Norway
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Country Profile for Norway
Legislative and organisational background
The National Archives (Riksarkivet), 8 regional state archives (statsarkivene) and Sami Archive together form the National Archival Services of Norway (Arkivverket), and are lead by the Director General (Riksarkivaren). The National Archival Services is an independent government authority under the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs.
The Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (Direktoratet for forvaltning og IKT) has the responsibility to control and coordinate the development of information and communication technology in the public sector of Norway, and making public information and services more accessible for citizens and public agencies.
The authority of the Director General and the National Archival Services is vested in the Archival Act of 1992 [1]. The tasks of the National Archives and the regional state archives are to preserve archive material from state institutions, to make this material available for use to the public, to control the work on records administration within the ministries, regional and county authorities and to contribute to the preservation of private archives. The National Archives and the regional state archives are thereby both administration bodies and scientifically based institutions for culture preservation.
The Regulations on Public Records and Archives of 1998 [2] gives more detailed regulations, especially on records management.
In addition the Director General has issued several provisions, and two of these regards electronic records: Provisions for Transfer of Electronic Records to the National Archives[3] and Provisions for Public Agencies Filing Electronic Records [4].
The National Archives has received electronic archives since 1985. We have so far received about 400 transfers from electronic registries (for physical records) and 200 transfer from registers and databases. We have not received any ordinary transfers of electronic records in document format yet.
Management of databases
Databases can in some cases be regarded as records, even though they do not contain any records in document format. The state agencies have to report such databases to the National Archives. If the National Archives decides that these databases should be preserved, the agency do not have the opportunity to delete information from these databases. Such databases should also be able to produce data extracts according to the regulations of the National Archives. The structure of these data extracts have to be documented in a standardized way.
Electronic Records Management Systems
Norway has had a standard for electronic registries of physical records since 1984: Noark 1, and it has been revised two times (Noark 2 and Noark 3). A standard for the management of electronic records was published in 1999: Noark 4. This standard was revised in 2008: Noark 5.[5]. For the time being there is just a Norwegian version, but it will be translated into English in the near future.
All public agencies in Norway have to use systems that are in compliance with this standard for their records management. The effect of this has lead to uniform routines throughout the public sector. Included in the Noark standard are formats for transfer of metadata (Noark 3) and metadata and documents (Noark 4 and Noark 5).
All public agencies (both state and municipal) have to report to the National Archives when they start using systems for the management of electronic records.
Noark 5 specifies an archival (or record) component, called Noark 5 core. The main topics in this component are:
- the structure and organisation of the archive, consisting of the following hierarchical units: archive - part of archive - classification scheme - classes - file and subfile - record - document
- the metadata associated with these units.[6], metadata is described in more detail in the appendix called metadata catalogue.[7]
- records capture
- retention and disposition
- records periods
- transfer of records
- searching and retrieval
- administration
Functions for controls and security are not part of Noark 5 core, but are described in a component called Noark 5 complete. Here are also requirements for document management, workflow, email, user administration etc. Most of the requirements in Noark 5 complete are not mandatory.
Ingest and pre-ingest in general
Extracts from databases will often include complete tables from the original system. In some cases it has been possible to identify the main tables, the secondary tabels will then not be included in the extract. Extracts can also be a "view" from several tables combined. Recently we have also accepted transfer in hierarchical XML-format from databases.
Transfers from records management system are based on records periods. Files (folders) that have been closed are transfered to an "archival part" which usually covers a period for five years. The transfer will then contain all the files in this part.
Pre-ingest actions for datasets
Database tabels are extracted and transferred in sequential text files, approved character sets are Unicode UTF-8 or ISO 8859-1:1998, Latin 1. The following formats are accepted:
- fixed format
- character separated format (CSV)
- XML format
For all extracted tabels a complete structure and content description has to be enclosed. This documentation should include description of the tabels, the relation between the tabels, the primary and foreign keys and description of all the table fields (name, length, datatype). If the format of the extract is fixed or CSV, the National archives has created a description standard called ADDML (Archives Data Description Markup Language) in XML-format.[8] The DTD of ADDML will soon be revised and published as an XML Schema. If the format of the extract is XML, this should be documented with an XML Schema. System documentation and documentation of the original system's functions and usage are also required as additional documentation.
