General Collection

According to its basic task, National Széchényi Library keeps several millions of books in Hungarian and Hungary-related documents. The national library’s rich collection covers a wide range of documents belonging to the Hungarian cultural heritage, from the earliest language fragments to electronic documents which are stored divided into various collections according to the different types of documents.

Two great parts of NSZL stock belong to the General Collection:  almost 3 million books published in the territory of all-time Hungary since 1712 and abroad since 1601, and a collection of around one million individual items  and issues of newspapers and journals. These documents are mainly hungaricas, i.e. Hungarian and Hungary-related documents published in Hungary or beyond the country’s borders. The value of the stock is further increased by the fact that National Széchényi Library keeps the only copy of a great number of books and periodicals published in Hungary.