Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all I would like to express, on behalf of the National Archives of Mongolia and myself, sincere gratitude to the organizers of the Workshop - the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Museum of History and the Centre of Asian Studies for the opportunity given to us to be here and discuss the common issues of our interest and share our experiences.

As you are well aware of Mongolia is currently passing the transition period from totalitarian regime to democratic society and from centralized planned economy to free market economy. Due to this shift from society, where one ideology, single political party was dominating, towards the society, which develops in its natural way, many new phenomena for us like foundation of many new political parties, democratic elections of multi-party parliament, many types of ownership and establishment of many private and share holding companies are evident in Mongolia. Foreign relations of Mongolia have drastically been expanded in the past few years. A good demonstration of this event is the fact that Mongolia, its National Archives became the member of EASTICA.

First time in our history of last 70 years, in June 1996, other political party than the former communist party won the parliament elections and formed its government. Since that time many significant changes had happened in Mongolia. New Government is taking strict measures to make healthier our economy and improve effectiveness of government institutions.

In August 1996 by the decision of the State Great Hural of Mongolia (the Parliament of Mongolia) the State Archives Administration has been reorganized into National Archives of Mongolia. The intent of this reorganization is to improve operation of the National Archives and extend its services to preserving records of all State institutions and also records of NGOs and private economic entities in accordance with their requests.

I am acting as the Director of the National Archives of Mongolia from September 1996 when I was nominated to this post. I am a Historian worked in Government Archives. Educated in Russia. Master of Art in Historic Sciences.

I would like to draw your attention to the following three issues.

That was no research on the preservation requirements for records of 400 years and 100 years written on paper. Therefore no standard for the condition. According to the general standards the temperature in the storage room should be 14-18C and moisture rate 60 percent. However even to meet those requirements in Mongolia where climate is extremely harsh and temperature fluctuates from -35C in winter to +35C in summer time is not easy task. Extraordinary dry weather makes documents vulnerable for damage. Thermo regulating and moisturizing facilities are as a rule centralized and designed for whole building which are not effective and usually outdated.

Information data system is so underdeveloped that it is impossible to present contents of Mongolian archives’ funds even to local researchers and there is no unified information and registration system between archives of Mongolia. As the time is passing and due to conditions in archives important historic documents and invaluable intellectual heritage are been under erosion. The archives works on study of archive funds and making them available for public have almost been stopped during the last years.

Newly formed organizations and institutions have no experience in keeping records properly. That is why the National Archives is trying to keep eyes on this in order to prevent possible loss of valuable records.

The breach of the principle of unified archives funds and the acquisition of the records, which form the essential part of the National Archives’ fund, in different archives of political parties affects negatively the preservation, security and usage of those records. It is also important to improve record management and archives works in government institution. In general in archives of Mongolia we lack real professional management.

Therefore we need to fulfill following tasks step by step :

. to ensure reliable condition for secure preservation of National Archive Funds

. to renovate equipment and facilities in all archives

. to provide sufficient number of professional staff

. to enforce legal foundation of the archive work

. strictly follow the principle of unanimity of the fund

. to introduce international standards

. to establish nationwide archive information network and to be linked to international network

. to expand study and research work in the field of archives

. to establish training and in-service training system for professional archivists

I would be happy to exchange opinions with you and share your experiences, dear colleagues, on issues of improvement of integrity of archives funds, modification of records retrieval, registration of unique and important documents, improvement of archive research and study and methodology of archive works. The sole purpose of above said is to preserve intellectual heritage of Mongols and contribute to the memory of the world.

Currently we worked out the Draft Law on Archives and submitted to the Parliament of Mongolia. We think in our future activities in this direction we have to act in correlation with the policy and strategy of International Council on Archives and the decisions of the EASTICA.

There has been no attempt to introduce international Archive description standards in Mongolian archives yet. Therefore it is time to start the preparation to it.

Three - some aspects of cooperation with EASTICA

I touched in my report those issues which I think can be included in activities of the EASTICA. I hope you will discuss the issues I raised.

We know every archives is the part of the institution for preserving intellectual heritage of mankind. I am sure that with the efforts of all of us and the EASTICA many positive changes will be introduced in archives works of the region.

Thank you for your kind attention.