A Further Report on Hungary's Most Important Anniversary

This year the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the medical libraries' network was celebrated in Hungary. On this occasion a unique book was published with the title "50 Years of Libraries in Service of Health" (Association of Hungarian Medical Libraries - AHML, 1999). The book is concerned with the histories of different libraries in hospitals, in universities and colleges and comprises 25 interesting and exciting articles, essays and interviews - unfortunately in Hungarian only!

There were some special events organised in the country, the most important took place very near to the capital Budapest in Kerepestarcsa, in the local hospital, which also was celebrating its 20th anniversary. The one day opening ceremony took place there, and not far from there in the town of Godöllö, the Conference on 50 years of Medical Libraries was organised by AHML. More than 140 librarians represented 82 Hungarian health and medical libraries, and 20 associated specialists were invited to take part in this session, too. All participants received a copy of the above-mentioned book.

The Major of Godöllö, the Chairman of the Hungarian Library Association as well as the General Director of the Kerepestarcsa hospital were among our most important guests. We were happy that EAHIL was represented by Jelka Petrak from Zagreb. She addressed the meeting speaking about the role of Hungarian librarians in the EAHIL family, and brought attention to the EAHIL conference in ICML, London, 2000. The meeting was a very good opportunity to exchange experiences because all speakers were asked to present their long and efficient activities in medical librarianship! Everybody was able to obtain new information and a general overview of these fifty years that have been so important in building the Hungarian Medical Library and Information Network. In addition the session was very useful to realise the challenges of the near future. At the second day of the conference there were scientific presentations by different types of libraries presenting and demonstrating their achieved results, speaking frankly about faults and mistakes that had been made during these years, albeit rarely! The presentations were about the past and present, but there were discussions about the latest information and topics, as well as electronic journals and databases, electronic library services, and a new Hungarian medical journal with the title "Evidence-based medicine".

The location of the congress was a very well known religious site. We were able to visit the church and a very special exhibition on St. Mary's relics pictures, books, coins, papers, necklace, paintings etc. The closing ceremony in the evening was a light music, vocal concert in the Mater of Salvatori's house.

Livia Vasas

Contents No. 49