriental studies together with unique manuscripts. 

Nowadays, the MTA LIC is responding to an expansive and evolving range of requirements and has recently been assigned a new scope of duties related to the Academy. These are the followings:

The shift from print media to electronic resources brought alive Electronic Information Service (EIS) in 2001 in order to support higher education and research with electronic information infrastructure of different types of databases from full text periodicals to factual information databases.

As of January 2018, EIS has 205 member institutions from the government and non-profit sector. Through national licence agreements almost 50 databases are subscribed to and accessible for eligible institutions via IP addresses and increasingly by using EduID. Among the databases there are large full text journal packages, bibliographic databases of different subject field and citation indexes as well.

The second one is the Hungarian National Scientific Bibliography (MTMT) which is the most important and credible database of Hungarian scientific works. Data attributes of the participating institutes’ researchers’ scientific activities are uploaded into the national database on a monitored basis.

The system is standing on a wide professional base, its data is used in accreditation process, doctoral procedures, preparing applications, evaluations and compiling statistics. Using

the bibliographic parameters of some of the uploaded articles, the system provides access to repositories.

The Department of Science Policy and Scientometrics primary task is to provide relevant information for the decision-making and evaluating units, leading forums, organizations and institutions of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences through professional analytic service, regular investigations and data service, as well as various national and international tasks.

The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences actively promote the academic culture in Hungary by featuring our collection of documents at exhibitions, book launch events and conferences. The Library aims at highlighting the social importance of science and especially, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences by exhibiting memorabilia of prestigious scientists and patrons.

Preserving traditional values and maintaining up-to-date information services have always been a duty of a library and this has remained so to this day. According to these principles MTA LIC continue to work and serve our history as well as our readers.