ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 42. (ZAGREB, 1999.)

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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 of legislations, treaties and so on have been drawn up as a consequence. What is needed now is to draw up rules and principles about access to documents in order to obtain openness in the practical situation. Such general rules should contain definitions/descriptions of what is a document even in the digital world, what secrecy rules exist, rules on data protection rights of appeal when access has been refused, time limits regarding furnishing documents etc. Furthermore, there must be rules about search tools such as diaries and inventories, about appraisal and destruction, authenticity etc. These rules must be available and transparent. In absence of such rules, it is difficult if not impossible to be sure that different requests for access to documents are dealt with consistently, fairly and without discrimination. In absence of searching tools such as diaries and inventories, establishing text and context as well as structure from the beginning of the lifecycle and eventual changes in structure afterwards, it is difficult if not impossible to know what kind of information that exist. Appraisal decisions must also be available, as destruction is the most efficient mean to prevent access. With the increasing awareness of the public and of its representatives as journalists of their rights and the growing use of documents, there is no way back. In the United Kingdom, for example, there is today a clear commitment to a Freedom of Information Act and a draft Freedom of information bill is expected during 1999. With the growing use of networks, it will be difficult to uphold in Europe different rules of access to the same documents. The current situation in the states of Europe regarding legislation and public access to documents differs a lot today. Today the national borders tend to lose a lot of their importance as we already have free trade, commerce and free movement of persons over the borders. The Data Directive is one step to facilitate the movement of personal data. The green paper can be seen as another step to achieve the same levels of access in all member states. The archival profession can and must play an important role in the work regarding access. We also have a responsibility and even an obligation to guarantee that the cultural heritage is preserved for further use and in such a way that it is accessible in its original form. We must not be too humble as we can contribute with much knowledge. We have a theory, the principle of provenance, which is according to my belief exactly what is needed in the information society. We must of course adapt our methods to fit the new information systems as for example methods of cataloguing paper documents from the 1890's will not be appropriate in cataloguing databases from the 1990-ties and less so in the future. I believe that there is not only a growing need but a necessity for establishing norms for handling the electronic documents and databases and one of the most urgent issues and perhaps the politically most urgent is access to documents, which is considered to be one of the foundations in a democratic, open and transparent government. 91