Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)
3. Session / Séance. Sharing of Experience and Exchange of Staff / Partage d’Expériences et Echange des Personnes - Boven, Maarten van: Scope and Aims of Mobility. A Dutch View / Cadres et Objectifs de la Mobilité. Un Point de vue néerlandais (english 293 - français 302)
courses in paleography and methods of archival research are given in various places in the Netherlands. In short, archives have begun to take on an educational role. Although these new activities leave less time for the traditional work of cataloguing and providing information, the important task of preservation is attracting increasing attention. The Netherlands government has made an additional sum of forty million guilders per annum available for the conservation and restoration of the cultural heritage. Several million guilders of this will be allocated to archives. The use of computers has, of course, become a common place in archive work. The traditional typewriter has virtually disappeared from the scene. The Public Records Department, a number of municipal record offices, and other institutions in the Netherlands and elsewhere make use of the MAIS cataloguing system; the Department and several municipal record offices use systems for records management. Data communication is still in its infancy in the world of Dutch archives. However, serious plans exist to make certain databases - mainly genealogical records - accessible on line to researchers. Efforts are being made in this area to follow in the footsteps of developments in the library world. The catalogues of most academic libraries in the Netherlands can be consulted online. Dutch archivists differ from their counterparts in the rest of Europe in that they are closely concerned with records management. The Public Records Act emphasises the relationship between archives and current records. The Keeper of National Records is responsible for supervising the care of the records of government departments and bodies that have not been transferred to national or provincial record offices. Keepers of municipal or regional records have the right to inspect the records management of the records of local authority institutions that have not yet been transferred. This should ensure that the records are transferred, in due course, in good condition and order, after having been properly weeded. Indeed, the Public Records Department will not accept records from government departments until they have been weeded and catalogued. It is only possible to impose such a requirement because the staff of the records sections of ministries have been trained by the Organisation for Training Courses and Examinations in Documentation and Administrative Organisation (the SOD), whose courses attract more than twelve hundred people every year. I should now like to say a few words about staffing. Most record offices have a staff of archivists and technical personnel, the latter including restorers, photographers, microfilming staff and repository managers. The archivists fall into two categories: senior and middle-grade archivists. Approximately six senior and forty middle-grade archivists are trained by the National School of Archivists every year. Candidates for the senior archivists course must be university graduates, usually with a „doctoral“ degree in law or history. The entrance qualification for the middle-grade archivist course is a certificate of pre-university education. Students attend taught courses at the National School for Archivists one day every week for a year, spending the rest of the week doing practical work in a record office under the guidance of a qualified archivist. 3. Session/Séance: van Boven, Scope and Aims of Mobility. A Dutch view 295
