Australian Hungarika collection for the Hungarian National Library on the occasion of the World Library and Information Congress

2024/10/21

Between 30 September and 2 October 2024, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) held its World Library and Information Congress in Brisbane, the capital of the Australian state of Queensland. The Hungarian National Library represented itself at the meeting.

Most of the presentations and roundtable discussions at the IFLA Information Futures Summit focused on artificial intelligence, the future of reading, online publishing and book culture, and digital equality. The event also featured the launch of the IFLA Trend Report 2024 and the adoption of the Brisbane Declaration at the end of the conference. (The two documents will be presented in detail on the Library Institute's website soon.)

In keeping with tradition, the annual meeting of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL) took place on 3 October in the framework of the World Congress, where cybersecurity issues were addressed.

On 4 October, Dávid Rózsa, Director General of the HNMPCC NSZL, visited Canberra at the invitation of Marie-Louise Ayres, President of the CDNL and Director General of the National Library of Australia, to receive the 131 items of Hungarian folk music and choral works donated to the National Library of Hungary. The collection, which includes publications from 1935-1982 from Hungary, England, Canada and the United States, was bequeathed to the National Library of Australia in 1987 as a bequest from John A. Young, a conservatoire teacher at Sidney, to help music teachers using the Kodály method. The method has been present in the country since 1973, when a separate institution was established as the Kodály Music Education Institute of Australia. The National Library of Australia has made a generous gesture by donating the valuable Hungarika material to our country on the occasion of the World Librarian Congress.