Founding
The history of the archives and the history of the library are inseparable, and the library’s history is inseparable from the congregation’s and the college’s history – as both repositories are maintained by the Kecskemét Reformed Diocese.
It all started more than 450 years ago, and while we have no accurate date regarding its founding, most records suggest that the library was founded in 1564 along with the college. The various elements of culture were most likely transferred to Kecskemét through the congregation’s college, and the reformation had a significant role in this by incentivizing schooling and education and by preaching in Hungarian. Then in the 17th century the peregrination of the youth of Kecskemét (mostly to Wien, Padua, Leyden and Kraków) catalyzed this process as they would always bring new books back home. The very first record of the library belongs to caretaker András Bányai (1653), who mentions three books, while reporting the congregation’s valuables. In our Deed of Foundation we consider 1701 as our date of founding based on the very first official entry regarding the library (appearing in Leonard van Rijssen: Summa Controversiarum Theologicarum). Thus our library is our town’s oldest public library. Students, professors, preachers and citizens (along with other donations) all had significant roles in increasing our library’s repertoire.
18th century
Our school was part of the „Debreceni Református Kollégium” until the second half of the 18th century. Our rectors were appointed by them, we used their books and we even had student exchange relations. Due to the large number of books, in 1741 a new room was built for the library. In 1748, the congregation had 67 books.
The library’s planned development was managed by János Varjas, the first rector professor (1750), who used the fines collected from students to improve the library. From 1788 János Farkas was the rector for six years, who documented the entire archive consisting of 338 books at the time.
In 1715 István Kalocsa donated 30 books, then in 1794 preacher József Benkő donated 68 books to the college. Most likely it was this increase that necessitated building another library room. This was when an ordnance room, a library and an auditorium was built as new add-ons to the college building, where today the Old College stands. On the 10th of July, 1794, a great fire ravaged the entire town. Despite the measures done by the then preacher professor István Tóth, the majority of the collections were damaged or even lost. He had the books transferred to the basement and other safe locations.
The 19th century
After all these difficult times, the library was enriched by various beneficiaries. The widow of István Halasi Gózon (a previous rector of Kecsekmét) donated many of her husband’s books to the library in 1807. Countess Anna Podmanitszki, the widow to general Miklós Beleznai, also offered many antique Roman writings to the college library. Our library also has a lot to thank to the Teleki family. Count László Teleki bought Sámuel Szily’s (the former preacher of Némed) collections and donated them to our school. In 1813 attorney Péter Sátor left his library along with his coin collection to the school. István Nagy, chronicler of the library started his academic career in 1809. During his years in Kecskemét continous development were carried out regarding the school and the library. It was during this time when the old collections went through a remarkable growth. Our congregation founded the library funds in 1818, contributing to the library’s planned developments and various quality improvements. The professor deserves a great deal of credit for assembling a catalogue of the collection representing 1341 books.
In 1820 the congregation’s leadership established a new library room. It recieved significant donations from bishop Gábor Báthory, István Nagy (Pest county’s town clerk), poet József Mátyási, and from preacher Sándor Szappanos. The latter’s efforts led to the town’s assembly elevating the school to academy rank in 1828. Then in 1830 they began building the Old College’s establishment, a beautiful reminder of Classical art standing to this very day, with the library on the first floor.
By then our congregation had many schools. The reformed school of Kecskemét could now operate as an academy along with the higher levels of classes, and the Old College could host trainings in legal philosophy and theology.
Preacher theologist István Hajnal left his library to the town in his will, but the town did not want to maintain it, and thus the rich library with its 2200 books was given to the congregation in 1851. Around this time the congregation bought the libraries belonging to physician Károly Sipos and legal academic István Dékány. According to Imre Csabay’s first professional catalogue (1851-1860) the library’s collection included 6300 works, from 11 different scientific fields.
In 1855 when the theology faculty was moved to Pest, the faculty of law’s library was separated. In 1890 the teacher Mihály Katonai and then in 1899 legal academic Károly Móricz were working on uniting the two libraries. The presbitery eventually accepted teacher Sándor Marton’s plans, however.
By the time the Old College was built, the building had become too small, and as such a decision had to be made whether they should expand or move the school. The then mayor Elek Kada came and helped the congregation. He donated a parcel of the Old College’s site to the congregation.
20th century
In 1907 after the presbitery’s resolution, the congregation became the managing authority of the library instead of the schools, and the schools’ libraries were united as the Academy Library, and during this time the idea of becoming a public library was also considered. This became a reality in 1908 thus our library became Kecskemét’s very first public library.
In 1912, when the Old College’s building was finished, the library was moved to a properly equipped (by today’s standards) room with iron shelves. Our predecessors had the same concept regarding the division of the library as it is today with three divisions: reading-room, studying room and a storage (224 m2).
During the 1925/26 semester Sándor Marton started reorganizing the library. Academic teacher András Tatay’s daughter Erzsébet donated 224 works to the library in 333 volumes. At this time our collection was 22001 works in 35204 volumes with a worth of 600 million crowns. On the 16th of August, 1931 the name of „Academy Library” was changed to „The library of the Reformed College” by the suggestion of the Library Commitee. In 1934 the congregational commitee introduced a resolution barring borrowing books from the library for the use at home, and books could only be used within the library with oversight. The library’s arrangement is owed to Sándor Marton and Béla Kiss librarians. In 1940, after the passing of Sándor Marton teacher Tamás Soós was entrusted with his library duties.
