The Department for Archives and Records Management of the Justice Ministry held an extended board meeting
The Department for Archives and Records Management of the Justice Ministry of the Republic of Belarus held an extended board meeting to review the results of work of archives and records agencies and state archival institutions in the Republic of Belarus in 2019 and to set up the objectives for 2020.
The board meeting was attended by Deputy Minister of Justice Nikolay Starovoitov, heads and deputy heads of main justice boards at the regional executive committees and the Minsk City Executive Committee, directors of the state archives and members of the Department for Archives and Records Management.
Victor Kourash, Director of the Department for Archives and Records Management delivered a report. Directors of the state archives and representatives of the Main Justice Administration participated in the debates.
The board noted that the Republic of Belarus currently pursues a policy of electronic recordkeeping as one of the areas of digital transformation. The preservation of electronic records in Belarus corresponds to world trends. The Information System for Archives of Electronic Records of the National Archival Fonds was put into commercial operation in 2019. The System is located in a secure virtual infrastructure on the republic-level platform based on cloud technologies.
As on January 1, 2020 the state archives in Belarus permanently hold 13 015 991 paper-based storage items, comprising 47 641 fonds.
In 2019, the archives digitized 4 153 file inventories, which makes up 33% of the total amount of inventories.
The information support of users remains an important sphere of archive activity. In 2019 the state archives performed 12 511 biographical inquiries, 2 209 thematic inquiries, 275 genealogical inquiries and 21 356 social-legal inquiries.
In 2019 the state archives prepared and released seven collections of published documents, two analytical works, 123 exhibitions of documents.
The State Heraldry Register of the Republic of Belarus was added with 124 official heraldic symbols.
