Posted on 24 October 2016
On Friday 10 June 2016 the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) had a disaster preparedness workshop for the archivists team held by Assistant Professor Peter Pavel Klasinc and his colleague Ms. Zdenka Semlič Rajh from the International Institute for Archival Science of Trieste and Maribor (IIAS).
The workshop was held at the occasion of Assistant Professor Klasinc’s visit to the HAEU to inform on the work of the IIAS and define potential areas of cooperation. The IIAS is a successor of the Centre for Technical and Professional Problems in Archives, which was founded in 1986 in Maribor on the initiative of Peter Pavel Klasinc. Since 2005 the IIAS has been hosted by the Italian State Archives in Trieste as a result of a protocol signed with the Italian Ministry of Culture's Department for Archives and Libraries. The institute is a volunteer-based, non-profit organization, working in the field of archival science, training ad hoc human resources, and uniting member countries in order to best save the archival heritage. It also organises the International Archival Day.
The workshop at the HAEU started with a presentation of the IIAS, of Alma Mater Europaea and of the Master Study of Archival Science and Records Management. Ms. Zdenka Semlič Rajh followed the presentation with an introduction on Archives and Emergency Planning discussing various theoretical points of emergency and disaster planning concerning both the physical and virtual world (paper-based and electronic records). The workshop concluded with exercises on tackling the ordinary maintenance, treatment and preservation measures for archival documents. The exercises showed how to prevent and avoid danger, how to practically respond to minor disasters, and how to recover compromised files.
The HAEU has also prepared its own disaster plan manual which illustrates a set of procedures to preserve, protect and, in the event of a disaster or damage, recover the holdings of the Historical Archives of the European Union. The manual is based on national and international guidelines and has numerous examples drawn from other archival institutions. Another purpose for the manual is to provide basic guidelines to preserve documents correctly.