Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)

1. Session / Séance. Experiences gained, current Situation, future Prospects / Expériences acquises, Situation actuelle, Perspectives futures - Körmendy, Lajos: International Cooperation in Europe. A Survey / Programmes de Coopération internationale des archives en Europe. Un bilan (english 13 - français 27)

1. Session/Séance: Körmendy, International archival Cooperation

the advantage of allowing most of those involved at international level to continue working in their own field, thus keeping their specializations up to date.

International work is only efficient insofar as it follows a concept and respects a system of priorities. Directors of archives need to specify the areas is which international-level activity would be desirable in the next few years. Priority may also be given to systematic researching of foreign-held stock; this would mean signing agreements with those countries/archives where the documents are kept. Other priorities might be the preservation of inherited stock, which might require talking part in the work of specialist committees within international organizations or supporting a regional-level organization. The ,concept' in question must, of course, be in keeping with general archive strategy. It is very important that informations and data from abroad (professional literature, mission reports, etc.) should be collected and systematically studied so that, if necessary, useful material can be accessed. For exemple, when computerization plans are being drawn up, it is useful to know where to send experts to study what is being done elsewhere.

The questionnaire asked whether international relations had been coordinated by a central organization or not. Given that European archives attach particular importance to foreign affairs, one might have thought that such coordination would be in the hands of a central body, as this would avoid duplication of effort, e. g. in scru- tinzing documents or ordering micro-films. But this is not the case: central coordination exists only in 15 countries, while in the other 13 the system is decentralized. The two lists show the reason behind the option taken to be in the political and administrative traditions of the country concerned: federal countries, logically enough, use a decentralized model, while, unsurprisingly, the system set up in the Communist period survives in certain respects in the countries of Eastern Europe.

Before the change of regime, the only person who had the right to be in official contact with foreigners and the archive services of most socialist countries was the head of the central archives, to the extent of replies to letters sent to small provincial archive services. Since 1990, these restrictions have gone. Top officials are concerned only with matters of national importance (international agreements, organizing congresses, coordinating the scanning of new documentation etc.) like Western countries such Italy and Spain which possess central coordinating bodies.

3.2. Institutional and Organizational Formats for External Relations

All the countries which replied to the questionnaire enjoy bilateral relations with other countries. In general, bilateral relations are targeted and serve specific purposes. If they are regular, they may be institutionalized, i. e. regulated by an agreement. If, for example, an archive service wishes to undertake a long-term research programme using the stocks of a foreign institution and the partner institution is also interested in maintaining good relations, an agreement should be drawn up guaranteeing the rights of each partner for the duration of that agreement. Such an agreement may be reached between archives or else included in a cultural agreement bet17