The quite unique and well-known Oriental Collection holds nearly 50,000 documents. It was opened in the autumn of 1987 based on the material of Lajos Ligeti’s private academic library. The renowned professor of Mongolian Studies and Turkology offered the University a library of about 11,000 documents in the 1970-ies, with the aim to provide scientific literature for the newly launched education and research work in Altaic Studies. After Ligeti passed away his library was moved to Szeged and was placed in the main building of the University Library.
The private library of Lajos Ligeti consists of about five thousand books, and about the same amount of offprints, mainly from the six decades of his own scientific activity. This means the period from the end of the 1920-ies up to 1987. The material incorporates practically all fields of Oriental Studies, but the most significant part of the collection has an accent on works dealing with Altaic studies, Mongolic and Turkic linguistics, history and ethnography. Works dealing with Chinese and Tibetan studies are also numerous. It is a quite rich repository of dictionaries.
The special collection of Oriental Studies was later expanded with a number of smaller bequests. In 1988 Turkological books of Margit K. Palló, in 1990 Georgian books of Lajos Tardy were put into the library. In 2007, András Róna-Tas, the founder of the Department of Altaic Studies at the University of Szeged, donated his Tibetan books, as well as his unique collection of books on Chuvash linguistics. This material of our library is unique in Europe. In 2010, the books of Árpád Berta, former head of the Department of Altaic Studies, who died in 2008, were added to the collection.
Next to the special collection of the central university library, there was another major special library on Altaic at the Department of Altaic Studies at the Faculty of Arts. This library was also based on a bequest of books: the library of Gyula Németh, the other leading Hungarian Turkologist of the twentieth century, professor of the University of Budapest, was purchased by the University of Szeged two years after the death of the scientist in 1978. This collection is primarily of a Turkological nature. It consists about four and a half thousand books and more than five thousand special prints.
Since its foundation, the University’s Department of Altaic Studies has also sought to obtain current Hungarian and international specialized literature essential for education and research. The department’s exchanges and purchases have resulted in an excellent departmental library of more than six thousand volumes, with significant journals and dictionaries.
In December 2004, the above-mentioned library units moved into a common room in the newly built Study and Information Center. The collection, together with a significant collection of journals, approximately 2000 volumes of dictionaries and the aforementioned books, contributes significantly to the research and teaching activities at the Department of Altaic Studies at the University of Szeged and other departments as well.
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