The story
Founded by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1782.1
History
1635 – Archbishop Péter Pázmány, primate of Hungary, founds the University of Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia)
Late 18th century – The university moves to Buda and becomes the University of Buda.
1735 – The "Berg-Schola," the world's first institute of technology, was founded in Selmecbánya, Kingdom of Hungary (today Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia) in 1735. Many members of the first teaching staff of BME arrived from Selmecbánya.
1782 – Emperor Joseph II establishes the Institutum Geometricum as part of the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the University of Buda. The Institutum, the direct predecessor of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, is the first in Europe to award engineering degrees to students of land surveying, river control, and road construction.
1850 – The Institutum Geometricum merges with the Joseph College of Technology.
1856 – The merged institutions become the Royal Joseph Polytechnic.
1860 – Hungarian replaces Latin as the language of instruction.
1862 – Royal Joseph Polytechnic becomes the Royal Joseph University.
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1872 – Royal Joseph University gains full autonomy and the right to issue engineering diplomas after five years of studies. It is among the first institutions in Europe, to train engineers on university level.
1901 – Royal Joseph University is entitled to confer the doctoral degree, "Doctor Rerum Technicarum."
1910 – The university moved to its current site near Gellért square (next to the Art Nouveau Hotel Gellért).
1925 – First women students enroll.
1934 – The university was reorganized again as Palatine Joseph University of Technology and Economics and it played a dominant role in the interwar industrialization process, together with engineering and economist training in Hungary.
1939 – The Institute for Continuing Education opens its gates.
1949 – The name Technical University of Budapest becomes official. At this time the university consists of the faculties of: Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Architecture, Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering (in historical order).
1955 – Faculty of Transportation Engineering is established.
1956 – The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was partly launched by students at the university, followed by many professors.
1967 – The two technical universities seated in Budapest were merged to form the Technical University of Budapest, with six faculties.
1984 – Instruction is offered in English as well as Hungarian.
1994 – The Technical University of Budapest is among the first universities in Hungary to introduce the credit system. The university applies the credit assignment according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) in its accredited academic programs.
1998 – Faculty of Natural Sciences and Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences are established.
2000 – The official name changes to Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
National Technical Information Centre and Library
The National Technical Information Centre and Library at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME OMIKK) is the successor of two major libraries in Hungary.
The Central Library of BME
The library of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (then Joseph Polytechnics) was formally founded in 1848 when Baron József Eötvös, Minister of Religion and Public Education donated a book in five volumes that become the first item in the inventory of the library.
Since its foundation it moved with the university from Pest to the Buda Castle in 1854 and back to Pest in 1872. In 1882 it moved again, to the campus near the National Museum, now the campus of Faculty of Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University. In 1909 the Library was moved to a separated cathedral like building in the new Campus of BME. The building was designed by Samu Pécz, professor of architecture at the university. The central Aula connects the spacious, 16.5-meter (54 ft) wide reading room to the north, the multi floor storage facility to the west and the workrooms of library procedures to the south. The eastern facade is connected to the central building of the university with the 'Bridge of Sighs'. The architectural concept has been proven timeless.
Later on the storage capacity was enlarged with the introduction of compact storage technology, and adding a large capacity underground storage facility under the garden of the Campus.
Today a remote storage building near Budapest is also used.
In the beginning the library was directed by university professors. The first full-time director was appointed in 1936.
In the early years the library served only professors. It was opened for students in 1869, and for the general public in 1884.
In 1884 the first classification system of the library was elaborated and the first printed catalogue of the library was published by Vince Wartha, who was by the way professor of urban chemical technologies, dealing with construction materials, with gas production and water supply, and rector of university two times. In the following years extended editions of the printed catalogue were published and distributed to the departments and to other major libraries in the country. In 1936 the library introduced the index card system of catalogue.
Transition to electronic cataloguing began in the 1980s, and the integrated library system was introduced in the 1990s. With the spreading of internet and widening the bandwidth the catalogue has become available from anywhere.
The library collection was extended by acquisitions, and with donations of professors. There were two major additions by receiving the heritage of baron József Eötvös in 1872, and of Károly Hieronymi engineer and politician in 1912.
During the Second World War both the building and the collection were damaged. Nevertheless, it continued its work in 1945, and the main reading room was reopened during the academic year of 1949–1950.
Since 1952, increasing amount of the collection has been placed on open shelves for direct access of the readers. In the beginning only fiction, later on handbooks, and nowadays textbooks and current literature can be found on the shelves in the reading rooms.
In 1953 the library started publishing serials (Methodical papers of the Central Library of Budapest Technical University, publications on history of science and engineering, Scientific Technical Bibliographies) and some other serials in the 1960s.
Since the mid sixties the library takes part in the instruction of first year students with training on using the library and in teaching literature search skills.
In 1991 the library opened the Study of Natural Sciences with mostly chemistry-regarded literature open shelves.
The library is the centre of the library network of the university, and the thematic library in mathematics and physics.
The National Technical Information Centre and Library (OMIKK)
In 1883 Ágoston Trefort, minister of education opened the Technological Museum including a library consisting the “basic Hungarian and international literature dealing with industry”.
In 1889 the library was moved and merged with the library of Public Polytechnics. In 1921 the Institute of Technological and Material Testing was established, merging two institutions. With the integration, the Library of Technological Institute was formed. From 1923 the library was intensively developed by the direction of Géza Káplány. In 1949 the Library of Technology was formally merged with the Technical Documentation Centre. Since then the library started establishing liaison libraries in the country. In 1952 the name changed to National Technical Library. In 1956 the Library was moved into a representative building near the National Museum.
In 1982 with the introduction of electronic technologies and with the development of information exchange of cooperating libraries on multinational level the library took the name of National Technical Information Centre and Library. After several changes in the organization and supervision, in 2001, with the decision of the minister of education, most of the tasks, the staff and the whole collection of the National Technical Information Centre and Library were integrated into the Library of Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
BME OMIKK, the integrated library
After the integration of the two libraries the Main Reading Room were renovated and under it the Reading Room of Technical and Natural Sciences was created, three reading rooms in the central university building were formed, and a service tunnel connecting the library building with the underground storage facility and with the new reading rooms was constructed.
In 2011, following the erection of new university buildings in the new southern (Lágymányos) campus, a new service point of BME OMIKK was opened in building “I”.
From Wikipedia’s article on Budapest University of Technology and Economics, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3