Szanowni Czytelnicy,

oddajemy w Państwa ręce 121, kolejny w roku 2020, tom naszego czasopisma. Tym samym udało się po raz pierwszy od dłuższego czasu doprowadzić do sytuacji, w której tom za dany rok jest publikowany w tym właśnie roku. I to jest dobra informacja, a Redakcja zobowiązuje się, że publikacja kolejnych tomów będzie się odbywała bez żadnych opóźnień. Jest to tym bardziej warte podkreślenia, że okoliczności, w jakich przyszło nam wszystkim funkcjonować w mijającym roku, były dość szczególne. Pandemia koronawirusa SARS-COVID-2 odcisnęła negatywny ślad na wszystkich dziedzinach naszego życia. Przez większość 2020 r. tradycyjne formy funkcjonowania, nie tylko archiwów, ale całej administracji, czy instytucji kultury, uległy znacznemu ograniczeniu. I choć wiele z wcześniej zaplanowanych przedsięwzięć zostało odwołanych, istotnemu ograniczeniu uległy prace naukowe, zawieszone zostały badania archiwalne, zredukowano współpracę międzynarodową, to archiwa państwowe przez cały ten czas były otwarte i starały się w jak najpełniejszy sposób wypełniać swoją misję. Jak nigdy wcześniej, szeroko zaczęliśmy korzystać z nowoczesnych technologii i sposobów komunikacji. Do codziennego stosowania weszły takie formy jak webinaria, czy konferencje realizowane w formie online. Obsługa kwerend użytkowników, przedsięwzięcia edukacyjne i promocyjne przeniosły się niemal w całości do sieci rozległych. Pewne ograniczenia dotyczące bezpośredniego dostępu do zasobu archiwów państwowych spowodowały, że użytkownicy znacząco częściej niż dotychczas korzystali z naszych zasobów informacyjnych i cyfrowych w  Internecie. W oczekiwaniu na „powrót do normalności” zapraszamy zatem do lektury aktualnego tomu.

Zgodnie z zapowiedzią, jego tematem wiodącym są szeroko rozumiane kwestie współczesnego prawa archiwalnego. Dział otwiera artykuł Marka Konstankiewicza (Regulacje prawa polskiego mające znaczenie dla działalności archiwalnej), prezentujący szeroką panoramę aktualnych przepisów z  różnych działów prawa, odnoszących się do działalności archiwalnej, a także dokumentu jako przedmiotu regulacji prawnych oraz gromadzenia i użytkowania zbiorów dokumentalnych w toku działalności. Autor nie tylko porządkuje i systematyzuje wiedzę o obowiązującym stanie prawnym w zakresie ogólnie rozumianego zarządzania dokumentami i archiwami, ale też wskazuje obszary, w których należy podjąć działania, aby ten system przepisów prawnych udoskonalić i lepiej dostosować do wymagań współczesności. Temat wiodący podjęli również: Adrian Niewęgłowski, który zajął się zagadnieniem własności materiałów archiwalnych w rozumieniu prawa cywilnego (Własność materiałów archiwalnych. Kilka uwag o potrzebie zmian regulacji prawnych) i Kacper Pencarski, który zwrócił uwagę na prawne aspekty udostępniania w Internecie archiwaliów audiowizualnych (Prezentacja nagrań audio i wideo w Internecie przez archiwa państwowe wobec wybranych problemów wynikających z poszanowania praw autorskich i praw pokrewnych. Kilka uwag środowiska akademickiego). Z kolei dwie prace poruszają zagadnienia niezwykle wrażliwe z punktu widzenia prawa archiwalnego: postępowania z aktami sądowymi na przedpolu archiwalnym (Dorota Drzewiecka, Przepisy regulujące zarządzanie dokumentacją na przedpolu archiwalnym bliższym w sądach powszechnych w Polsce w latach 1985–2019) oraz funkcjonowania archiwów wyodrębnionych (Piotr Borysiuk, Próba likwidacji statusu „archiwów państwowych wyodrębnionych” w projekcie ustawy – Prawo archiwalne z 1995 r.). Ponadto publikujemy trzy prace ukazujące prawo archiwalne innych krajów w ujęciu historycznym: Francji (Krzysztof Stryjkowski, Od praw Rewolucji do Kodeksu Dziedzictwa (przemiany francuskiego prawa archiwalnego)), Niemiec (Paweł Gut, Ustawowe podstawy działania archiwów niemieckich. Federalne i krajowe ustawy archiwalne) i Hiszpanii (Zuzanna Jaśkowska-Józefiak, System prawny archiwów hiszpańskich). Prezentowane prace z pewnością nie wyczerpują materii współczesnego prawa archiwalnego i potrzeb w zakresie jego reformy. Jest to bardzo szeroki obszar problemowy i trudno byłoby wyczerpać go w jednym tomie czasopisma. Mamy wszakże nadzieję, że studia te przyczynią się do lepszego rozumienia kwestii prawnych w środowisku archiwalnym i poza nim. Staną się także impulsem dla badaczy do częstszego podejmowania zagadnień prawno-legislacyjnych zarówno w kontekście historycznym, jak i współczesnym. Będziemy zachęcać autorów do podejmowania takich badań i publikacji ich rezultatów na łamach kolejnych tomów „Archeionu”.

