The nationwide network of public libraries operates upon strong professional tradition, with coordination and guidance of the Library Institute within the Széchényi National Library. The services of small settlements of less than 5000 inhabitants are overseen and assured by the county libraries. Local libraries have adapted to the current protocols of European public libraries: they run programmes for the inhabitants, with children in focus, librarians are active on social media and thus pose a challenge to the network of houses of culture. The digital shift of library operations has advanced, profiting also from EU funds. At the same time librarians complain about restricted resources on salaries, running costs and acquisition.
A burning issue is the location of the National Széchényi Library (now part of the Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Centre). Its main building in Buda Castle is less and less adequate for its needs but no decision and plans have emerged about the future of this national institution.
The law on archives merged the 19 county archives into the structure of the National Archive. This among other means that they can be accessed through one common website. Budapest and a few more cities have their own archives. Operations of the libraries have been streamlined and become increasingly open and user-friendly.
As far as the canon of national culture is concerned, literature is an area in which conservative and/or nationalist authors of the interwar period are promoted by the authorities, including in school curricula. However, the debates on this subject lost momentum as the opposing camps became entrenched; in literature, the canons of the two national writers’ associations did not borrow from each other.
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