Béla Küffer

Béla Küffer (1856–1928) was appointed director of the library in 1884. He was at the helm of the library for twenty years, carrying out his duties systematically and consistently, while intensively supporting legislators, combining high scientific standards with hard work. He examined the operation of foreign parliaments on a study trip in Europe. His extensive expertise was coupled with tireless diligence and a command of English, German, French, Latin and Italian. He is credited with the library’s first large, 1,500-page catalogue volume, published in 1893. Besides the comprehensive development of augmenting and classifying the holdings, he introduced the alphabetic and thematic card catalogues. He played an outstanding role in drafting the library management rules and regulations in 1894. He carried out professional and intellectually demanding work when the library moved to the new Parliament building in 1902. He did scientific research in the areas of law and history.

Áron Fülöp

Áron Fülöp (1861–1920) was born and died in Felsőboldogasszonyfalva in Szeklerland. He worked in the library for twenty years, from 1896, and was its director for eleven years. In summer 1902, the library with its 50 thousand holdings moved from its old venue in the building of the House of Representatives to the new Parliament Building under his professional direction and coordination. For two years, he worked on drawing up the library’s regulations, which were passed in 1909. Simultaneously the principles of the library’s operation being summed up, the most important parts of the library system, i.e. its cataloguing, scientific and warehousing system was being reorganised and reformed in tandem with the inventorying of its holdings. The system developed and proposed by Áron Fülöp proved to be a lasting achievement, since it is still used in the warehousing and distribution of some parts of the holdings. Under him as director, highly qualified experts joined the library staff, including the library’s future directors until 1942 – Béla Plechl, Miklós Nagy and Károly Panka – who grew into professionally trained and experienced librarians under him. Áron Fülöp was not only a librarian. His talent as a poet already manifested itself during his secondary school studies. His chief work was a trilogy, titled “The Sons of Attila”, with which he completed the lyrical presentation of the legends of the Huns.

Miklós Nagy

Miklós Nagy (1881–1962) was pursuing his university studies when, on 7 November 1901, he joined the staff of the House of Representatives, where he was paid on a daily basis. He was appointed a parliamentary journal editor’s aide on 1 November 1904 and became an official staff member of the Library of the House of Parliament as an auxiliary librarian on 1 July 1907. He continued to work here for 34 years. He was the library’s honorary director from 5 July 1920 and its director, later director-general, from 3 December 1921 to 1 May 1940.
Under his nineteen-year tenure, he made significant contributions to the modernisation and harmonisation of the library’s cataloguing and warehousing systems to meet the requirements of the time. In 1922, he urged and drafted the amendment to the act on legal deposits, stipulating that the Library of the Hungarian Parliament receive a selection of newly published volumes. In 1923, he set up the catalogue of call numbers. He was the editor of the two catalogue volumes, published in 1929 and 1932, respectively. He spoke four languages. He was a prominent figure of the generation of librarians active in the interwar years and raised the Library of the House of Representatives to a scientific standard. He was characterised by extensive knowledge coupled with humility. He nurtured good relations with his work colleagues: his modesty, humanity and helpfulness went hand in hand with the diligence of scientific research in his efforts promoting library affairs.
His scholarly activity in the areas of law and historical science is also noteworthy. In 1927, he became a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
A hall of the library was named after him in 2018, and a Miklós Nagy award was also established..

Károly Panka

Károly Panka (1882–1970) joined the staff of the House of Representatives on 1 September 1903. He worked there for 37 years. He was appointed auxiliary librarian of the Library of the House of Representatives on 1 March 1906. From 1910 to the outbreak of WWI he was among those who took part in the restructuring of the library. During the war, he served in the army and was demobilised as a reserve lieutenant. On 3 December 1921, simultaneously with Miklós Nagy’s appointment as director of the library, he first took on the position of chief librarian and then, on 5 July 1928, that of honorary library director. According Miklós Nagy’s recommendation presented to the Speaker on 26 November 1937, since he started his library service, Károly Panka “has always proven himself to be hard working, dutiful and conscientious”.
Károly Panka was the author of many works; a significant part of his scientific research and publications are connected to the area of libraries and bibliographies. He wrote the history of the first fifty years of the Library of the House of Representatives, an overview of the history of collecting documents of foreign parliaments, as well as numerous studies on law, history and politics. He was appointed director of the library on 1 May 1940, and he filled this position until his retirement in 1941, after which he returned to Sárospatak, which he had close ties with throughout his life.

György Trócsányi

György Trócsányi (1896–1973) worked at the Office of the National Assembly from 1914, and from 1921 in the library, which he was director of between 1941 and 1949. He utilised his extensive knowledge of languages (German, French, Russian and English) mainly in augmenting and classifying books: he was entrusted with the acquisition of foreign works on law, history, politics economics statistics, sociology, etc. during which he had to uphold professional standards and satisfy the needs of the MPS, while seeking to support the work of legislators to a maximum extent and staying within the budget. He was put in charge of directing the library’s project aimed at developing its autonomous indexing system. Trócsányi was a broad-minded and knowledgeable expert of outstanding intelligence and extraordinary erudition, who studied issues pertaining to library and bibliography science in depth and was a recognised authority of library affairs and policy. As a director, he always upheld the importance of the scientific development of the library. At several meetings of the library committee, he called for making the library public.

Gábor Vályi

Gábor Vályi (1922 – 2003) was the director of the library from 1972 to 1983. He is credited with outstanding modernisation, including an outstanding increase regarding the institution’s budget and staff, setting up new organisational units, implementing extensive automation and introducing new services, as well as realising significant development in the areas of documentation, special collections and the size of warehouses, reading rooms and staff.
His excellent knowledge of languages (German, English, Russian and French) enabled him to be actively involved in the international library organisations, while also being a prominent figure of the domestic library organisations: from 1977, he was a founding member of the Social Science Section of the Association of Hungarian Librarians, and from 1979 to 1989 the president of the Hungarian Library Council.