As part of its national legal deposit duties the library satisfies the literary needs of the fields of mining and metallurgy; as a public library its goal is also to make modern informational services accessible to all users through its collection.
The predecessor of the library is the library of mining-metallurgical higher-educational institution founded in 1735 that operated in Selmecbánya (Banská Štiavnica, Schemnitz) until 1919, and afterwards in Sopron until 1949. Its successor was founded in Miskolc in the same year. Our current building was completed in 1969.
In our reading-room we offer journals and our open-shelf stock and 45 computers (out of which 18 are in our multimedia room) for up to 400 readers at the same time.
The library building also houses the Selmec Monument Library, besides the University Archives and Museum.
Holdings and collecting policy of the library
We have around 1 million library items in our collection which increases by 12-15 thousand books and other documents every year. The number of journals is about 1000. Our collecting policy includes: in Hungarian and foreing languages secondary literature of technical sciences (especially mining and metallurgy) and basic literature of natural sciences required as a basis of mentioned sciences publications of social sciences (law, economics, education, sociology, etc.) as well as secondary literature of the sciences required for educating arts students (history, literature and linguistics, foreign languages, psychology, etc.).
The University Archives (founded in 1982) are an organisational unit of the library, collecting written and hand-written historic material accumulated during the 250 years of existence of the university.