Foreign Parliamentary Collections

The Foreign Parliamentary Collection is the oldest special collection of the Parliamentary Library. Shortly after its foundation, the library established exchange relations with legislative bodies of numerous European countries and the United States pursuant to the Brussels Convention on the Exchange of Official Publications (1886). Since the 1860s, it has built a considerable historical collection of documents of the legislatures of many countries of Europe, for instance the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria and also the United States. Currently these five countries' documents are almost fully available in the collection. As from the 1980s, printed volumes of parliamentary papers, records of parliamentary debates and indexes have been supplanted by microfiche. Since more and more national parliaments started providing online full-text access to their documents, the exchange of printed volumes has been phased out. All of the printed volumes of foreign parliamentary collection is stored in our off-site facility, which means they are transported to the reading room only on certain days of the week. Users need to order them in advance by e-mail (info@ogyk.hu)

Documents of the Inter-Parliamentary Union also form part of this special collection. The simplest way to visit websites of national parliaments is to click through “Parliamentary sites” at the bottom of the homepage of the website of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Contact:

Reference Librarian: Gergely Zágoni-Bogsch
Phone: (+36-1) 441-4087
E-mail: gergely.zagoni-bogsch@parlament.hu