The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)

THE ARCHIVES OF SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS - Open Society Archives by Iván Székely

and documentary films from 1920 to 1980, a collection of Hungarian amateur film from the same period, interviews with Soviet leaders and the former employees of RFE, the audio source collection of Radio Liberty, propaganda and report films made by the Workers' Militia, a comparative collection of wartime political program broadcasts from Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian television (Balkan Monitoring), over 3000 hours, and the archives of the International Monitor Institute: some 6000 hours of video footage on the gravest human rights violations and cases of genocide of recent times. Research room As part of the electronic documents collections, one million images of the most frequently researched documents and the database of the 22 million page archive of the Communist International, the Moscow based strategist and organizer of the World Communist Movement, can be accessed on-site at OSA. The archive of electronic campaign letters contains emails and cell phone text messages related to the 2002 parliamentary elections in Hungary. OSA hosts a Martus („witness") server which enables human rights groups working in dangerous environments to write encrypted reports and send them to the Archives through the Internet. General data The holdings of OSA, together with its library material, is comprised of more than 7000 linear metres. Two thirds of these materials are processed. The documents are maintained in a three storey climate controlled facility, which contains state of the art technical equipment along with a mobile shelving system. The paper-based documents are stored in special acid-free boxes produced in the Archives' own plant. The materials are described according to the new edition of ISAD(G) archival description standard in a computer database with a user-friendly interface that can be accessed by the researchers both on-site and, through the Internet, off-site as well.