DEÁK FERENC COUNTY LIBRARY ZALAEGERSZEG There is a statue of Deák, Ferenc standing in front of the former county hall located in the most beautiful square of Zalaegerszeg. The great politician, the first Minister of Justice in Hungary started his public duties here therefore the county set up the statue to his memory in 1879, three years after his death and the name of the greatest public library was given after him in 109 years later. The legal predecessor of the institution, the Zalaegerszeg Regional Library was founded in 1950 and it has been operating as a county public library since 1952. The building built in 1967 – standing on the west side of the square separating the shaded grove and the busy marketplace – was renovated and reconstructed during the years 1992 to 1995 in order to fit into the historical environment. Due to the reconstruction all the services can be employed in one place except of bookbinder’s workshop. The first public library was founded in county Zala in the first half of the 19th century based on the donation of the landowner Skublics, Károly. This collection can be found in the County Zala Archives nowadays; the new library which was founded more than fifty years ago with 15,000 volumes has approximately 260,000 documents and offers several services for the readers today. The majority of the documents is made up of books where the valuable museum pieces, the important local collections and the latest economical special literature can also be found. The library has significant number of special and belletristic collections written in foreign languages. Most of them are written in English, German and French but literature of other languages can also be found here. Beside the books the most up-to-date information can be found in the daily, weekly newspapers and journals, more than 300 different kind of papers and journals are offered to the readers, some of them are written in foreign languages. The most important ones are kept for years, bound and archived. The library has a special musical collection containing traditional discs, CDs, DVDs and video films. There is a workstation for blind and sand-blind readers equipped with special softwares helping the use of the station, and there is a possibility to borrow audio-books, too. The unit containing the Gateway UK collection of sources written in English offers literature for the English learners and the ones with a thirst for knowledge, from the grammar books to the tourist information. The ones being interested in European information can use the traditional sources and the Europe Server database available in our library, too. Readers of our library can access electronically more than 8,000 English specialist journals through the EBSCO journal database. The visitors of the library can use internet and WI-FI; and you can find an on-line catalogue, document recommendation and electronic library on our home page. Several various forms of learning, getting information and relaxation can be offered for the visitors of our library; you can get information in our library by the help of providing scientific literature information, literary research, selective dissemination of information, document recommendation, holding courses for the inhabitants about how to use internet; the wrier-reader meetings, game shows, children’s meetings, other information about how to use books and the library, and different exhibitions can provide you nice and substantial relaxation. You can use every documents and databases in the library, and the detailed information about the conditions of borrowing can be found in the Regulations of Library usage. Deák Ferenc County Library has the greatest collection of Zala local literature. The number of books, atlases, diploma works and dissertations is more than 9,000. The old Zala press materials can be found here partially in their original forms but on microfilm version the whole material is available for the visitors. The microfilms can be used by the help of modern reader-photocopying machine. Some volumes of Zalai Közlöny (Zala Journal) can be reached in digitalized version on our web site. We have a special collection containing more than 2,000 postcards illustrating the ancient image of the settlements of County Zala. By the help of the discovery procedures in the local collection you can get information about the life and activities of famous persons originated from County Zala, the history of the settlements of Count Zala, the ethnographic, linguistic and geographic features of the county; tanks to the continuous updating of the online database of Zala bio-bibliography called ”The Great Sons of County Zala” offers up-to-date information for the virtual visitors. Speciality of our library is the so-called Nádas Péter Collection which is a an international and national curio, because its aim is to present the whole activity of the writer living in county Zala nowadays. The public part of its documents contains the works – both books and articles - written in Hungarian and other foreign languages by Nádas, Péter. Moreover the collection contains other works evaluating the writer’s works, criticisms, photos, posters and audiovisual documents, too. The activity of the world-wide famous writer can be found in the Nádas Péter bibliography on the website of the library. The public libraries in county Zala could form a widespread relations in order to improve the quality of their services. The county library as a network centre should support the activities of the city libraries and organize the programmes of the Zala children’s librarians’ workshop, and to supervise the introduction and operation of the traditional and computerized services. Beside the network supporting activities the county library itself takes part actively in library works of small towns in the county providing mobile library in order to realize the library work there. Beside the traditional activities the county library is the Regional Subcentre of the National Information Infrastructure Programme. The HBONE-node working here serve several other public collections and educational centres, providing direct internet connection to domestic and international information services. Address of the library: Zalaegerszeg, Deák Ferenc tér 6. |
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