With the support of the National Cultural Fund, between the 28th and the 29th of May 2024, a management training course was held for the library managers of the University Library Service and the managers and staff of the ELTE University Library and Archives.

The two-day, develop effective management collaboration training provided participants with useful information on situational leadership and emotional intelligence. The training aimed to develop the leadership skills and competencies of leaders and to present tools, which are useful and work in practice. By applying the knowledge gained, their teams and the library as a whole will be able to improve their performance and effectiveness.

Ambassador Frank R. Cimafranca visited the ELTE University Library on the 15th of May 2024.

In the newly opened community space, the delegation also had an opportunity to discover the photo exhibition „Liminal Quarters” by PhD student James Clifford Viloria, which depicts the dormitory life of foreign students studying at the university. The area designed as part of the Book of Your Life project also provided an opportunity for consultation with students from the Philippines studying at ELTE. The delegation concluded the programme with a guided tour of the library.

The community space and our library welcomes national and international students with extended opening hours until 22:00 during the examination period until the 15th of June 2024. We wish you all a successful and enjoyable end of semester!

The Sabbathsong Klezmer Band soloists and the world famous cimbalom player Jenő Lisztes will perform Monti's Charda and other popular works alongside klezmer melodies at the concert „More than Klezmer on the Night of Museums” on the 22nd of June 2024 at 8.30 pm. In the footsteps of astronomical and geographical discoveries, the performers will recall a private song by Gyula Kabos from 1919, and show how Columbus discovered America.

The poem „Football” by Hanna Szenes will also be heard in connection with the „Goal Pass” theme. For more information, please visit our website or the Night of Museums’ homepage. All visitors are welcome!

Nowadays, it seems inconceivable that serious scientists of past centuries could have attached so much importance to the current positions of stars and planets.

Diseases, wars, famines or perhaps good harvests, royal weddings and great discoveries await mankind? All this was thought to be read from the signs in the heavens. Join us in our search for the heavens and visit our Copernicus Memorial Exhibition entitled „The man who moved the Earth out of its place”, opening on the 22nd of June 2024 during the Night of Museums!

For more information, please visit our website or the Night of Museums’ homepage.

Oxford University Press offered Trial Access to Grove Art Online and Grove Music Online. To access these databases, please connect to ELTE internet network directly on campus or by using VPN for remote access. The trial ends at the 15th of June 2024.

Grove Art Online

„The foremost scholarly art encyclopaedia, updated regularly and covering global art and architecture from prehistory to present day. Includes peer-reviewed articles contributed by nearly 7,000 scholars from around the world, accompanied by images, bibliographies, and links to additional resources.”

Grove Music Online

„The authoritative resource for music research with over 52,000 articles written by nearly 9,000 scholars charting the diverse history, theory and cultures of music around the globe. Based on a work first published in 1879 and updated frequently, Grove has been in continuous publication for over a century and now publishes hundreds of new articles and article revisions each year.”

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.