Enlarged Board Meeting of the Department for Archives and Records Management to review work done by the State Archival Service of Belarus in 2009 and set objectives for 2010

On 27 January 2010, the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus held an enlarged board meeting to review work done by the State Archival Service of Belarus in 2009 and set objectives for 2010.

The participants at the meeting were the First Deputy of the Minister for Justice of the Republic of Belarus, A.V. Bileichik, heads and deputy heads of justice administration and heads of the archives and records management divisions at the regional executive committees and the Minsk City Executive Committee, directors of the state archival institutions, and members of the Department for Archives and Records Management. In all, 78 members attended the meeting.

The Director of the Department for Archives and Records Management, V.I. Adamushko, delivered a report. Presently, the State Archival Service of the Republic of Belarus includes 169 agencies and institutions: the Department for Archives and Records Management, 7 administrative agencies in charge of archives in each region and in the city of Minsk, 12 central (republic-level) archival institutions, 9 regional and 16 local (zonal) state archives, and 124 municipal and district personnel archives, which hold over 13 million paper files, and over 300,000 items of audiovisual records. In 2009, the state archives handled nearly 29,000 enquiries from private and juridical persons; over 11,000 citizens visited and consulted the archives in person. A special attention was focused on handling citizens’ enquiries based on a “single window” principle. In 2009, the archivists organised 89 exhibitions, published 16 documentary editions, guides, and scholarly editions relating to the history of Belarus. 122 official heraldic symbols were entered into the State Heraldry Register of the Republic of Belarus.