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Director General’s Report
Jussi Nuorteva
Demand for electronic information services has increased
sharply in Finland in recent years. But supply has not been
able to meet this growing demand. Among the customers of
the National Archives Service, people carrying out genealogical
research in particular want to access the key data materials
digitally from their home personal computers. This is a very
reasonable wish; after all, only some genealogists live in localities
where they have easy access to the services provided by
archives. Many people carry out genealogical research in their
free time. Their opportunities to access the services of archives
and libraries are increasingly limited.
The most important source of genealogical material on the
Internet is the HisKi database of church records of parishes
maintained by the Genealogical Society of Finland. It works
well, but users also have a great need for digitised versions of
the original source material. The National
Archives Service has the main responsibility
for producing this material.
The National Archives Service has sharply
increased its digitisation operations in recent
years. On 6 December 2007, the National
Archives Service published its one millionth
digitised document, Finland’s declaration of
independence, signed 90 years earlier. Nevertheless,
the resources available for digitisation
are very small compared with other Nordic
countries. Sweden leads the Nordic countries
in digitisation. The National Archives of
Sweden, Riksarkivet, alone digitises about 20 million digital
images per year. So the material digitised by the National
Archives Service of Finland over a period of several years is
less than the material digitised by the National Archives of
Sweden in one month.
Since 2006, the European Union has invested heavily in the
digitisation of material in archives, libraries and museums.
The objective is to enable cultural production to utilise the
large amount of information in the collections better and to
increase our cultural understanding. The European Union sees
this as a key competitiveness factor − after all, there can be no
information society without information.
The key objective of Europeana, the European Digital
Library supported by the European Commission, is to make
this common European cultural heritage available to everyone
as widely as possible through the Internet. The achievement
of this objective requires that Member States invest more in
the digitisation of their national cultural material. European
The National Archives
Service is committed to
the furthering of the
Europeana project. Its
implementation will
require strategic choices.
To invest in digitisation
and information
services operating in an
electronic environment,
savings must be made
in other operations.
Union funding can only be used to aid projects that produce
European added value. In 2007, the Ministry of Education
allocated about two million euros to the National Board of
Antiquities and 1.8 million euros to the National Library of
Finland to support their digitisation activities. There were no
increased appropriations for the digitisation of archival material.
The organisational reform carried out at the National
Archives Service at the beginning of 2007 aims to respond to
the challenges of electronic information services in particular.
Digitisation is one part of the whole. The long-term storage
of electronic material is another, and increasing the usability of
traditional paper material is a third part. The challenges posed
by the long-term storage of electronic material are great, both
in Finland and internationally. They require major long-term
investments and the development of the national information
management architecture. The National
Archives Service has excellent resources to carry
out this work. The National Archives and the
Provincial Archives already carry out basic
training in records management in the public
sector. They supervise the archiving activities
of the authorities and carry out audits in the
institutions of both the state and municipal
sectors. Above all, the National Archives
Service decides what materials are to be preserved
permanently for the use of the authorities
and research.
The Vakka database for collections is the main
tool used by the National Archives Service to manage material
in paper form. In the performance agreements between the
Ministry of Education and the National Archives Service, the
Vakka project was implemented as a spearhead project. Vakka
enables customers to access information via the Internet from
archives transferred to the National Archives and the Provincial
Archives by various records creators. The objective is to develop
the Vakka database of archives so that it will also allow material
to be ordered electronically. This will significantly ease the work
of customers arriving from far away in particular.
The National Archives Service is committed to the furthering
of the Europeana project. Its implementation will require
strategic choices. To invest in digitisation and information
services operating in an electronic environment, savings must be
made in other operations. In the long term, the investments will
benefit customers. Over the last few years, there has been a real
revolution in the use of electronic material. This is the result
of changes in the practices of customers, not the actions of
authorities.
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