Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 39. (1986)
Archive Buildings and the Conservation of Archival Material. An Expert Meeting, held in Vienna, Austria October 30 - November 1, 1985 - STEWART, William J.: Summary of Discussions
Summary of Discussions 283 subject, I would say it is a matter that need not be addressed to governments but should be included in a directive. There is a tendency to say this is not an area where the archivist can do much because the political leadership will make the decision. I don’t agree with that. Although the authorities decide, there is always opportunity for the archivist to influence the decisionmaking process. Guidelines will arm the archivist and strengthen his discussions with the governing authorities. Duchein: I have received the following proposal from our Italian conferees: “ICA and UNESCO should recommend that national governments consider the peculiar characteristics of archival buildings when adopting general security regulations. The general rules should be standardized on an international level and frequently updated through close consultation with professional and technical organizations.” I propose the following formulation, which more or less covers this, “that steps be taken to call the attention of national and international authorities on the necessity to issue standardized guidelines on the construction of archival buildings, including the adaptation of ancient buildings in cooperation with the archival authorities or archivists.” Does that cover your preoccupation? Carassi: There is an additional concern, the need to update these regulations at regular intervals. Duchein: “...issue standardized and regularly updated guidelines on the construction of archival buildings . . will that do it? Perhaps we can issue such a recommendation because it would be up to ICA to see exactly what they can do. After all, these are recommendations to UNESCO and this would be transmitted to UNESCO. Buchmann: In fact we are talking about two steps. The first is to write these standards and the second is to insure that the standards are accepted in national legislation. It would benefit our Italian colleagues if these standards existed and were accepted by ICA, then the archives administration of Italy could present a better case to the Italian government. This is a good way of handling it, however, if we just draft this recommendation it might be difficult to understand without some background information. I propose that you explain the matter in detail in the symposium minutes even though we haven’t discussed it. Duchein: It would be annexed to the recommendation. Buchmann: No, an amendment to the minutes, otherwise we would have a recommendation without any reference to the discussions. So, the details should appear in the minutes.
