OPENING HOURS OF OUR LIBRARY
You can visit during opening hours:
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Tuesday: 9:00 - 13:00 and
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Thursday: 12:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Address: 1068 Budapest, Benczúr u. 27.
The Postal Museum Library is a closed specialist library, howeverbased on prior registration, can be visited by anyone during opening hours. Use of the library is free.
ABOUT THE LIBRARY COLLECTION
The library of the Postal Museum is a scientific specialist library, which can be searched by anyone during opening hours with prior registration. Its holdings number more than 17,000 volumes. The museum collects specialist books, periodicals, decree collections, as well as related works of technical history, industrial history, transport history and museology, which serve as a source for research into the history of post, telecommunications, telecommunications and broadcasting. Its archives also include the library aids necessary for museum and other research work: lexicons, databases, dictionaries, manuals, etc. The museum collection of around 250 volumes forms a historically valuable part of the library's holdings. The library does not lend, the collection can only be searched locally.
LIBRARY REGULATIONS
Rules for using the library:
1. General rules
The Postal Museum Library is a closed specialist library, but it can be visited by anyone during opening hours upon prior registration. Use of the library is free.
Bags and coats cannot be brought into the reading room, they can be stored in the lockers next to the entrance.
The library does not lend, its material can only be used locally. In order to retrieve library documents, the help of the librarian must be requested in all cases.
Before using the library for the first time, researchers must fill out a form called a Research Report. (The library keeps personal data only temporarily, treats them confidentially, and does not provide them for any other purpose). The librarian will put the requested books and other library documents back after the research has been completed.
2. Photocopying
In order to protect the stock, photocopies cannot be made:
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about the pieces of the museum collection;
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about other books, periodicals and other library documents from before 1867, which are also of museum value and require special preservation;
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about library documents after 1867 that are not of museum value, but exist in a single copy and/or are in poor condition and in need of restoration.
Photocopies can be made of the documents of the library holdings, which are not exceptions, for museum staff and external researchers. The fee for the service is HUF 20/A4 page. A3 size and color photocopying is not possible.
LIBRARY TREASURES
Below is a selection of rare or pieces of interest from the point of view of Hungarian postal history in the library's collection.
Approbatae Constituciones regni Transilvaniae et Partium Hungariae eidem annexarum
Publication time: 1696.
Author(s): Miklós Kis Tótfalusi (1650-1702)
Publisher: Claudipoli [Cluj] : ex officina Nicolai Kis de Miszt-Tótfalu
A selected collection of the decrees of the Transylvanian parliaments held between 1540 and 1653, extracted and arranged according to their subject. Made in the printing house of Miklós Kis of Misztótfalus in 1696. The book is the oldest piece of our collection.
Calendarium Tyrnaviense
Great Saturday calendar of 1746
The volume contains an annual calendar, biblical texts, astronomical data, biblical texts and the stops of the national postal service network.
Geographical-historical and Product Lexikon von Ungarn ...
Date of publication: 1786
Author(s): Mátyás János Korabinszky (1740-1811)
Publisher: Pressburg : Weber : Korabinsky
Lexicon about Hungarian localities, their geography, history and products.
Mátyás János Korabinszky: a national directory of localities published in Bratislava from 1786. In the work, the localities in Hungary are listed in alphabetical order with short descriptions. The book was later used by several cartographers and geographers, and the profession described it as the author's "most precious work".
Millennium commemorative album of the Hungarian royal postmasters and publishers
Date of publication: 1896.
Editor(s): Kálmán Böszörményi
Publisher: Posta-Közlöny
Place of issue: Budapest
The Hungarian Royal Post and Telegraph was a prominent player in the 1896 millennium celebrations, and it was prepared for the exhibition with a national collection lasting several months. Not only state employees, but also staff under contract with the post office took part in the enthusiastic work. A lasting memory was created in the form of a book published as an idea and under the care of Posta Közlöny – the first Hungarian-language postal magazine – which contains the brief biographies and photographs of the postmasters living and working in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary who sent them in response to the invitation. In addition to the version of the Millennium Commemorative Album of the Hungarian Royal Postmasters and Publishers that can be purchased for the general public, a simpler edition decorated with fire enamel and gilded in leather was made as a representative gift of Péter Szalay, the President of the Hungarian Royal Post and Telegraph. Posterity uses the book not only for professional postal history research, but also for local history and family tree research, and the photographs also provide an excellent source for fashion historians.
40,000 words per hour – A decade and a half struggle to implement the Pollák-Virág speed telegraph
Date of publication: 1934
Author(s): Antal Pollák
Publisher: Budapest : Author, 1934 Budapest : Radó Ny.
In this book, one of the inventors tells the failed story of the Pollák-Virág speed telegraph, which was ahead of its time. Mechanical engineers Antal Pollák and József Virág first solved the transmission of morse codes, then the transmission of journal writing, namely with ten times the speed achieved up to that point. The practical application did not happen due to a series of unfortunate events - the bankruptcy of the financing American bank, the death of one of the inventors, Virág, and then the First World War - and the Hungarian postal administration did not claim the new invention either, since such a high transmission speed was not possible under the circumstances of the time. was needed. The information transfer speed achieved with the device could not be surpassed anywhere for half a century, but the great idea survived only as a curiosity, in print - among other things on the pages of patent documents.
Post and telegraph geography
Date of publication: 1889
Author(s): Lajos Oberhäuszer (1842-1925)
A significant part of our collection is various postal textbooks, one of the first copies of which is the demanding work of Lajos Oberhäuszer, the manuscript of which can also be found in the library.
