Board meeting of the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Republic of Belarus, 20 Oct 2010
20 October 2010, the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus held a board meeting to discuss issues of improving the physical condition of records at the state archives, the condition and amount of records of the National Archival Holdings of the Republic of Belarus held in various institutions-sources of records acquisition for the state archives as on 1 January 2010.
The improvement of the physical condition of records and their preservation is a major field of activity in archival institutions. This work is directly connected with strengthening the material and technical basis of the archives as reflected in the Archives of Belarus State Programme for 2011-2015.
The state archives permanently work on identifying and selecting records that require special treatment. It is enough to mention that 7 percent of all stored files need disinfection and restoration, 8 percent need binding and filing. At the same time a positive dynamics is evident– the overall need for restoration decreased from 7,6 percent to 6,9 percent. The average rate of files placed in cardboard boxes is 80 percent.
During the discussion of the second issue it was noted that the status and development of archive business is connected with improving records preservation at the agency archives, strengthening their legal, organizational, material and technical basis, increasing the efficiency of the agency archives.
As on 1 January 2010, 8643 institutions have been registered as acquisition sources for the central, regional and local state archives in Belarus (government institutions – 7485, nongovernment – 1318, public – 992); of them 8259 institutions hold administrative documents; 384, scientific-technical records, films, photographs, sound records, and electronic records.
It was noted that certain institutions do not meet modern requirements for records preservation; agency archives lack proper material, technical and personnel basis. Inadequate supply of personnel staff and specially equipped facilities at the agency archives is usually explained by the lack of attention the institution managers give to the issue of records preservation.
As on 1 January 2010, 1,706,972 permanent files for the years 1917–2009 are held in the custody of the agency archives. Of them only 74,3% have been prepared for transfer to the state archives for preservation. Especially alarming is the situation with records preservation in the institutions-sources of acquisition for the state archives of public organizations in the Gomel, Grodno and Minsk regions. In all, 511,147 files that expired agency retention period are still held in various institutions, that is 29,9% of the total number of permanent records held by the institutions.