Founded in 1802, the National Széchényi Library aims to provide a comprehensive coverage receiving two deposit copies of every kind of publication and print produced in Hungary including non-book materials (sound recordings, video materials, documents in electronic forms etc.), works published abroad in the Hungarian language, written by Hungarian authors, translated from Hungarian or related to Hungary, as well as manuscripts in Hungarian or pertaining to Hungary.

At present, the library has holdings of more than 8 million units of material with more than 2 million books, 345,000 volumes of serial publications (newspapers and periodicals), 270,000 printed music sheets and more than 1 million units of manuscripts.