The Slovak Agricultural Library at the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (SUA) is an academic library serving as a specialized scientific library for the field of agriculture. It is the information center of the SUA in Nitra.
The Library provides its services to students and employees of the University, students of secondary schools and universities, scientists and researchers, and the general professional and lay public.
The collection of printed publications comprises more than 500,000 library units, with another half a million documents available in digital form in licensed full-text databases from international publishers or in databases produced by the Library.
The Library acquires mainly scientific and professional publications for its collection, not only from agriculture but also from other scientific fields. It makes publications available to a wide range of users through loans or online services. The Library Bibliographic Database, which it produces, contains information on publications from agriculture published in Slovakia or relating to Slovakia. It is a workplace that keeps records of the publishing activities of SUA employees. It systematically stores printed and digital publications of the university, selected publications related to Slovak agriculture, and operates a digital archive. The Library provides several specialized services, in particular research services, advice on the evaluation of publications, bibliometric analyses, IT services, and many others.
Establishment and development of the Library
The Slovak Agricultural Library at SUA in Nitra dates back to 1946, when the Library of the University of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering was established in Košice. In 1952, the university in Košice was closed down, followed by the Library, but at the same time two new universities were established, one in Zvolen and the other in Nitra. The delimitation of the Library's collections in Košice led to the establishment of new libraries in both cities.
In Nitra, the Library began operating under the name State Study Library with a collection of approximately 13,000 documents, initially as an independent scientific library and, since 1960, as part of the University of Agriculture, today the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra. From this period onwards, it began to function as both a specialized scientific library for agriculture and a university (academic) library.
In the early years of its existence, the Library focused primarily on building a high-quality collection of documents and processing them.
In the 1960s, one of its priorities became bibliographic activities, the bibliographic processing of Slovak publications in the field of agriculture, and the bibliographic registration of publications by employees of the university.
The 1970s brought a strengthening of the functions of the methodological workplace and the beginning of information education. The Library was one of the pioneers of the automation of library and information activities, starting automated literature processing as early as 1973.
In the mid-1990s (as one of the first Slovak libraries), it launched an online catalog on the web and an online borrowing system. It gained its first online access to full-text journals in 1999, which were sources from EBSCO Publishing.
The Library was also among the first in Slovakia to make full-text publications available in its bibliographic database and catalog and to build a digital archive (in 2004).
Overview of names and major organizational changes*
1946 — establishment of the Central Library of the University of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering in Košice,
1951 — establishment of the independent Central Agricultural Library in Košice,
1952 — delimitation of part of the collections and equipment to Nitra, establishment of the State Study Library in Nitra,
1954 — name changed to State Scientific Library in Nitra, organizational affiliation with the University Library in Bratislava,
1959 — name changed to Central Agricultural Library in Nitra, acquisition of a new function as the central library of the network of agricultural libraries,
1960 — affiliated with the then University of Agriculture as a scientific library with nationwide jurisdiction and also as the central library of the university,
1991 — change of name to Slovak Agricultural Library,
1998 — relocation of the Library to building at Štúrova 51,
2009 — opening of the renovated Library building at Štúrova 51.
* Source: Petrášová, D. J. (1996) 50 Years of the Slovak Agricultural Library. In 50 Years of the Slovak Agricultural Library 1946-1996. Nitra: SlPK, pp. 7-16.