Processing and Finding Aids
RECORDS PROCESSING
In addition to safeguarding the documents in its custody, the archives keep specific records of them. The most important part of the archivist's work is to restore the original order of the documents in the archives or to create a more appropriate new order. In order to ensure usability, the documents are organised, i.e. sorted, in a scientific way.
In accordance with established rules, we discard documents and remove unnecessary material that is of no value for administration or research.
At the same time, we create so-called ʻaids’, i.e. catalogues, indexes, and databases to make the content of the documents and the historical data they contain as accessible as possible. The aids are made available to researchers in printed or electronic form.
INTRODUCTION TO THE AIDS
The large volume of documents held in the archives is accompanied by so-called 'aids', which are used both to keep a record of the archives and to help you find your way around.
There are some aids that are produced in the daily work of the archiving bodies before the documents enter the archives: these are called administrative aids. Administrative aids are placed in the archives with the records and remain with the records after the sorting work. Examples include filing books, register books or index books containing place names and personal names in alphabetical order.
The processing work in the archives also results in the creation of aids, which are collectively known as archival aids. The most basic of those which are available to the general public is the fonds index. A fonds is the most important basic unit of archival material, and is understood as a collection of the records of a document-generatng body or person, or as a collection of records artificially created according to a certain criterion. Each document held in the archives belongs to a fonds. The fonds may be subdivided into independent units or series, according to certain criteria. The fonds index lists the fonds according to the standard national system and the way of labelling, together with the following basic data: the fonds' accession number, title, year, volume in running metres, breakdown into sub-fonds, title, year and volume of the sub-fonds.
For more detailed information on the contents of individual fonds and sub-fonds, please consult the inventory lists or records inventory. In the records inventory, the documents are grouped according to the nature of the documents based on sorting.
There are still some archival aids that exist only on paper, and are made available to researchers by our research service. However, an increasing number of fonds are now available with aids in electronic form, and we are making them available to the public through the NAH's central filing system named ScopeArchiv.
THE KEEPING OF RECORDS
In the National Archives of Hungary, the databases of the county archival records have also been integrated into the ScopeArchiv archival record system. Thus, the registry of the NAH Veszprém County Archives containing the basic data of the records of Veszprém County Archives is also available and searchable on the Internet.
Please note that the database is not available at the NAH collections portal, but only at the Electronic Archives Portal (ELP).
The current fonds and sub-fonds inventory of Veszprém County Archives, as well as the related registry data and additional information to help you navigate through the archival material can be accessed as follows:
First we visit the ELP at https://www.eleveltar.hu/. Clicking on "Advanced search", we offer you the option "Browse the archives structure" to browse the entire archives. Veszprém fonds can be accessed by scrolling down the simple tree structure: National Archives of Hungary/VeML Veszprém County Archives.
