Special Collection for Local and Regional History
History of the Collection:When the town of Sárospatak regained its statuts in 1968, the management of the Library decided to place the materials related to the town and the county of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén in a special collection. That's how The Special Collection for Local and Regional History was formed.
There had been a great increase in the numbers of publications about Sárospatak and its sorroundings that time, so we placed the books related to the region on a separate shelf and started to collect newspaper articels on the topic, too. The articles dealing with Sárospatak and its catchment area have been groupped by month, provided with short explanations and filed into folders. The Zrínyi Ilona Town Library is the only place where a holic colleciton of those articles is available.
One of our special services is to compile author and recommending bibliographies on demand. The periodicals which are related to Sárospatak form the base of the collection, too. Magdolna Halász made her bibliographies of articles based on those periodicals. Those bibliographies are now available in the shelves of the libraries in Hungary as well as abroad.
The Local History Collection was placed in the newly formed research and progress room in 2009. The collection is available for research here, but is also protected to a greater extent.
The complextion of the collection:The collection contains about 1500 books among other materials.
The collection of books published by regional publishers includes materials by the followings: Kazinczy Társaság, a Comenius Társaság, a Sárospataki Városszépítő Egyesület, publications by local schools, institutions and the Library itself.
We attempt to make a complex collection of records about and resolutions made at town concil and local government meetings. The II. Rákóczi Ferenc County Library, the Herman Ottó Museum (HOM), the town libraries and museums of the county regularly send their publications to our Library. The publications by HOM come to be especially useful for the researchers.
The collection contains materials of different applications (related to local history, education, e.t.c.) , furthermore 150 small prints such as invitation cards and posters. related to our town or region.
Audio materials:
15 vinyls containing students' songs from Patak and works by autors and artists originating in here.
5 audio cassettes containing the materials of library conferences, furthermore the materials of radio quizes such as Who will win today and About the book - for the book.
The archived recordings of announcements and reports made by Zemplén Television are parts of the collection, too.
The collection is mainly used by university and college students as well as local and regional historians, secondary-and vocational school students and the staff of the Library.
The Local and Regional Histroy Collection is desgined to make the complex collection of the Library available for anyone. It is included in our plans, to give electronic access to this valuable material, too, because we could base the import and export of information on that later.
