The Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library, established in 1904, provides the services of the public library network for the inhabitants in Budapest. The Central Library meets the requirements of a city public library, takes part in national and international research works and serves as a national resource library in sociology. It helps the organized - and self-study regardless of age and fields of interest. Information-technology is widely used in its services.

District branch libraries are the basic institutions of the metropolitan public library network. Their collections are developed by the rules of acquisition concerning their categories. There are some organizational units which are controlled together by the branch libraries of more than one district. They are the so called regions which fulfil their professional tasks; with partial centralization but they manage their budget semi-independently.

The name and division of the regions:

Region of Buda: branch libraries of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 11th, 12th and 22nd district

Region of Northern-Pest: libraries of the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 13th district

Region of Southern-Pest: libraries of the 9th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st and 23rd district

Region of Eastern-Pest: libraries of the 8th, 10th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th district

Number of the branch libraries in the entire network is 61. There are 42692 children out of the total 208.624 registered users. 378 computers are available for the readers.
There are 72 843 enroled readers in the Central Library, the average number of the visitors is 5-6000 a day. As the greatest cultural institution in the capital, the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library serves more than 12% of the population; it preserves and delivers significant cultural values. The reorganization of service tasks and the creation of a new development strategy for the challenges of our age are considered as its main duties.
The essence of the new development plan of 2002 is to co-ordinate the services of the branch libraries on a higher level and utilize their resources.