The ELTE University Library and Archives offers extended opening hours for readers and students on weekdays and Saturdays between the 6th of May 2024 and the 15th of June 2024 until 22.00 hours. Our new community space offers the opportunity to learn, relax, use kitchen facilities and free computer access.

Through our constantly expanding services, we aim to provide ELTE students with an efficient and effective learning opportunity, with the support of the Students' Union and in cooperation with the students.

The following services are available between 20.00 and 22.00 on weekdays and between 18.00 and 22.00 on Saturdays:

• study and reading in the Reading Hall and free use of kitchen utensils and computers in the ground floor community room,
• picking up books requested online during the day from the pickup locker,
• return of books using the self-lending terminal and the book deposit box (Bibliobox),
• self-service printing and photocopying using a pre-purchased card,
• free self-service scanning.

During the extended opening hours, reception and general information is provided. The lobby, the Reading Hall and the community space are open to the public only with a pre-purchased library card.

Everyone is welcome and we wish all our students a successful semester and exam period!

The ELTE University Library and Archives will be closed between the 27th and the 30th of April 2024 due to technical reasons.

From Thursday (2 May 2024), we are waiting for our visitors according to the usual opening hours.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

The ELTE University Library and Archives is pleased to invite you to the opening ceremony of its new student community space and the presentation of the book the Dniester Mermaid on the 25th of April 2024 from 13.00.

The Book of Your Life intercultural inclusion project and the limited edition facsimile of the Dniester Mermaid (Русалка Дністровая), a Hungarian-related Ukrainian book rarity and accompanying textbook, will be presented at the event.

Originally published in 1837 by the Royal University Press, the Rusalka Dnyistrovaja (Dniester Mermaid) almanac was published in a facsimile edition by the Eötvös Loránd University and the University Library and Archives. This adventurous little book became not only the first publication in Galicia written in the vernacular, but also the basis for the national revival of the western Ukrainian regions in the 19th century.

In the newly inaugurated community space an exhibition of photographs by James Clifford Viloria, PhD student (ELTE TTK Doctoral School of Earth Sciences), entitled Liminal Quarters, is also on display.

A detailed programme is available here.

All visitors are welcome!

The ELTE University Library and Archives on the 16th of April 2024 (Tuesday) will be closed from 15.00 due to technical reasons.

From Wednesday (17 April 2024) we are waiting for our visitors according to the usual opening hours.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

In the framework of the Sustainability Week, we welcome elementary and secondary school groups to visit the ELTE University Library and Archives for green library presentations.

Restoration workshop on sustainability

Our conservator will give you a taste of paper-casting and bookbinding techniques. Learn about the process of book disinfection and old bookbinding techniques. The aim of the restoration work is to preserve the historical and aesthetic value of our museum collection, using natural materials, and to extend its life by means of various restoration procedures and preventive conservation techniques.

Dates:

24 April 2024 10.00-10.30

24 April 2024 14.00-14.30

25 April 2024 10.00-10.30

25 April 2024 14.00-14.30

Library history guided tours

Library tours provide information about the history of the ELTE University Library and Archives. The library palace, designed by Antal Szkalnitzky, was built using state-of-the-art ventilation, heating and lighting solutions of the 19th century. The library tour includes sgraffiti in the colonnade of the lobby, female figures of science and art in the main hall, and a portrait of Mór Than by the middle-aged Franz Joseph. Visitors can tour the rooms of the former Director General's residence, admire the reconstruction of the László Perczel globe and visit our Historical Warehouse, which is open to the public on special occasions.

Dates:

24 April 2024 10.30-11.00

24 April 2024 14.30-15.00

25 April 2024 10.30-11.00

25 April 2024 14.30-15.00

Sustainable development and libraries

Our Green Library presentation reveals what a library can do to achieve the sustainable development goals.

Dates:

24 April 2024 11.00-11.30

24 April 2024 15.00-15.30

25 April 2024 11.00-11.30

25 April 2024 15.00-15.30

More details are available on the Sustainability Week website and here.

