“National Széchényi Library has a fantastic collection and staff.”– Interviews with Director-General Dávid Rózsa

2020/07/27

In the past few weeks, several interviews appeared in the written press and in various radio broadcasts with Director-General Dávid Rózsa in connection with the current situation and future of National Széchényi Library. Below we will show you some of them.

“National Széchényi Library has a fantastic collection and staff. It is my job to help show this in its splendor and completeness,” the Director-General said, pointing out that this is also the purpose of the current Library reorganization. The full article can be read (in Hungarian) on Infostart.hu.

The interview published in Demokrata focused on resolving the deplorable wage situation as soon as possible, the large-scale digitization program, conducting preparations for the move to a new location, and on attracting the public into the physical and online spaces of the institution.

In the interview broadcast on Hungarian Catholic Radio on July 16, 2020, in the program entitled Akvarell (Watercolor), Dávid Rózsa spoke about the need for “modernization carried out by preserving noble traditions”. He emphasized that, due to IT development carried out in recent years, the implementation of telework was almost smooth during the pandemic situation when, in addition to carrying out the necessary background work, presence in the online space was given a major emphasis.

“My vocation and passion is to seek, collect, organize, preserve and pass on,” quotes Dávid Rózsa’s introductory words from his personal website the introductory text of the interview given on Karc FM, pointing out that the young specialist, who has been well-known and recognized by the Hungarian librarian community, entered the career following family traditions. In the interview, the Director-General of NSZL spoke about his childhood reminescences (“wherever I turned, I was surrounded by books”), his studies, the years spent in the library of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, the screening of NSZL (“management problems dating back several decades and at various levels, a very long chain of undecided decisions"), about the basic tasks of the Library and their standard processing, content exploration and making available (“the task requires a lot of skills and qualifications”), as well as the upcoming tasks, including web archiving.