Science/Economics papers

Bock, Julia - Library Science

Long Island University

The Hungarian Content in Virtual Access

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In my presentation I will talk about electronic access of Hungarian content and how does it change the usage of the library. Accessing electronic sources from all over the world makes possible to build libraries without walls and eliminates borders.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Julia Bock was born in Budapest, Hungary. She has been working at Long Island University since September 2005. She completed her studies at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest with master’s degrees in Library Science and History and a Ph.D. in History. Her dissertation dealt with the Minority Problem in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. She worked as a research librarian at the Library of Parliament in Budapest. In the United States she received an MLS degree from Columbia University’s School of Library Science. She held various positions, first with the Special Collection of International Law at NYU’s Law Library as a Document Librarian, than with the Technical Services Department. In 1988 she started to work at the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University as an Assistant Archivist. From 1989 to1994 she worked as a technical service librarian for a major law firm in New York. In 1994 became the Head Librarian of the Leo Baeck Institute, a German Jewish research collection. From 1998 to 2004 was the Head of the Library at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and finally in 2005 she started to work as an Acquisition Librarian at Long Island University Brooklyn Campus. She participated in various professional conferences and held several lectures on wide range of subjects, including history, library software and special collection related matters and published articles and bibliographies. Dr. Bock co-authored two books and wrote several articles.





Niessen, James P. - Library Science

Rutgers University

Rutgers and the President's Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
James Niessen will talk about the digitization of Rutgers' Hungarian refugee relief papers on adding records from other repositories to the digital collection. The President's Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief oversaw the processing of 32,000 refugees from Hungary at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey in 1956-1957. Rutgers' collection of the papers of Tracy S. Voorhees contains a key portion of the records of the committee. We have digitized these records and made them freely accessible online. We also hope to add related records from other repositories to this virtual collection.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
James P. Niessen (Photo: Courtesy of Rutgers Today)World History Librarian
Alexander Library - Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
BA in History, Notre Dame, 1975
MA and PhD in History, Indiana, 1979 and 1989 MLIS, U of Texas at Austin, 1994
Librarian for History and Foreign Languages at Texas Tech, 1994-2001
World History Librarian at Rutgers since 2001
Author of 15 articles on Hungarian and Romanian history, many with a focus on modern Transylvania
Director of the Institute for Hungarian History at Rutgers, 2010-2011




Nyírády, Kenneth - Library Science

Library of Congress

Digital Hungarica on the Library of Congress Web Site

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Library of Congress aims to be a universal library; most of its 33 million cataloged books are in languages other than English and, in many cases, it possesses the largest collection of materials from and about a given country outside of that country. This is certainly true of its Hungarian collection, which numbers more than 200,000 volumes, making it the largest collection of Hungarica outside of Hungary.

Nevertheless, in the new digital era, the Library does not have unlimited resources and staff, so it must be highly selective in what it does digitize. Thus it concentrates on Americana—items related to American history and culture. Its digitized collections encompass millions of items, mostly photographs, documents, sound recordings, but also books, in cooperation with the Internet Archive and Hathi Trust. Although there are no separate “Hungarian” digital collections, there is digitized Hungarian material contained within other collections. This paper will attempt to describe some of the more notable examples.

The European Reading Room’s site is devoted to help researchers better find materials related to Europe. Of interest here are not digitized items but rather finding aids that direct readers to materials in more traditional formats, such as a guide to the Library’s Hungarian collections, an index to its Hungarian telephone directory collection, an index to its microfilmed collection Records from the War History Archives in Budapest, and a forthcoming index to Hungarian newspapers at the Library. The one digitized book concerning Hungary on the European Reading Room site is the bibliography Hungarians in Rumania and Transylvania, originally published by the Government Printing Office in 1969.

Elsewhere on the Library of Congress site, one can find Hungarian material in the Detroit Publishing Company’s postcard collection (ca 1900) and the American Memory project’s National Jukebox, which contains commercial recordings of Hungarian music. Hungarian folk songs sung by Hungarian-Americans form part of the collection California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties.

The above represents a selective sample, not a comprehensive listing of digital Hungarian material on the Library of Congress site. A finding aid for this material would be most useful and is in the works.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
A third-generation Hungarian-American, Kenneth Nyirady was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island. In 1976 he received an M.A. in Russian History from the State University of New York at Binghamton (now Binghamton University) and in 1979 an M. Phil. in Uralic Studies from Columbia University. From 1983-1990 he was a research analyst in the Library of Congress= Federal Research Division, and from 1990 onward he has served in the Library's European Division as the Reference Specialist for Hungary and the Finno-Ugrian Areas of Russia.

His publications include the microfilm collection Materials for an American-Hungarian Lexicon: the Biographical Files of the Hungarian Reference Library of New York, 1937-1942 (1993), The History of the Feleky Collection and its Acquisition by the Library of Congress (1995), as well as a dozen other articles, chapters, and book reviews.




Peter, Christina - Library Science

Frick Art Reference Library, New York

Collections Without Walls: Art Libraries Collaborate to Build Digital Repositories

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
As libraries’ roles are gradually shifting from serving as physical repositories for printed material towards becoming discovery portals for a digital world, new opportunities are opening up for building collections that are not confined to single institutions. The NYARC partnership, a consortium of art museum libraries in New York, has made headway in collaborative collection development. Two examples will be presented: the Macbeth Gallery Collection, a collaborative project the Frick Art Reference Library and the Thomas J. Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to digitize the exhibition checklists and pamphlets of an important New York art gallery, and the ’Documenting the Gilded Age’ project of the Frick and the Brooklyn Museum Library, featuring documents from small galleries, societies and art clubs from the late 19th – early 20th centuries. By virtually combining collections originally held in separate repositories, these institutions pave the way for dismantling physical and geographical borders between libraries. Implications to further cooperation with libraries in East Central Europe will be examined, and some initial efforts to enhance the discovery of Hungarian collections will be explored.




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Head, Acquisitions, Frick Art Reference Library; MA in English and Russian Literature and Linguistics, ELTE, Budapest; MLS, Long Island University, New York. Served as Chair of the New York chapter of ARLIS/NA (Art Libraries Society of North America).