An enlarged meeting of the Department of Archives and Records Management of Belarus was held on January 24, 2008

An enlarged meeting of the Department of Archives and Records Management of the Ministry of Justice of Belarus was held on January 24, 2008 to sum up the results of the State Archival Service of Belarus in the past year and to set objectives for 2008.

The meeting was attended by 70 people, among whom were Deputy Minister for Justice of the Republic of Belarus, A. V. Bileichik, heads and deputy heads of the main administrations of justice in regional executive committees and Minsk City Executive Committee, department heads for archives and records management in regional executive committees and Minsk City Executive Committee, directors of state archival institutions, and staff of the Department for Archives and Records Management.

V. I. Adamushko, Director of the Department of Archives and Records Management, spoke at the meeting with the main report. Eleven participants took part in discussions.

At present the State Archival Service of Belarus includes 11 republic-level archival institutions, 9 regional and 16 local state archives, and 124 municipal and district archives of personnel records, which preserve about 12.5 million paper files and about 283,000 audio-visual records. In 2007 the Belarusian state archives handled 27,400 social and legal enquiries; about 14,000 citizens directly visited and consulted the archives. Particular attention was paid to work with citizens based on a so-called “single window” principle of handling citizens’ enquiries. In the past year the archivists published 12 collections of documents, directories, and scholarly-popular publications on the history of Belarus. 97 official heraldic symbols were entered into the State Heraldry Registry of the Republic of Belarus