Netherlands
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Country Profile for the Netherlands
Legislative and organisational background
Organisation
As part of the national cultural heritage, public records and archives in the Netherlands come under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
Overall responsibility for public records is divided between two organisations. They are an inspecting body and an executive agency, respectively:
Rijksarchiefinspectie (Public Records Inspectorate). This supervisory body comes under the direct control of the Ministry. It checks observance of the Archives Act by central government organisations.
Rijksarchiefdienst (National Archives Agency). This agency originally consisted of a Central Directorate, a Policy Bureau and the twelve State Archives in the twelve provinces. The General State Archive, the forerunner of the Nationaal Archief, was also a part of it. With the formation of Regional History Centres (RHCs), the provincial archives are now becoming independent. But the National Archives Agency will continue to exist until this process is complete. As well as its Directorate, the National Archives Agency also encompasses two organisations with a coordinating role. Beleidsbureau (Policy Bureau). Currently part of the Agency, this bureau will continue to exist as a coordinating organisation in the future. Its main task is to provide support in formulating policy and in financial matters.
Nationaal Archief. In the future, this will be the only remaining state archive. As a centre of knowledge, it will also provide the RHCs with practical expertise in the fields of computerisation, conservation and archive management.
Legislation
Records management in the Netherlands is regulated on a high level in the Archival Law and the regulations based on this law. These regulations do not give rules that are specific enough to be directly implemented in the public organisations, so every Dutch governmental body has to state its records management policies explicitly in a formal document.
Complementary to these regulations the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry Culture are preparing a Base Line that will contain a set of tools ans guide lines for records management aimed at the bodies and agencies of the Dutch central government. The Base Line is an internal regulation and does not have the format of a formal law. There is a general expectation that the Base Line in the near future will serve as a guide line for the agencies of lower public authorities as well. The Base Line is drafted in accordance with the ISO 15489-1/2 records management standards, the upcoming Dutch NEN 2082 standard on functional requirements for records management applications and the ISO 32081-1/2 standards for records management meta data. The Dutch NEN standard is based on (among others) MoReq, Remano and the DoD 5015.2.
Management of databases
Overview of database management regulations in your country. Relevant guidelines and tools in use should be mentioned as well as available best-practice reports.
Electronic Records Management Systems
Overview of ERMS oriented regulations and guidelines, national and international metadata standards in use, supervisory and certification issues. If possible, main problems in applying guidelines and standards could be mentioned.
Ingest and pre-ingest in general
This section should deliver a basic understanding on the pre-ingest and ingest workflow. The timeline for separate tasks as well as responsibilities (which tasks are done in agencies and which at the National Archives) could be addressed.
Pre-ingest actions for datasets
A more in-depth technical description of the pre-ingest workflow for datasets and an overview of the tools and standards used (both for archival formats and metadata) should go here. If different approaches are used for different datasets (statistical data, national datasets, personnel and accounting databases) this could also be addressed briefly.
Pre-ingest actions for ERM systems
The National Archives will use formal system of agreements with the ministries and other transferring agencies:
A general agreement is realized between the National Archives and the transferring agency. It concerns the following issues:
- Authorizations
- Conditions and criteria (like file formats)
- Content of the accession
- Metadata
- Size
- How to schedule (year based, ad hoc, etc)
- How to deal with exceptional material
- How the transfers are executed in a technical sense (one line, external carriers)
The National Archive and the transferring agency agree upon a schedule for one or more transfers. There are several possibilities:
- The transfer of one set of records at a specific time
- The transfer of a series of sets at specific times
- The transfer of records on a day to day base (continuous transfer process)
The following issues must be dealt with:
- When
- What
- Originator
- Specification of the content
- Type of objects
- Size
The schedules will be stored in the Digital Archive System in a structured way.
The process of scheduling can have a iterative character.
Transfer to archives
The National Archive will use the governmental secure network for the transfer of governmental archives. In special cases other means of transport will be used.
Ingest actions for datasets
Ingest actions for electronic records
The National Archives has developed a folder based SIP that typically will be used in case of a transfer of material from a records management environment. The folders in the SIP correspond to the aggregation levels of the records and are nested in the same way as the records are. Each folder contains the meta data of the corresponding (aggregation level of) records in an xml document. At the lowest level the files are stored.
In the ingest process the folder based accession will be unpacked and the meta data and the data will be stored in the digital depot.
Other transfer formats will be developed as needed.
Other comments and remarks
This is a section for additional comments and remarks, if needed.
References
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