SCHOOL OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES

LIBRARY REGULATIONS

I. General information

a) Name of the library: ELTE School of English and American Studies Library

                        location: Budapest, Hungary

                        postal address: Ajtósi Dürer sor 19-21., Budapest H-1146

                        telephone: +36(1)343-0148/4335, 4334, 4332 ext.

                        email address: seaslib@ludens.elte.hu

b) Foundation of the library: the library of the School was created in 1994, uniting the holdings of the English departmental                         library, the Centre for Teacher Training, and the American collection of the Faculty Library. The history of                         the library dates back to the foundation of the English Department in 1886.

c) Other language version used in foreign relations: Eötvös Loránd University, School of English and American Studies                             Library

                        short version: SEAS Library

d) Membership: participates in the library network of the Eötvös Loránd University

e) Official stamp of the library: round rubber stamp with the text in Hungarian:

                        ELTE Bölcsészettudományi Kar Angol-Amerikai Intézet Könyvtára Budapest

II. Financing and supervising authorities

Financing authority: Dean of the Faculty of Arts of Eötvös Loránd University.

Supervising authority: Ministry of Education and Culture.

III. Type and mission of the library

Type of Library: public library with certain limits

Mission of the Library: The mission of the SEAS Library is to facilitate the teaching and learning activities of the academic staff and the students within the School of English and American Studies at the Eötvös Loránd University, by acquiring, processing, managing and providing information resources in accordance with the School's aims and objectives. The Library intends to utilize information technology in cooperation with other units of the university library network in order to provide access to internal and external resources, and to provide quality services to the users.

Collection management policy: We collect literary works in English; monographs on British, American, Australian, Canadian, Irish criticism, general linguistics, applied linguistics, and language pedagogy, as well as books about the history, culture, and art of English-speaking countries, and publications by the academic staff of the School. Our aim is to facilitate teaching and research, i.e. training from undergraduate through PhD, within the School, by purchasing, processing documents of these fields, and providing access to information resources.

Types of documents (in terms of library material): books, periodicals, university notes, thesis papers, audio-cassettes, video-cassettes, photocopies, CD-ROM databases.

Books, thesis papers, and most of the periodicals are kept on a permanent basis, other material is collected temporarily. Special collections such as the Sándor Károlyi collection, and the Arthur Patterson collection also belong to library holdings.

Acquisition: The source of acquisition is mainly through purchase, but gifts and donations are also added to the collection.

Accession: The Library registers each document, gives a unique accession number to it, writing the number together with a stamp into the book and onto the invoice. The invoice is signed by the Director of School and the Head of Library, and then passed for payment to the Financial Department of the Faculty.

Accession registers:

- permanent documents are entered into a certified accession register.

- temporary documents (according to the types of document) are entered into notebooks, dedicated and certified for this purpose.

- periodicals are registered in a cardex system.

Catalogues: The Library still has a traditional card catalogue. The building of an online database is in process. Cataloguing is done in the integrated library system called Dynix Horizon. New books have been catalogued only in the online database since February 1998.

In addition to the alphabetical card catalogue, we have subject catalogues, such as:

American Studies

Linguistics

Historical texts

History

Australian Studies

Canadian Studies

Language Pedagogy - Title entry; Subject entry

University Notes

Thesis papers

Video cassettes

Audio-cassettes

Library hours:

Monday, Tuesday 9.00-18.00

Wednesday 12.00-18.00

Thursday 9.00-18.00

Friday 9.00-17.00

Library hours may very during exam periods and summer break.

Facilities and services: The Library serves all the students majoring in English: full-time undergraduate (three-year courses), full-time graduate (five-year courses), and part-time (retraining, or PhD courses) students, the academic faculty (full-time senior and junior lecturers, part-time teachers, and visiting professors) and other staff members of the School. Loan privileges are granted for students and teachers of the School only. Outside users must have a written permission from a Head of Department within the School to obtain borrowing rights.

a) Reading room

Anyone is allowed to use the library's collection within the library, there are 140 seats in the reading room. The majority of the books and periodicals can be found on open shelves, according to the Library of Congress Classification System. Exceptions to this are the Australian, Canadian and Language Pedagogy collections. Current issues and bound volumes of periodicals are displyed separately, in alphabetical order.

b) Borrowing

Readers must present their IDs and valid student cards at registration. Library cards must be revalidated at the beginning of each academic year. Registration, use of library and borrowing is free of charge. The borrower must be present, must have a valid library card, and must sign books slips when borrowing.

