ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 42. (ZAGREB, 1999.)

Strana - 88

C. Gränström, Access to current records and archives, as a tool of democracy, transparency and openness of the government administration, Arh. vjesn., god. 42 (1999), str. 79-92 sions round it up to now have not involved the practical or professional issues, which archivists of today are so familiar with. These above mentioned principles and limits governing the right of access mentioned in article 255 in the Amsterdam treaty should not only contain rules about what kind access restrictions there should be due to privacy, state security and so on or time limits in making the documents available but also contain rules about registries, inventories; appraisal, authenticity etc. Otherwise it will, according to my firm belief, be difficult to achieve a real transparency and openness, manifested in access to documents. First it is necessary to define what is a document in the digital world. From the discussions, mentioned above from the Stockholm conference 1996, it is evident that this is not an easy matter. In the paper world, the incoming papers and at the agency created papers are usually considered to be documents or records. They also constituted a part of the archive (archival holding). In the digital world with databases, the availability is determined by available software and hardware, it is not so easy to describe what is a document, which should be accessible both in the short run as well as in he long run. The Swedish model with the concept of "potential records" is legally defined and therefore imperative. This concept suggests that all records and their funcionalities must be made available to the public in the same way as they were originally made available to Government authorities. Not to maintain these "potential records" in all their potentialities would in effect censor the information and mean that the destruction of information in the documents have taken place. It can be argued that this approach can be possible in the short term when in active use but it is not possible to maintain in the long run. One critical point is when this information is transferred to the archival institutions. With paper records we put them on the shelves but how to deal with these kinds of data? I have no real good or general answer. I will only state that this matter of deciding the level of access to electronic records/databases must be dealt with as the concept of what is a document is decisive regarding access to digital documents. Is the text, context and structure in a database changed when it is transferred to an archival institution and if so how? The solution must be according to law as well as acceptable and practical. It must also be consistent and durable, which means that it must be supported by a theory. It can be questioned if there can be different solutions. When it has been established what constitutes a document/record, this document/record must be catalogued in some kind of inventory in order to supply adequate search tools. It is otherwise impossible for a user to know what kind of information that exists. In the paper world documents were usually contained in volumes which were accounted for in the inventory, generally in a structured form in series, subgroups, groups and archives (the creator). In the digital world it is even more im88