A hundred years. : Moments from the history of the University and National Library of the University of Debrecen

Abstract

For the past century, the University Library has fulfilled a course of development of its own. At the time the University was established (1912), the Ministry's decision envisioned a self-contained institution, and, for this particular reason, up to 1950, the history of the Library was integrated into the development of a single institution. Between 1950 and 2000, the libraries of the autonomous institutions of higher education served the information requirements of teaching and research independently, although they also tended to be somewhat bound together by certain cooperative efforts. Thus it was natural that in the wake of the political changes the resuscitation of the concept of the „universitas” should prompt an even closer form of cooperation between libraries until, in 2000, an integrated University of Debrecen, and its University and National Library were established which managed to satisfy the requirements of teaching, research and healing within the framework of a unified structure. The author of this retrospective study sums up the changes and evolution of the above-mentioned one hundred years in her lecture that was presented at a centennial conference on September 30, 2016.