All visitors are welcome!

During the Easter holidays, between the 29th of March and the 1st of April 2024, the ELTE University Library and Archives is closed.

From the 2nd of April 2024, we are open with our full range of services.

We wish you a happy and blessed Easter! 

The ELTE University Library and Archives will be closed on the 15th of March 2024 (Friday) and on the 16th of March 2024 (Saturday) on the occasion of the national holiday.

From Wednesday (from the 18th of March 2024) we are waiting for our readers according to the usual opening hours.

The ELTE University Library and Archives on the 5th of February 2024 (Monday) will be closed from 14.00 due to technical reasons.

From Tuesday (6 February 2024) we are waiting for our visitors according to the usual opening hours.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

The mission of the ELTE University Library and Archives, which won the Hungarian Heritage Award and – as part of the University Library Service – the title of Qualified Library in 2018, as well as the EFQM “Committed to Excellence” certificate in 2020, is to provide Hungarian and foreign academic teachers, researchers and students with domestic and foreign literature, intending to integrate them into the international circulation of scientific life. Now, you can also help to ensure free access to information, to preserve and digitize our cultural values, and to acquire modern technological equipment and implement continuous service development. Please, support the Foundation for the University Library by offering 1% of your tax.

The Foundation for the University Library was established in 2005 to provide the technical modernization for the ELTE University Library and Archives and help expansing its services and protecting its holdings. The library's old book collection of more than one and a half million documents is part of the national cultural heritage and is also significant in Europe, so it is our shared responsibility to preserve these values ​​for the rising generation.

The non-profit organization, led by Dr. Péter Kiszl, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, significantly supports the library's value-saving activities. In order to restore the volumes of the collection, which requires special attention and constant preservation, the foundation has launched a book adoption program. In addition, it contributes to the organization of events promoting the values ​​and the professional work of the University Library and Archives, the publication of a wall calendar presenting the rarities of the library and the university’s cultural heritage, as well as the publication of the University Library Yearbooks and acquiring new technical equipment.

More information about the support possibilities of the Foundation for the University Library is available here.

Foundation for the University Library

H-1053 Budapest, Ferenciek tere 6.

Phone: +36 1 411 6738

Email: alapitvany@lib.elte.hu

Tax number: 18121362-1-41

Account number: 12010532-00120645-00100003

On the occasion of the Hungarian–Turkish Cultural Year, the 2024 calendar of the ELTE University Library and Archives presents a selection of medieval codices, which arrived the library from Constantinople at the end of April 1877.

The pages of the calendar offer an insight into the diversity of our collections and cultural assets, selected from ten 13th–15th century codices. In late April 1877, 35 codices arrived in Budapest from Istanbul, via Vienna, in a wooden box on a train. The manuscripts, which, according to the scholarly view of the period, had been taken by the Ottoman troops from the famous library of King Matthias Corvinus to Constantinople as spoils of war at the siege of Buda, were the gifts from Sultan Abdul Hamid II to the Hungarian university students. The antecedent of the gift was a friendly gesture. In opposition to the weakening Ottoman Empire, the Austro–Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire gradually drew closer together, and when the Russians occupied new parts of the Ottoman territories, sympathy demonstrations were held in Budapest in the autumn of 1876. Students of the Royal University had a sword made and presented to the Ottoman commander-in-chief. Among the codices gifted by the sultan and held in the University Library, 14 are considered today as certain Corvinas. The fact that their original bindings were removed and replaced by green, red, and white leather coverings in Istanbul makes their identification even more difficult. They  include  classic  literature,  Christian  philosophy,  medieval  surgery,  and  even  a  „contemporary”  piece,  Dante’s Divine  Comedy. An electronic version of the calendar is available here.

The representative wall calendar was published under the management of the Prime Minister’s Office, with the support of the National Cooperation Fund, the Bethlen Gábor Fund Management Ltd. and the Foundation for the University Library.

For information about the support options of the Foundation for the University Library, please, visit our website. More details about our book adoption program can be found here.