Archives in Latvia

LegislationLegislation frameworkframework: :

• Law “On Archives” (adopted on March 26, 1991, amendments on November 4, 1993, November 11, 2000, and March 29, 2005.);

• Electronic Records Law (2002)

• Freedom of Information Law (1998) and the Personal Data Protection Law (2000)

LegislationLegislation frameworkframework: : • Cabinet Regulation No 141(adopted April 2, 2002)

Regulations for the Archiving of Data and Electronic Records Recorded in the Information Systems

• Cabinet Regulation No 117 (adopted March2 2004, amendments March 15,2005) Regulations regarding the Apraisal of Electronic Documents, Procedures for the Storage thereof and Transfer to the State archives

• Cabinet Regulation No 192 (adopted March14, 2006) Procedures by Which State Archival Fund Documents are Temporarily Brought out of the Republic of Latvia

Structure of the State Structure of the State ArchivesArchives

Directorate General of Latvia State Archives

Latvia State Historical Archives

Latvia State Archives of Audiovisual Documents

State Archives of

Latvia

State Archives of Personnel

Files

Central Microphotocopying

and Document Restoration Laboratory

11 Regional State

Archives

SStatistic figurestatistic figures2004 2005 2006

Holdings (linear km) 144,3 147,3 149

Institutions under supervision

46244721 4725

Control of supervised institution archives

667691 674

Requests for official purposes and others (written

and on-line) (thousands)

38,038,0 39,7

Visitors 51 256 51 036 51 340Exhibition 45 33 42

Directorate General of Directorate General of Latvia State ArchivesLatvia State Archives

• The Directorate General is supervised by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia. It coordinates the work of 15 state archives, a laboratory and the special library.

Archival InspectionArchival Inspection

• The Archival Inspection is an independent structure, which deals with supervision and control of work in public archives of Latvia and is an ombudsman of archival system.

The SThe Special pecial LLibrary of ibrary of the the SState tate AArchivesrchives

• Its funds contain rich choice of reference literature on history, archives science and social sciences, a great variety of encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.

• It contains also rare issues dating from 16th -19th century on the European and Baltic history, heraldry, genealogy which have been inherited from the library of Vidzeme Chivalry.

• The Library possesses also rich collection of printed matters issued in Latvia in 20 th-30th years of 20 century.

• Electronic catalogue of the Library is available in the homepage of the State Archival System of Latvia (www.arhivi.gov.lv) and in the portal www.siets.lv

State Historical Archives State Historical Archives of Latviaof Latvia

• Founded in 1919 • Holdings - 47 shelve km• Documents from 13th century up to 1945• Relevant to Baltic, North and Eastern Europe history,

written in 17 languages (mainly German, Russian and Latvian).

State Historical ArchivesState Historical Archives of Latviaof Latvia

• Oldest document from 1220

Note of Livonian Bishop Albert concerning the establishment of St. Georges hospital in Riga

State ArchivesState Archives of of LatviaLatvia

• Founded in 1961

• Holdings – 26, 7 shelve km

• Documents mainly from 1945 till nowadays

• Records of the central governmental institutions, as well as the archives of state and local institutions of Riga and Jurmala cities, Latvian Communist party and personal papers

State AudiovisualState Audiovisual ArchivesArchives

• Founded in 1963

• Holdings - approximately 28 thousand films, 1 million photo-negatives and 106 thousand phono-documents reflecting various aspects and events in social, economical and cultural life of Latvia from the second half of the 19th century till nowadays

• Preserve Electronic records

State Archives oState Archives off Personnel RecordsPersonnel Records

• Founded in 1992

• Holdings - 23 shelve km

• Documents mainly from 1945 till nowadays

• There are personnel records of the privatized and abolished local and governmental authorities Riga and Jūrmala, there is a number of archives of bankrupt firms too.

Regional ArchivesRegional Archives

• Founded in 1963–1964, joining the small regional and cities' archives

• Documents mainly from 1945 till nowadays

• Files of the local state administration, local enterprises, offices, organizations, etc. created in the period of the soviet occupational regime (1944–1991) and nowadays.

CCentral entral MMicrofilming andicrofilming andDDocument ocument RRestoration estoration

LLaboratoryaboratory• Founded in 1989

• Its task is to investigate the condition of the documents being preserved in Latvia state archives, to carry out necessary restoration and microfilming, to bind the documents, to follow and make the analysis of the climatic and microbiological conditions in the depositories.

Present Projects and Present Projects and Future PerspectivesFuture Perspectives

• New Archives Law (in progress)

• Regulations concerning the Records Management and Archiving

• Developing of the UnifiedArchival Information System

• Formation of the National Archives of Latvia