We have a library!
The papal conclave traditionally convenes in the Sistine Chapel. It is an interesting and centuries-old practice when the cardinal voting ballots are burned in the small stove of the chapel, and then the white or black smoke rises. The tension is unimaginable both inside the chapel and outside in the Bernini-designed St. Peter’s Square.
The atmosphere was somewhat similar to the chapel’s among the university librarians in the spring of 2001 when we were waiting for the “white smoke” to signal whether there was an approved plan; will the library construction finally happen in Szeged, and if so, what would it be like?
Because “library non-construction” in Szeged has its own history with many attempts and even more push-backs. The beginning of the history is quite clear, as in 1906 a beautiful and modern university library was planned for Kolozsvár, which was duly completed and handed over in the spring of 1909. As a chronicler of the time wrote: “this library is a piece of the West, here in the center of the eastern frontier”. The contemporary press often quoted Count Albert Apponyi’s inaugural speech, revealing that it was the respect for conservative library traditions and the “clever fusion” of innovations, remarkable by European standards as well, that made the concept and the building exceptional. Then World War I changed everything. When the University moved to Szeged after the tragic Treaty of Trianon, it had no library, let alone its own library building. Therefore, the story of provisionality has been going on for 80 years actually: the story of requests, submissions, plans and promises, followed by delays and prolonged silences. Between the two world wars, Director István Bibó Sr. (the father of the great Hungarian social thinker István Bibó Jr.) already saw the tasks to be solved clearly: “The universities in the capital, merging into the major public and economic centers, are highly specialized and fragmented even by faculties. On the other hand, rural universities represent science as a whole, as opposed to the rural cultural area, and therefore, they more strongly preserve the idea of Universitas Litterarum, the concept of university.”
The most important thing at this moment is: We have a new library! From the glass-windowed reading room wing of the new university building on Ady Square, the neo-Romanesque block of the Faculty of Humanities is a sight worth gazing at. Until now, hiding in the trees, in the coverage of the sports field, it has never been visible like this. Its facade, enriched by the protrusion added by Béla Rerrich, is brilliantly reflected by the four storey glass wall that extends over a hundred meters. For weeks, hard-working and knowledgeable librarians have been breathing life into the reading rooms, while in the other wing, the rooms of a magnificent conference centre are being built and improved. The number of visitors is now increasing, and on University Day our colleagues had the opportunity to explore the building. We cannot complain, such publicity has never been seen before. Anyone who follows even just the local news may already know that the glass-walled part of the building near the Faculty of Humanities is a huge reading room organized according to four areas of study. The more than a quarter of a million volumes of books and journals placed on the open shelves are not only a unique quantity on a domestic scale but significant even throughout Central Europe. The library’s floor space, including storage facilities capable of accommodating around one and a half million volumes, along with computer cabinets, constitutes almost three-quarters of the entire building. If we want to compare it with something truly enormous, here are a few examples: with the huge underground parking lot, the building has six levels, and its entire floor space is half the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The library areas are slightly larger than the entire Dóm Square in Szeged (including the Votive Church). If we really want to emphasize its vastness, the library with its reading rooms and storage areas occupies roughly the same area as the St. Peter’s Basilica (approx. 15,000 square metres).
Quantity here is not arbitrary, however, it must be paired with quality, more precisely with the quality of services. This involves many things at once: whether the chair is comfortable, the desk lighting is appropriate, whether it’s not too hot on the galleries upstairs, and not too cold for the readers on the ground floor, whether the patron is welcomed by a librarian who is knowledgeable about the reading materials and services, and whether there is a competent professional or specialist available throughout the opening hours, from morning to evening, in the various locations. There are a thousand aspects to watch out for, and a hundred things to think through and consider. How many shifts are there, who takes over the shift and when, where should the the directional signs be placed? The end of the list is nowhere in sight. It’s like being in a giant shipyard where upon the completion of a big ocean liner, the builders let out a sigh when that certain champagne bottle bursts on the ship’s bow. For them, when the ship sets sail for the first voyage, it’s over. Their job is done. In our case, it’s different. Around the time of Saint Nicholas Day, the shipbuilders transform into sailors and shipboard personnel to operate what they have envisioned or imagined. On December 6th, the trial operation of the library begins, so that just a week later it can fully open to the readers.
We have a library! But how did it turn out? Will it be likable, a treasured place for professors, university students, and educated urban citizens? Will it combine the old and the new well and smartly, as Count Apponyi said back in Kolozsvár? We know that Szeged has a long history of training librarians. It is known in the field that the uniqueness of this training lies in it being equally strong in two areas: on the one hand, it trains experts in cultural history and old book specialists, and on the other hand, it trains library IT specialists who can navigate the world of modern tools and computer networks. Actually, this duality also expresses the values of our librarians. In the new University Library, everything revolves around ensuring that the professional values established by our predecessors and every element of traditional library culture can continue to live on, preferably unharmed. Additionally, it aims to integrate everything that can be built upon these foundations, everything that computer science and the internet can offer. The strength of the new-old library may precisely be that the hundreds of thousands of books, combined with modern computer services, will be able to offer something more than just the sum of these two components.
So we have a library! Indeed, Szeged is a lucky city, especially among lovers of book culture and libraries. It has its own centuries-old main library, the Somogyi Library, which is rightfully proud of its traditions and wide range of archival resources. And now it will be joined by another main library, the new University Library that will unite the University’s previously scattered book collection in a worthy location, equipped with modern technology.
That is why we can say, like the Camerlengo, the grey eminence, from the balcony of the Vatican does after the election of the Pope: Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis! (I announce you a great joy!) And let us add fittingly: Habemus bibliothecam! We have a library!
Károly Kokas
(Article published in "FRISS ÚJSÁG", December 9, 2004)