Modern, user-focused services in a 150-year-old library: the library of the Department of Architectural History and Monuments of the Faculty of Architecture of the BME

Abstract

The library of the Department of the History of Architecture and Monument Preservation of the Faculty of Architecture of Budapest University of Technology and Economics has a unique collection in Hungary. Its primary task is to provide relevant literature, to support teaching and research work, and to contribute to students’ successful activity. However, due to its capabilities, it also performs academic, scientific and special library tasks. After the historical antecedents, the author presents the general characteristics of the library, then describes the special usage habits of different groups of users and the services based on them. The author considers it extremely important to monitor and identify the needs of different user groups and individual research habits and to proactively and flexibly organize services based on them. The author emphasizes that it is very important for the library to function as an integrated part of the department, and gives practical examples of this in addition to the relevant library services. The collection of the library, the department's Drawing and Photo Collection and other various collections at the department can be virtually unified within an integrated Knowledge Repository in the future. The tool of this unification could be the departmental repository briefly described in the article with coordination of the library of the department.