BME OMIKK

The National Technical Information Centre and Library at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME OMIKK) is the successor of two major libraries in Hungary. The university itself is one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Hungary, and is considered the world’s oldest institute of technology.

The library was formally founded in 1848 when Baron Jozsef Eotvos, Minister of Religion and Public Education, donated a five-volume book that became the first literary resource in the library’s inventory.

Since its founding, this library has moved several times, once residing in the royal Buda Castle in 1854. In 1882, it moved to the campus near the Hungarian National Museum, and finally, in 1909, it transitioned to a cathedral-like building in the new campus of Budapest University. The building was designed by Samu Pecz, who taught an architecture course at the school.

The central auditorium connects a spacious 16.5 meter-wide reading room (pictured above) to the north, a multi-floor storage facility to the west and procedural workrooms to the south. Since the mid ’60s, this library has maintained a tradition of training first-year students on how to properly research a topic.