The collection of local knowledge documents has been going on since the foundation of the library in 1952.
The special collection contains documents related to the past (until 1920) and present of the historical counties of Abaúj, Borsod, Gömör, Torna and Zemplén. We collect publications with local content, published locally and in local printers, as well as works by local authors, regardless of type. Books, periodicals, small prints, minutes of general meetings, thesis papers, audiovisual documents can be found here. From a printing history point of view, we collect local printing products until 1948. There are no time limits to our collection: in addition to the currently published books, we try to purchase works of all ages, if local in nature, so we also monitor the offer of book auctions.
In the reading space on the 2nd floor there are books, newspapers, periodicals, thesis, maps, postcards and photos, as well as CDs and DVDs, computer documents, microfilms and digital versions of some of them. The collection of postcards in the Local History Collection is very rich, consisting of about 10,000 pieces. For example, the oldest postcard from 1899 is a real rarity, as the postcard edition in Hungary started in 1896.
The central warehouse housed small prints and posters, as well as some of the bound journals.
Librarians have been monitoring the press since 1956. The writings of local authors and the data of articles dealing with local topics were initially revealed in the alphabetical and orderly article catalogue. Nowadays we keep the results of the press monitoring, the articles related to the county and the city in the electronic catalogue, which have been archived in the last few years already digitized.
In addition to collecting local knowledge documents and information, today Borsod-Miskolc Digital Library The Local Knowledge Collection is also responsible for increasing its stock, selecting works for digitisation, managing the digitisation workflow, ensuring the accessibility and updating of electronic content, and archiving local recordings.