Levéltári Közlemények, 93. (2022)

Angol nyelvű összefoglalók

Abstracts

Rainer Jacobs

CENTRALIZED OR REGIONALLY?

THE ARCHIVAL PROCESSING OF RECORDS ORIGINATING FROM SUBORDINATE FEDERAL AGENCIES

(Translated by Attila Szabó)

The author handles with the archival receipt of digitized documents at the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv). His study examines the justihcation for the practice of transferring documents and data generated electronically by the regional bodies of German federal institutions - like paper documents of permanent value - to the public archives of the Länder, or whether it is reasonable to transfer them to the Bundesarchiv as a new practice. The conclusions drawn are based on the results of the discussions with the public archives on the transfer of documents and data of lasting value which took place during the restructuring of the electronic administration systems of the Federal Police and the Federal Highway Administration. The analysis was based on archival arguments and the resource requirements for the creation of interfaces for the transfer process from the electronic administration systems and specialized systems of the federal authorities to the regional archives. In addition, archival considerations had to be taken into account (impact on research on the history of a Bundesland, the impact on crossprovincial comparative and federal administration studies). The author concludes that where federal subordinate bodies continue to operate their own case management under electronic framework conditions - not using a central application - the transfer may continue to be made to the provincial archives. However, when the relevant provincial archives continue to receive records, the division into analogue and digital records should always be avoided. The German public administration is striving for centralization from an IT point of view, and it is possible that in the future, records management applications at subordinate levels of the federal administration will generally be operated centrally. A logical consequence of this process is that the transfer of electronic documents and data with permanent value will also be handled centrally by the Bundesarchiv.

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