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The National Széchényi Library is the national library of Hungary. Our main task is to collect, process and preserve all the written heritage of Hungary and all documents pertaining to it. The collection of Hungarica (all the books and other documents published in Hungary, and publications related to Hungary or to Hungarians published abroad) is to be carried out continuously to the fullest extent possible and these materials are to be available for the users whether in the form of parchment, paper or electronic medium.

Perhaps it is not immodest to say that the National Széchényi Library is the memory of the nation and as such it is the common heritage of all Hungarians - living in Hungary or outside its borders - and at the same time it is an integral part of European and universal culture, enriching and making that more colorful.

We hope that through our presence on the net we can present our collection and services more comprehensively and in an up-to-date manner, and thereby it is possible to increase the number of our readers and the users of our services - including researchers, interested individuals, libraries and representatives of institutions - either through the network or in library itself in the Buda Castle.


For the CACAO project, the Hungarian Electronic Library (MEK) will act as a user, with a crucial role on the Validation and Aggregation work parkages.
MEK was initiated in 1994 as a project of the National Information Infrastructure Development Program (NIIF). The work started on the central collection of the MEK, hosted on one of the devices of the NIIF. In 1996 a web-surface was created. Between 1996 and 2002 the collection grew to about 4000 items, with 60-70 thousand visitors each month. According to MEK's development policy it collects resources concerning Hungary or the Central European region, in the fields of culture, education and academic research. The collection consists of text-based resources, but does not exclude other formats such as maps, sheet music etc. The Hungarian Electronic Library also collects periodicals and journals, and links to other relevant resources, services and documents concerning libraries. In 1999 the National Széchényi Library decided to provide a new home for the MEK project and the MEK-Department was formed within the National Library. In the year 2001 the new service launched on the MEK's own server (mek.oszk.hu) with an enhanced collection, the implementation of standard metadata-formats and library applications, and the addition of the Electronic Periodicals Archive. In the period between 1999 and 2001 the MEK hosted the MIT-HOL (lately known as LIBINFO) online reference service, which since became a joint project of several Hungarian libraries. During the course of the past few years the Hungarian Electronic Library became one of the most popular and most significant text-archives of the Hungarian web space.