要旨

The article is a discussion of the Hungarian book by Máté Tóth, a researcher and librarian in Hungary: ”Social Roles of Libraries in the Light of empirical research data” (Szentendre, Hamvas Béla Pest Megyei Könyvtár, 2022), in which he draws attention to the social roles of libraries. The author substantiates the raison of this role with his empirical research. The book is a broad overview of one of the most exciting and much-discussed matters of today's Hungarian culture, the world and role of reading, books, the press, electronic media, mobile phones, the Internet, and comprehensively Hungarian reading culture. The author attempts to prove the legitimacy and social role of libraries based on the statistics, library sociology measurements and empirical research of recent decades.