Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute for Literary Studies
Eötvös Library
1118 Budapest, Ménesi út 11–13.
Phone: (36 1) 279-2767
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Online catalogue
(contains approx. 70% of the collection; the other 30% and the periodicals can be searched on the premises in a paper catalogue of the book collection, the complete stock and periodicals can be searched on-site via card catalogue)
Opening times:
Monday–Wednesday: 9am–5pm
Friday: 9am–2pm
Thursday: closed
Colleagues:
Veronika Markó, librarian – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Anikó Botka, librarian – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Márta Sarankó, managing specialist, website editor, institutional MTMT administrator
– This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Eötvös Library is a limited-access public reference library: its reading room is open to all, with colleagues of the Institute for Literary Studies and the Research Centre for the Humanities, as well as the students of Eötvös Collegium entitled to borrow books, following registration.
The collection includes all branches of literary studies (with special emphasis on contemporary Hungarian literature, comparative literary history, literary theory, and Renaissance research). As a social science reference library, it collects the most important Hungarian and foreign humanities research literature, to the extent circumstances allow. As a result of systematic acquisition, currently 80% of the approximately 200,000 volumes (approx. 4,750 linear meters) is accessible on open shelves, organized according to class.
Our subscribed databases are easiest to access through the EISz web portal [portal of Electronic Information Service]: Akadémiai Journals Collection [Akadémiai Journals Collection], JSTORE, LION, Project MUSE, Scopus, etc.
The history of our library in a nutshell, in continuous operation for 125 years
We have to go back far beyond the establishment of the Institute for Literary Studies: the Eötvös József Collegium, founded in 1895 based on the model of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris to train teachers, wanted to provide a high-quality library from the start, to help meet its demanding requirements. The new building of the Collegium was opened in 1910 on Gellért Hill, one of the most beautiful areas of Budapest, where the library was housed on the first floor, according to branches of science (we still use the same system today, in a somewhat extended version). These spaces were specifically tailored to the library in terms of their architecture and structure, and they have been serving the readers for more than 100 years.
The Eötvös Collegium was dissolved in 1950, but – thanks to its highly respected alumni – the library was saved, and it became a section of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on 1 October, 1950. The Institute for Literary History (later Institute for Literary Studies) was housed in the Eötvös Collegium building in January 1956, with many of its leaders and researchers alumni of the college (István Sőtér, Tibor Klaniczay, etc.), so it was logical for our library to become part of the Institute. Head librarians: Sándor Szőke (1956–1963), Kálmán Bor (1963–1973), Sztoján D. Vujicsics (1973–1975), Béla Stoll (1975–1977), Miklós Németh (1977–1986), Katalin Németh S. (1986–2007). The latest acting head was Eszter Zarnóczkiné Héjjas (2007–2016), since then the tasks of the head of the library are carried out by librarian Veronika Markó.
The pricelessness of the library in terms of the history of science is due to the fact that since its foundation its stock has been built based on advice from the best scholar teachers (Gyula Szekfű, Lajos Ligeti, Zoltán Kodály, Dezső Keresztury), and the fact that it has been enriched through exceptional private collections. The most valuable donation is that of Loránd Eötvös (a famous physicist, member of the Academy, minister, and the founder of the Collegium): he donated the books of his father, József Eötvös to the library (approx. 1,500 volumes, with the original bookcases). The professors and students of the Collegium, and later the colleagues of the Institute for Literary Studies have also always donated books to the library, endowing the countless signed volumes with unique significance in terms of cultural history. It is a significant recognition for us that our Nobel-prize-winning author Imre Kertész donated the translations of his books published abroad to the Eötvös Library.
As a result of their relations with other institutions abroad and the systematic acquisitions, our predecessors have gathered together irreplaceable series of books and periodicals (e.g. the volumes of Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, and the Collection des Universités de France/Association Guillaume Budé in the classical philology section).