Both world wars’ devastations left their scars on the library and its collections. In 1950 Béla Tollas emeritus preacher became responsible for organizing and restoring the library’s contents. It was a great loss for the reformed congregation when this institution with its long history was nationalized in 1948. Our collections suffered the greatest loss at this time when a remarkable number of our books were confiscated. Only those documents survived that had the congregation’s seal on them, and these constitute our current collection’s basic groundwork.
During the presbiterian assembly ont he 17th of Feburary in 1952 preacher Endre Tóth reported that the congregational ward had made a decision to ask the congregation of Kecskemét to – as the schools were nationalized – deliver the various book and script collections to the Ráday Library for keeping.
The presbitary determined that the library’s properties permantly belonged to the congregation of Kecskemét and thus these were not given to the congregational ward as a part of nationalization. The majority of the youth library were destroyed. The presbitery thus bestowed the old works of the congregation’s library (while retaining property rights) upon the Ráday Library, according to the inventory report.
In 1953 the congregation’s archives were declared to be the congregational ward’s archives and were intended to be taken to Budapest. The presbitery wanted to keep the entire archives within its care and was willing to cover its costs.
The library of the Kecskemét Reformed College remained the property of congregational ward, as the Ráday Library’s deposit library in Kecskemét.
The library’s rare and valuable works from the 16th and 17th centuries were deposited in the Ráday library. Emeritus preacher Béla Tollas was given the task to manage the library and the archives as he had been doing it previously as well. In 1959 the library regained its independence and ceased to be the part of the Ráday Library.
During transition era the reformed church’s leadership decided to reopen the school in 1990 and that meant a new era for our library as well. Just a few years later the boarding school became operational along with the elementary school and the convictorium.
The 21st century
By God’s grace the New College building complex was built by 2004, thus it all finally became full „square”, also serving as the spot for our library.
After its reopening the library came under direct control of the College’s body, its leader being the Board Director at all times. After 2010 this organizational structure was changed, since the college title no longer applied and the congregational ward was also reorganized, and thus the collections now are under the control of the thelologician president in office.
It serves as a basic library since many member libraries (of elementary schools or high schools) and archives (boarding school, Sion Ház, Pálmácska kindergarden) belong to this institution.
Staff changes also contributed to the various developments in our library’s progress over the years. Mrs. Adorján Imréné (1965-1999) had been leading the library for a long time, acting as a librarian alongside her works as a preacher and theologician.
The new catalogues of the library’s collections is her legacy, along with processing the RMK (Old Hungarian Library) collections and establishing a manuscript catalogue.
Minister Zsuzsanna Szabó took over the library between 1999-2007. During her control the staff increased from 2 to 3 personnel and through various projects the development of the library began. Currently there are 5 staff members with professional field expertise managing the various librarian, archivist and collector duties.
We have been a public library since 2004. It was not easy to adapt to the conditions of being a public library since the management is enitrely liable for the various operations. Our main goal was to modernize our services and thus increase the number of visitors.
We have organized and planned fairs using the various folding screens, display cases and shelves found int he main hall. We have created an exhibition from scripts, songbooks, Bibles, rare and valuable books and maps found in the tower, and created memorial tours for István Szegedi Kis, Zoltán Gárdonyi, Michael de Ruyterre, László Ravasz, József Mátyási, János Kálvin and many ministers who served us previously. There has also been a anniversary exhibition regarding our College, and a semi-centenary exhibition for the 1956 revolution along with an anniversary of our 325 years old church.
The various renovations and expansions within the building in the last 10 years were necessery in order to offer our visitors a modernized and extended space.
In the reading-room for instance we have created a greater shelf-system for the handbooks. In 2007 through an international project we had the opportunity to initiate a greater development.
Instead of the old cement and PVC floor a brand new industrial-level laminated floor was introduced throughout the entire library. We could also replace the old (almost 40 years old) switches and our storage was upgraded with an automated access control system. In 2009 during the renovation of the street front the patio belonging to the libray was also repaired. Following a flooding in 2016, the entire reading-room and the study room were competely renovated. This basically meant reworking the entire electric circuitry and the internet as well, and the reading room received a new laminated floor, and the paintwork was redone in many rooms.
Through an integrated program called SZIKLA-21 specifically created for school libraries in 1999, newly received documents have been processsed continously since then. Every archive of every member library is electronically documented thus one can now borrow a book online. We come up with something innovative every year, and that is the reason we suspended managing inventory records on paper and now we do that eletronically. Nowdays every document receives a barcode, a unified signature seal, and the front pages and covers are scanned for the online catalogue. Since 2013 publishing has also been a part of our profile. This means that every year we have to design and create 4-5 issues for the congregational ward and for the Bács-Kiskunsági Reformed Diocese. Furthermore we also design and create official invitations, billboards, booklets and flypapers. One of our most important taksks is to maintain art collections belonging to the congregation.
