The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES - County Archives (Regional, general public archives) by Csaba Káli
government' got into the official name of the institution. So e.g. the Archives of Bács-Kiskun County became the Archives of Bács-Kiskun County SelfGovernment, the Archives of Tolna County became the Archives of Tolna County Self-Government and so on. In some cases even the names of the counties changed. That is, the counties took up the names of the former smaller counties again that had been fused upon the regrouping of the 1950s. So e.g. the name of Komárom County Archives became Komárom-Esztergom County Self-Government Archives and the name of Szabolcs-Szatmár County Archives became Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County Self-Government Archives. The new democratic regime charged the archives with serious tasks that first could be seen in the procedure of compensation. The democratic legislation had time to legislate about archives only in 1995 (Act LXVI of 1995). In the year of 2002 ministerial order determined the professional requirements of archives, including county archives, (decree NKÖM. 10/2002) Besides creating rules of law that help to develop professional level it is very important that storage problems became smaller due to new stores or due to whole buildings for archives. Nearly every archives got new, more or less modern rebuilt and equipped stores, but complete buildings for archives were also built like in the seat of Bács-Kiskun county, in the town of Kecskemét, in Pest County (Budapest) and in Vas County (Szombathely).This investment is still needed seeing the pure figures but changes have been incredible since 1950. In that year the number of employees in the 19 counties did not reach one hundred. The total number in 1968 (when it was drawn under the control of council) was only 146 (together with the archives of the capital maintained by the council), the institutions that originally worked with one or two people. The institutionally significant increase of employees started after this. In 1980 325 people worked in county archives and at the beginning of the 21 st century, in 2001 there were 477 employees. So in the twenty archives in nineteen counties - as we mentioned in Győr-Moson-Sopron county two independent archives work with two seats, the town of Sopron and the city of Győr - the average number of employees is twenty or so. Allowance either way can be seen only in some cases. The manpower is divided into three. Besides the archivists with university degree the main body is the group of middle grade specialists, the so-called archival handlers who are supported with the work of economic, financial, administrative and technical executives. At least one information specialist, an operation manager and a data supplier help the work of middle grade specialists. There are archival photographers, repairers and book binders only in bigger or new that is regional archives that cover more counties and that have appropriate workshops. The county archives usually have a librarian or librarian assistant who treats and develop their special library.
