Research into reading and library use at the Hungarian Library Institute

Abstract

The National Széchényi Library’s reading research workshop (an organizational unit of the Centre for Library Science and Methodology, CLSM) has been operating since the 1960’s. The national representative surveys carried out by this team were a very significant, but not the only outcome of their activities. They also carried out research using the tools of sociography, together with a publishing activity which remained relevant to our days. Practical tasks such as bibliotherapy, reading camps and direct methodological work were also accomplished. This heritage has provided a stable foundation for HLI’s related activities, and also involves a responsibility for current staff members to continue these traditions and to preserve intellectual values. The social and technological changes having taken place in the 2000’s brought major challenges for the profession and for the research workshop as well. The need arose for new forms of research and analyses, whose usefulness could be directly demonstrated to decision-makers, this is why new genres came to the foreground: literature reviews and studies about some partial issues of the library system. Expensive surveys on a nationally representative sample could only be carried out with partners. Regular research carried out since the 1960’s was continued in this form, in order to further record the trends based on the data of the time series. Elementary survey data were always published by the Department of Research and Organization Development in quick reports. These data would give now an opportunity for new queries and analyses, for which the author provides some examples. The reading and library-sociological research carried out by HLI over the past 20 years is an organic continuation of the high-quality work accomplished by its predecessor in CLSM.