1. Digitisation and disposal at National Archives of Finland
István Kecskeméti
PhD
Director at Collection Management Division

3. Sami Archives

4. Changes in archival law 1.1.2017
Organisation change, new law of National Archives
National Archive and Provincial Archives (7) will unite to one national organisation, with activities in 9 cities.
2. Change in Archival law, addition of 14 a §
National Archives will command the form [analogue vs digital] of documents instructed for permanent storage and will also command of the disposal of the original documents which have been transferred to electric form (digitised). Disposal is allowed, if it can take place without endangering the authenticity, integrity, or weakening the cultural historic value of the document (record) and the information it contains. (free translation)

5. Digitise and dispose Change in archival law
- Will give us rights to command that the official records will be given to us in electric form from start of 2017 instead of paper – full turn around (untill this we have demanded the born digital documents printed on paper)
- Right to digitise and dispose with certain rules (without endangering the authenticity, integrity and cultural historic values of the records)

6. Digitise and dispose operational policy:
Overview of international situation
Clarification of the amount and form of documents stored for permanence still kept by officials ( , around 150 shelv km)
To improve the digitisation process
Giving values to the ”historic” collections held by National Archives (210 shelv km) and also valuing the ca. 150 skm still stored by state offices (from period )
Standardizing the methods of disposing digitised paper documents

7. Digitise and dispose policy 1
Australian National Archives: Disposal of records in the Archives' custody following digitization –politics (version 1.0 November 2015).
Marburg archive school: The Intrinsic Value of Archive and Library Material
USA National Archives: Intrinsic Value In Archival Material –report
National Archives of Norway: Digitalisering for kassasjon – en utredning – og en utfordring
National Archives of Sweden: Riksarkivets digitaliseringsstrategi
National Archives of Sweden: Beslut angående vårdpolicy för Riksarkivets handlingar på papper (Conservation policy for documents stored on paper)

10. Document scanners very suitable for loose sheets up to A3, where paper even and in good condition. Main use for documents , later up to 2016.
Document from 1827

11. Scanning speed, files per day
Total amount of documents digitised

12. Digitise and dispose policy 3
Improving the digitisation process:
More precise quality control to ensure that
all documents are scanned
technical quality always superior
long term digital storage in action
Autenticity and integrity of original record, individual jpg / TIFF files
Metadata for full text search in e.g. some type of xml format
Detailed tecnical instructions from metadata work to physical preparation, to scanning and to postprocessing
Including full text search as a result of the post scanning process
Handwritten text READ project
Machine written text READ project / OCR

13. Digitise and dispose

14. Digitise and dispose policy 4
Giving ”museal” value to most valuable parts of collections
Related work has been done in Swedish and Danish NA
Planned categories of values:
1. Museal / Cultural historic values
2. Valuable by information, importance or evidence
3. Others
National Archives of Finland, ca. 220 skm from
State officials, ca. 150 skm from
Of which 80-90% is planned to be digitised and disposed, cost estimation 7-10 M €/year ( ), speed up to 10 skm/year

15. Conservation
Preparation for digitisation
Digitisation
Disposal
Storage and preservation
Cultural historic value
Yes
Yes, by conservators only
Yes - most No
Cool storage, good storage materials
Information etc value
If needed (exhibitions, condition)
Yes, by other staff
Yes – those in most use
Normal storage, varying storage materials
Others in house up to 1975
Only if molded or in very bad condition
Yes -
Information needed
Save of spaces
Yes after digitisation
Normal storage, various storage materials
New documents
No (only molded)
Yes after digitisation, about 80-90% of 150 shelv km
Only some saved in paper form