The Social Theory and Contemporary History Collection of Szeged University Library

51. évfolyam, 2005. 1. szám

LACZKÓ, Sándor

Könyvtári Figyelő (Library Review) vol. 15. (51.) 2005. no. 1. pp. 39 – 44.

The collection was created in 1985 by the teaching staff of the Faculty of Humanities of Szeged University with the objective of collecting social theory and political history literature related to the 20th century history of Hungary and Central and South-Eastern Europe. The collection interest included emigré and samizdat publications, manuscripts, translations in manuscript, research literature. Between 1985 and 1989, this was the only collection where students could legally access samizdat and emigré literature.

During the political and economic transition period, the profile of the collection underwent a few changes. Priority was given to the 20th century history and contemporary social theory of Central and South-Eastern Europe, with a special focus on nationality / minority issues. The collection has a two-fold function: it supports the professional education in Regional History and Minority Studies at Szeged University and also constitutes a valuable resource for research.

Since 1994, the collection has been functioning as a special collection of Szeged University Library and is open to the general public too. It contains 8,500 documents, most of which are unavailable in print publishing, Hungarian periodicals published abroad, minorities-related journals, and other scholarly and cultural journals in English, Serbian, Croatian, Romanian and German languages. The collection is covered by the online catalogue of the university library. The homepage of the collection (http://primus.arts.u-szeged.hu/doktar) offers access to the databases, bibliographies as well as the full text of studies and articles published by the library.

The new library of Szeged University was opened in December 2004. The new location, as well as the integration into the new structure hopefully holds new opportunities of development and cooperation for the special library of Social Theory and Contemporary History.

Országos Széchényi Könyvtár
Észrevételek