Arhivski vjesnik, Vol. 65 No. 1, 2022.
Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.36506/av.65.5
Rules for the records management and records disposal schedules: introduction to digital transformation
Vedran Muić
orcid.org/0000-0002-0833-5855
; Croatian State Archives
Tomislav Car
; Croatian State Archives
Abstract
Contemporary information and communications technologies pose complex challenges to public institutions and other legal persons which create, own or possess records and archives. The problems generated by these challenges are even more acute when one considers that most of the public institutions and legal persons in Croatia still predominantly rely on “paper” i.e. analogue documentation in their everyday business. In that regard the recent Act on Archives and Archival Institutions (Zakon o arhivskom gradivu i arhivima), the Regulation on Records Management of the Public Authority Bodies (Uredba o uredskom poslovanju) and the Ordinance on the Management of Records Outside the Archival Institutions (Pravilnik o upravljanju dokumentarnim gradivom izvan arhiva) laid out a robust foundation for the gradual digital transformation of the records management system. However, the provisions of all these regulations addressing these questions are not always self-explanatory and simple, especially if one takes into account the conditions set by other relevant regulations which affect the area of records management of creators and owners or possessors of records and archives. That is why this issue needs to be considered in a thorough, systematic fashion over the long-term period. In other words, public institutions and other legal persons which create, own or possess records and archives should define a strategy on how to implement a transition to digital recordkeeping,which will allow for more efficient management of both analogue aswell as digital records.
The paper analyses a sample of internal normative acts of creators, owners or possessors of records and archives approved by Croatian State Archives since recent Act on Archives and Archival Institutions, and other relevant regulations came into force. The indicative examples of these acts (Rules for the Records Management and Records Disposal Schedules) singled out from the sample illustrate the possibilities offered by recent legislation and regulation on how to support the transition to digital records management system. That said, the paper argues that these acts can (and must) become an integral element of abovementioned transition strategy in the period when paper documentation is still very much in circulation at the same time when digital records are inexorably becoming the new norm.Second goal of the analysis is to consider how much are the creators andowners or possessors of records and archives in Croatia prepared to adopt the described solutions offered by the regulations when it comes to implementation of the digital transformation. The paper argues that there are noticeable advances vin this area, but that many still prefer to think about records management along traditional patterns related to conventional records “on paper”.
Keywords
Rules for the Records Management; Records Disposal Schedules; digital transformation; digital records management; records management strategies of creators and possessors of records and archives
Hrčak ID:
287245
URI
Publication date:
14.12.2022.
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