National Casino

Abstract

The National Casino Association was founded in 1827 by István Széchenyi. For the nearly 120 years of its existence it was an integral part of the Hungarian public life and culture. The methodically collected and systematized library rose above the country’s public libraries qualitatively and quantitatively as well. The Minister of the Interior of Hungary dissolved the National Casino with a decree in 1945 claiming it to be a legal person with an activity against the interests of the country. The association’s statutes provide that the Hungarian Academy of Sciences inherits all the assets of the Casino in case of dissolution. Therefore now the library of the National Casino is a collection of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Much time elapsed before the entering the ca. 20.000 books in the calalogue had started, and before the end of the work we don’t even know the exact number of the documents. Until the end of 2015 about half of the collection has been introduced into the Aleph electronic catalogue in MARC21 format.