NSZL’s web archive has become publicly accessible and interactive

Since March 2020, the NSZL web archive has become publicly accessible and interactive.

At the end of 2019, as part of a web archiving test project, the Hungarian national library has already saved about 250,000 websites, a total of 35 terabytes of data. The initial idea about creating a web archive in National Széchényi Library (NSZL) was to offer a representative overview of online content intended for the Hungarian public or related to Hungary, as part of the cultural heritage, and of electronic documents belonging to the scope of the so-called hungarica, that can be publicly accessed during a given period. The number of archived files and URL titles is approximately 600 million.

In addition to the web archive and a presentation of the project, the recently renewed website also offers content for users, site owners, professionals and journalists. By filling in a form, anyone can recommend the web harvest of Hungarian websites and online information resources that are worth archiving on the long run.

Currently, “web harvest” involves only servers that can technically provide an automatic backup of content, so while collecting content, the library takes into account restrictions pre-set by the owner of the given website.

Mass archiving of Hungarian websites is made possible by the National Library System (Hungarian abbreviation: OKR) development program worked out on the basis of Government Decree No. 1605/2016. (XI. 8.) on the provision of the necessary resources for the IT development of National Széchényi Library.

Read more on the subject in our blog post (available only in Hungarian).

More information for the press is available at press@oszk.hu.