More detailed information about the format requirements and the transfer of extracts from databases are given in reference No. 3 "Provisions for Transfer of Electronic Records to the National Archives".
Pre-ingest actions for ERM systems
Electronic registries (or metadata) are also databases. Extracts from systems based on Noark 3 are transferred as three files (classes, folder and record) in fixed format. Extracts from systems based on Noark 4 are transferred as XML files. Extract from each table in the database is transferred as one file, and the number of files in a transfer can in some cases exceed 60 files. The content of these files will also include more than what strictly speaking can be defined as metadata. These extracts have proved to be quite difficult to handle because of inconsistency between the tables. In Noark 5 the metadata will therefore be extracted as a single hierarchical XML file. If the size of the XML file will be a problem, there is a a possiblity to divide it into smaller files. The Noark 5 standard includes XML Schemas for the transfer format of the metadata.[9]
According to our provision we accept the following document formats:
- plain text: UTF-8 or ISO 8859-1:1998, Latin 1
- TIFF version 6
- XML (included ODF and and OOXML) together with documentation (XML Schema)
- PDF/A, ISO 19005-1:2005, version 1a or 1b
- for photos og images: TIFF version 6 and JPEG
- for maps: TIFF version 6 and SOSI version 2.2 or later (Norwegian standard for digital maps)
- for video: MPEG-2
- for audio: MP3, PCM and PCM-based Wave
The National Archives has only received trial transfers of electronic records in document format, and therefore we have very little experience. However, we expect to receive many such transfers (together with metadata) in the near future.
More detailed information about the format requirements for documents and the transfer of extracts from ERM systems are given in reference No. 3 "Provisions for Transfer of Electronic Records to the National Archives".
Transfer to archives
Transfer has to be arranged with the National Archives in advance. In some cases we ask for a trial transfer (a sample) first. We accept the following transfer media and file systems:
- CD-R with file system ISO 9660:1988, level 1 or Microsoft Joliet
- DVD-R or DVD+R with file system UDF, version 1.02 or later
- hard disk with USB 2.0 connector, file systems FAT32, NTFS or UDF version 1.02 or later
- memory stick with USB 2.0 connector, file systems FAT32 og NTFS
We also have regulations for the organisation of the data files on the transfer media.
Ingest actions for datasets
When we receive the transfer we have routines for control and testing of the structure and formats. We have developed a program for testing extracts from databases: Arkade. This program check that the datasets are in accordance with the documentation file (ADDML).
Information about electronic records (included databases) are entered into our archival description system Asta, which is based on ISAD-G. Transfers of electronic records are described as series and sub-series under the same fonds as physical records.
Ingest actions for electronic records
We have also developed programs for testing of transfers from ERM systems. Extracts from Noark 3 systems are tested with ArkN3, and extracts from Noark 4 systems are tested with ArkN4. For the time being we are looking into methods for testing documents.
Information about transfers from these systems are also entered into Asta in the same way as described above.
The storage media is CD-R. Each dataset is stored on two different media. We have plans for setting up an electronic repository, with online storage.
Other comments and remarks
This is a section for additional comments and remarks, if needed.
References
- ↑ Arkivloven - The Archival Act http://www.lovdata.no/all/hl-19921204-126.html (in Norwegian)
- ↑ Arkivforskriften - The Regulations of Public Records and Archives http://www.lovdata.no/for/sf/kk/xk-19981211-1193.html (in Norwegian)
- ↑ Provisions for Transfer of Electronic Records to the National Archives http://www.arkivverket.no/noark-4/Regulation-Ch8.pdf
- ↑ Provisions for Public Agencies Filing Electronic Records http://www.arkivverket.no/noark-4/Regulation-Ch9.pdf
- ↑ Noark 5 http://www.arkivverket.no/noark-5/noark-5-krav_1_1.pdf (in Norwegian)
- ↑ Noark 5 metadata grouped on objects http://www.arkivverket.no/noark-5/objektsortert_metadata.pdf (in Norwegian)
- ↑ Noark 5 metadata catalogue http://www.arkivverket.no/noark-5/metadatakatalog.pdf (in Norwegian)
- ↑ ADDML http://www.arkivverket.no/noark-4/dtd/addml.dtd
- ↑ Noark 5 XML transfer format http://www.arkivverket.no/noark-5/XML-skjema.zip
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