“I had not worked here for so long when a student came in with a request to search for the original text of a famous Greek quotation. At the time, we were just beginners in using the internet, so I turned to printed sources for help. Fortunately, we had an Encyclopaedia about the Ancient World in the library, along with several other basic works. The colleagues were surprised to see that after a short search, I managed to find the quotation”, said Edit Sóki.
Edit Sóki is a librarian at the Faculty of Health Sciences and has been working at the library for 22 years. As she says, although she fondly remembers the atmosphere of the former location on Erkel street, the old, dear colleagues, the head of the library, but she also likes the new library located on Vas street, which is furnished with modern furniture and contains many works of fine art. For her, however, the questions of the lecturers, teachers and students and the help provided to them are more important, all this indicates the need for librarians in the life of the faculty. She and the other librarians deal with many things, from guiding visitors of the institution to research funding; among other things, they assist students in the process of dissertation preparation and lecturers in the process of publication.
As she says, they also try to provide individual service, they pay attention to the needs that arise. Many people ask for their help from the countryside as well, or just after a night shift, feeling very tired, and they are always trying to find a solution to student and faculty inquiries.
“If I do not know something, I go and search for information; not one question is useless, you can benefit from everything”, Edit Sóki says.
Gallery
Edit Sóki started working here as a librarian in 1999. It was before the integration in 2000, in the library of the College Faculty of Imre Haynal University in Újpest. Since 2004, she has been working at the current location of the Faculty of Health Sciences of Semmelweis University, on Vas street. In addition to assisting the visitors of the institution and taking care of the library’s journal collection, her responsibilities include collecting and uploading faculty publications to the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and also holding practical training for third-year students in the framework of the methodology of dissertation. The faculty has been offering classes to students related to library use and literature research since 2002.
The recent period has been unusual due to the pandemic. In accordance with national and university measures, the library is still closed most of the time. Employees have recently carried out the post production of library stock control on the one hand, and on the other hand, there is an on-call system available.
“Pre-arranged rentals are put together and books are delivered to readers at the main entrance. In the case of enrollments, we use a similar solution, the readers pre-fill in the enrollment form downloaded from the library web page and send it to us together with a copy of the necessary documents”, pointed out Edit Sóki.
She also added that classes are held via Zoom and they help students online in creating a reference list of their dissertations.
“This year has also brought me a lot of new things. In connection with the epidemic, I have been able to experience how rich our background knowledge is, how much we have grown regarding the knowledge of online resources. Providing help may work in any form if it is accompanied by good will”, she highlighted.
László Sturbán
Photo: Attila Kovács – Semmelweis University (the photos were taken before the epidemic)
Translation: Katalin Illés-Romhányi
