Our cultural heritage, the internet

Abstract

On November 14, 2019, a workshop was organized at the National Széchényi Library under the title „404 Not Found – Who preserves the internet?”. It was opened by Csaba Latorcai, State Secretary for Administrative Affairs at the Ministry of Human Resources. In this study, based on his greeting words, he briefly reviews the efforts made in Hungary and abroad to preserve the Hungarian digital cultural heritage, as well as the various phases of the work carried out at the National Széchényi Library. He outlines the process from recognizing the importance of long-term preservation of digitally created cultural goods, through formulating a proposal for setting up the Hungarian Internet Archive and conducting a feasibility study, to implementing a pilot project. He underlines the need for legislation on web archiving, and for a government decree about the details. By 2021, the national library is expected to provide harvesting, cataloguing, long-term preservation and archiving of Hungarian-related web content. The achievements will contribute to and enrich Hungarian cultural heritage.