Collection area activities

In Hungary, archives are responsible for receiving, collecting and preserving records of permanent value. Records of permanent value are defined as those which contain data of economic, social, political, legal, defence, national security, scientific or scholarly, cultural, technical or other significance that are indispensable for research, knowledge and the understanding of the historical past, for the continuous performance of public duties and for the enforcement of citizens' rights, and which cannot be obtained from other sources or can only be obtained in part.

Accordingly, the public archives, including our institution, are obliged to receive and collect public documents of public bodies within their competence that cannot be discarded, and to receive, collect and preserve private documents of permanent value free of charge.

The archiving of documents of permanent value is at the heart of the work in the collection area.

In order to ensure the preservation of public records that cannot be discarded, the public archives shall inspect the protection and processing of the records of public bodies and of enterprises owned in majority by the State or a municipality on the occasion of on-site inspections, and shall approve the records processing rules and the discarding of records by such bodies.

We keep a register of the bodies that accumulate documents of permanent value in our area of competence. In line with the demands of our times, the member institutions of the Hungarian National Archives have also adapted to the requirements of electronic records processing with regard to the discarding and archival receipt of electronically generated documents and the related procedures (correspondence and digital authentication), and we also process our records in a database.

Our archives collect all private documents that fit in with the archival material in our custody and enrich its value as a source, in accordance with the relevant legislation. As part of this process, documents donated by private individuals are examined and those of permanent value may be deposited in the archives. This can be done by sale, gift or deposit, or even by making a digital copy of the document that remains in the individual's possession and adding that to the collection. The most significant collections of the latter are our digital family photo collection (Kaleidoscope), which includes pictures of public spaces in Veszprém, and our digital private documents collection from the First World War. Both are available as databases in the databases menu (link).