The history of the collection is going back to the foundation of the library. This special collection from the very beginning had an important role for educational research. In 1915 the collection consisted of cca 2800 volumes. Since 1958 it is a separate special collection, at the moment it consists of cca 65.000 volumes.
The main goal of the collection is to help the teachers to know better the children’ and youth’ literature that they are to use in their education work. The library supports also the researchers of this field, serving them besides the children’ books also with the related reference literature. Our further goal is to create a live children and youth library, where people can participate in methodological conferences and interesting children programs also.
The collection consists from several thematical units:
- Fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults. In this part there are several old books also.
- Children and youth periodicals
- Reference books for the research of children and youth literature.
The items of the collection can be find by several ways: by authors, by subject, by illustrators, by biographies, etc. Since 1989 the books are searchable in our OPAC. At the moment there are more than 30.000 titles in the database, and thanks to the European Union’s grant, by 2011 the whole Hungarian language collection will be integrated into the database.
The library is in a good relation with the publishers of the children and youth books, this way we are presenting the new books for our users, and these new books later are integrated into the collection. The publishers often take part in the programs of the library.
The International Board on Books for Young People Hungary (IBBY) has placed its books and documentation in the library. One can see the books which received IBBY awards in the reading room.
Comments: