Workshop on creation of digital copies of records of the National Archival Holdings of Belarus at the National Archives of Belarus, 28 June 2011
On 28 June 2011, the National Archives of Belarus held a Workshop on issues related to the creation of digital copies of the records of the National Archival Holdings of Belarus. The workshop was organised and conducted by the records preservation, state inventory and information technologies division at the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Justice Ministry of the Republic of Belarus (Department) together with the Belarusian Research Center of Electronic Records.
The workshop discussed issues related to the creation of reference or convenience copies on digital media (fond polzovaniya), conducted an analysis of the digital copies accessioned into the Fonds of Digital Copies, gave practical recommendations on the digitization of archival records. The workshop also discussed issues concerning digitization of photographs, their processing (on the example of the Belarusian State Archives of Films, Photographs and Sound Recordings and the Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art), identification of digital copies (on the example of the National Historical Archives of Belarus). Representatives of the National Archives of Belarus shared their experience in the use of robotized libraries in preserving digital copies of archive records and informed the participants of some results in digitizing records of the Great Patriotic War.
The workshop brought together over 60 representatives from various archival institutions: the Department’s deputy director, heads and deputy heads of the regional archival authorities, directors and deputy directors of the national, regional and local state archives, chiefs of the archive laboratories, archivists, specialists responsible for the creation and preservation of reference digital copies.
The workshop participants discussed the state of work on the creation of digital reference copies and noted this direction as one of the most important among the preservation activities of the State Archives Service of Belarus. The workshop recommended to continue work on records digitization, to use scanning equipment most effectively, to enhance scholarly and procedural assistance to this activity; to further work on digitizing microphotocopies with purpose to stop the use of the most valuable records which have security microphotocopies; to strengthen inter-archive cooperation in the area of records digitization. To support the digitization of records of the regional and local state archives it is necessary to continue work on the creation of the regional digitization centers.