Loan period for books is generally 4 weeks for students, but it may be shorter (1, or 2 weeks) depending on demand on books. In case of certain books (e.g. course books, anthologies) the loan period is extended to a whole semester, if the course leader reserves enough copies. Books may be renewed for a second semester only for the teacher's special request.

Reference books (encyclopedias, dictionaries), single copies and photocopies are for overnight loan only.

Audio-cassettes can be borrowed for a week for HUF 30 each.

Academic staff members may borrow up to 15 books for a whole academic year. Students may borrow up to 7 books, 4 cassettes and 3 reference materials altogether. The reader must sign the slip of the book at check out. Slips are filed under the borrower's name, as well as the author's name.

A document can only be renewed if no one else has requested it. Fine for overdue books is HUF 8/book/day, fine for overdue cassettes is HUF 10/cassette/day.

Lost documents must be replaced with 1) another original copy, 2) a bound photocopy, or 3) pay for replacement.

Most documents are available for loan, except rare books, periodicals, video-cassettes, and thesis papers.

c) Videos

A video room, and 3 individual VCR video players are available for watching films from the library collection, films recommended by teachers, or private films. The price is HUF 50/film for the VCR, and HUF 80/film for the room. The latter musts be booked in advanced.

d) Inter-library Loan

The Library participates in Inter-library Loan. Requests can be placed by any teacher or student of the School, in case they are willing to pay for loan from abroad, charged by the National Széchényi Könyvtár. The Library fulfils requests arriving from other libraries, as a general rule.

e) Electronic information service

Electronic databases such as the Library of Congress CDMARC Bibliography, MLA Bibliography, National Periodical Database of Foreign Journals are publicly available for searches on the local CD-ROM network. Print and download options depend on technical circumstances, the Head of Library may decide, though, to limit or suspend this service temporarily.

Installing and providing access to the online public access catalogue (OPAC) in the Dynix Horizon integrated library system is in progress.

f) Photocopying

Dedicated, staffed photocopying machine is available for students of English in the Ground Floor, and card-operating machine operates in the Student Service, on the 1st floor in the main building.

IV. Organization and structure of the Library

The School runs a single library to purchase, preserve, and proved access to documents necessary for the teaching and research activities of the 5 departments. The Director of the School exercises the right of the employer, and the Librarian manages the library. The Library is supported by the Library Committee, consisting of delegates of the departments. The committee's role is to give advice on strategic issues, ranks the lists of books to order - if necessary -, and suggests a way to share departmental resources.

The library has got a flat organization, it is not divided into departments or units. The processes it follows are: acquisition, cataloguing, circulation, serials control, reference service. One member of staff is responsible for each activity at best (division of labour). Each staff member has got a job description.

V. Financial management

Budgets

The School provides an annual budget to run the Library, which is accepted by the School Council and used by the librarian. Requests from the academic staff for books and periodicals are always taken into consideration. One of the sources of acquisition is the budget of each department allocated for book acquisition. The departments are responsible for passing the invoices for payment in these cases. Accession numbers of documents must be displayed on the invoice. Another source of acquisition is the Faculty book budget, which is administered centrally by the Acquisition Division of the University Library. Since subscription to foreign periodicals falls within the "Central Purchase Law", journal subscriptions are also coordinated by the University Library.

Orders covered by outside (non-university) sources of the postgraduate courses are administered and coordinated by the librarian.

Security measures

The Library is located on the First Floor within the library building at the Ajtósi Dürer campus of the university. The cloak-room must be used when visiting the library. The library is equipped with a check-point system, inlcuding a gate at the entrance. Books are triggered with magnetic strips. Books are desensitized when checked out, and re-sensitized when checke in (except audio-cassettes!). The system works relatively safely. Security is of special significance due to the open-shelf access.

Part of the library holdings is located in closed stacks, using compact shelving.

Complete inventory was taken during 1997-98, at the Rector's disposal.

The building was equipped with an alarm system in 1997, with 2 motion sensors installed in the Reading Room, one in the office, and 2 more in the stack corridor.

VI. Closing provisions

The current Regulations are based on the prevailing law (Library Act no. CXL of 1997), on the Regulations for the libary network of the Eötvös Loránd University, and considering the Hungarian library experiences. These regulations become effective when the Dean of Faculty and the University Librarian sign the document.

As soon as the Regulations of the SEAS Library are accepted, the Regulations of the English Departmental library (in effect since 20th September, 1992) expire.

Budapest, 17th February, 1998.