Board meeting of the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Republic of Belarus, 24 November 2010

24 November 2010, the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus held a regular board meeting to discuss the issues of work organization of the Expert Methodical Commissions / Expert Checking Commissions (EMK/EPK) at the state archives and institutions of the State Archival Service in 2005-2009; about the paid services of the state archives provided to juridical and physical persons in the use of records; the main indexes of work at the institutions of the State Archival Service of the Republic of Belarus in 2011-2015; and staff issues.

It was noted that the expert commissions of the state archives and institutions of the State Archival Service are primarily aimed at improving the selection of records transferred to the state archives for preservation with the purpose of the qualitative formation of the National Archival Holdings, records organization in active recordkeeping, the provision of procedural guidance and control over the expert services in the institutions-sources of acquisition for the state archives. The expert checking commissions provide procedural guidance to the expert services of the state regional and zonal archives, as well as the municipal and district archives of the local executive and administrative agencies.

The expert commission meetings are held no less than once a month. In all, in the period from 2005 to 2009 the expert commissions had 2,310 meetings, including 363 in the republic-level archival institutions, 483 in the regional bodies of the State Archival Service and in Minsk, and 1464 in the regional and zonal state archives. In general, the work of the expert commissions has become more effective as their functions and tasks are now more focused on the quality of the formation of the National Archival Holdings.

At the same time, certain defects have been found in the work of the expert commissions. The study of the composition and contents of records held in the institutions-sources of acquisition is not properly organized. Not all expert checking commissions hold the outside meetings purposing to provide procedural and practical assistance to the expert methodical commissions of the state archives and to improve the quality of documents examined by the commission. The commission meetings often treat formally the discussion of some documents submitted for examination (lists of records creating institutions, certificates, reports of records disposal etc.). The resolution of the department board outlined a series of measures aimed at correcting the mentioned defects.

On the second issue it was noted that in the use of records in the period from 2008 to October 2010, the state archives of the Republic of Belarus earned 1,116,998,963 Belarusian roubles. Among the republic-level state archives the best results have been achieved by the National Historical Archives of Belarus (367 mln roubles) and the State Archives of Films, Photographs and Sound Recordings (150,5 mln roubles). The leaders among the regional and zonal archives are the State Archives of Brest Region (117,6 mln roubles) and the State Archives of Minsk Region (82 mln roubles).

The main types of paid services offered by the state archives in the use of records are the thematic, biographical and genealogical searches, social-legal inquiries, inquiries concerning property ownership and inheritance rights, and copying of documents.

At the same time, in the field of paid services the state archives face a number of problems. The absence of currency accounts in some of the archives does not allow them to receive payment for handling foreign inquiries. There are cases when applicants refuse to pay for negative answers. In this connection, the department board stressed the necessity of discussing the issue of opening the currency accounts in the archival institutions in which they are absent, as well as to introduce the system of advanced payment.

In some archives, the charging of fees for services remain different for Belarusian and foreign citizens. The department board found it advisable to unify the size of fees charged for services provided to native and foreign citizens alike.