The first and practically the only comprehensive internet programme magazine, called Internet Guide (Internet Kalauz, IK), was published in February 1996, at the dawn of internet use in Hungary. Such an itinerary was indispensable if you wanted to know what to look at on the net at the time (when packages allowed you to have access to 5-10 hours of internet use a month). Articles from the magazine, a veritable museum piece today, have now been included in the Electronic Periodicals Archives and Database of the National Szechenyi Library (EPA OSZK).

Some of the writings could still be found here and there, for instance the interview with Zoran was published on the singer’s own homepage. What’s more, a number of scanned copies of the magazine were included in the American archive.org two months ago, which prompted EPA OSZK to also preserve the monthly periodical in their archives and database.
The magazine contained web reviews, studies, interviews, programme information, essays but also initiated debate, for instance on how to translate the term “homepage” into Hungarian or on the authorisation, sale and liberalisation of domain names, since previous regulations inherited from the sphere of research institutes and universities were becoming anachronistic in the world of internet, which was rapidly taking on businesslike features. The periodical also had a webmaster’s section, but the editors also devoted significant space to discussions on how internet contents could serve educational purposes. It had a circulation of over fifty thousand at the time when major and smaller service providers (for instance Elender or Matavnet, now called T) subscribed to the magazine for their customers to go with their packages.

The internet gave birth to the Internet Guide, and it was the internet that killed it. When unlimited and increasingly quick access to the internet became wide-spread, there was not much sense in producing a hard-copy guide to share contents that were available on the internet for most part. So the paper-based guide was replaced by web search engines (Yahoo and AltaVista at the time or HuDir in the Hungarian virtual world, moreover ikalauz.hu, the internet version of IK, also had a catalogue search function). Entry into the online archives brings the IK story to full, compete circle – what used to be paper about the internet has now been relocated to the worldwide web.