Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)
4. Session / Séance. Strategies for Links with Historical Research / Stratégies de Communication envers la Recherche historique - Discussion / Interventions
Discussion - Interventions Antoine Fleury: Nous remercions très vivement Mr. Gonzalez pour son exposé, son introduction à la maîtrise de l’informatique en matières d’archives espagnoles, et au-delà, puisqu’il y a l’Amerique Latine qui est fortement associée aussi à son projet. Richard J. Huyda: The Spanish government and certainly the Ministry of Culture and the Spanish Archives can be very much congratulated for the willingness and effort to spend incredible resources to bring archival operations into the electronic realities of the 21st century. But I think it is more important that they are to be congratulated because of the ability to form key partnerships, partnerships with private industry, with IBM and the Fondaciôn Ramon Areces: This partnership has probably been the basis for the success of your project today. But I have two particular concerns and two questions, which you may not wish to answer, but I think we should at least recognize them. The first one is, is it the intention of the Spanish archives and particularly of the Spanish government to continue to support this project in terms of its international dimensions. Or do you feel that perhaps the Spanish government and the Spanish archives will now have to concentrate on maintaining the existing national system? Secondly, do you believe that your partners IBM and the Fondaciôn Ramon Areces are prepared to continue an international investment in this project, or are they also going to focus mainly on the national system itself ? Pedro Gonzalez: Different projects have been supported, but the principal effort of the Ministry of Culture is involved in the Spanish archives system, and the Spanish government, specifically the Ministeria de Cultura, have had close attention during the last year to the Latin American countries. All the years about 20 American archivists come for training courses to Spain, and we send experts to some American countries (at this moment, we have an expert in designing the archive system in Panama). The Ministeria de Cultura supports an international group of people from Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Spain which is now doing an important project in the area of modern document recording and recording management; beyond that, the Ministeria de Cultura gives the same benefit payment in laboratories for microfilm and for restoration in Latin American countries. Of course, in this field of automation, the Ministry has free disposition because we do not need to buy a system which is our property. One example: Last year a meeting of the Presidents of all Latin-American countries took place in Spain, and one of the possibilities spoken about was the possibility of continuing the dissemination of the system. I must say that this particular CD-ROM has been made because the Queen of Spain asked for somewhat to give to the President and Chief of State attending this meeting. In the area of European and non-latin American archives, we have several contacts at this moment for the interdissemination of the system including some libra369