Dział Studia i materiały obejmuje 9 prac. Dotyczą one kilku dziedzin archiwistyki. Pierwsze trzy: Marioli Hoszowskiej (Bronisław Gorczak – historyk i wołyński archiwista (1854–1918)), Mirosława Kłuska (Archiwalia Państwowego Banku Rolnego jako źródło do badań nad historią gospodarczą polskiej wsi i rolnictwa w pierwszej połowie XX w.) oraz Krzysztofa Kowalczyka (Materiały jednostek wojewódzkiej administracji wyznaniowej w Archiwum Państwowym w Szczecinie jako źródło do dziejów stosunków państwo-Kościół rzymskokatolicki w latach 1945–1989) reprezentują tradycyjne archiwoznawstwo. Dwie prace: Maika Schmerbaucha (Establish a new file plan in a diocese of the German Catholic Church) i Dariusza Makowskiego (Archiwa a systemy informatyczne w administracji publicznej. Wstęp do problematyki), z pozoru poświęcone odmiennej tematyce, odpowiadają na to samo pytanie: o organizację współczesnego przedpola archiwalnego.

Archiwistyka się zmienia, zmienia się również podejście do jej podstawowych pojęć; do głosu dochodzą nowe rozumienia terminów, takich jak archiwum, archiwizacja, działalność archiwalna. Chcemy, aby „Archeion” stał się bardziej otwarty na problemy współczesnych nauk humanistycznych i technicznych. W tomie zamieściliśmy zatem prace, które rzucają nowe światło na tradycyjnie rozumianą archiwistykę. Magdalena Drewniak (Czasopismo „Archival Science” w latach 2011–2020 – analiza treści artykułów naukowych) nie tylko przeprowadziła kilkuaspektową analizę tematyki prac publikowanych na łamach „Archival Science” – prestiżowego międzynarodowego czasopisma archiwalnego, lecz także naszkicowała współczesne horyzonty badawcze archiwistyki europejskiej i światowej, których śladem powinni podążyć polscy archiwiści. Katarzyna Pepłowska (Najnowsze trendy w archiwistyce światowej. Na marginesie obrad Międzynarodowej Rady Archiwów w Adelajdzie „Designing the Archive 2019”) w sposób bardzo wszechstronny i wyczerpujący przybliżyła najnowsze kierunki rozwoju i postępu nauki o archiwach na świecie, zaprezentowane podczas tytułowej konferencji. Perspektywy archiwizacji stron internetowych z punktu widzenia dostępnej dzisiaj technologii i potrzeb społecznych zaprezentował Bartosz Konopa (Archiwizacja Webu w Europie – narodowe archiwa Sieci). Do prac, których autor wychodzi poza widnokrąg tradycyjnej archiwistyki należy artykuł Konrada Szuby (Archiwa we współczesnej kulturze. Rec. kwartalnika „Konteksty. Polska Sztuka Ludowa”, nr 1–2 (328–329): Archiwa. Spisane będą (?) czyny i rozmowy, Instytut Sztuki PAN, Warszawa 2020), umieszczony w dziale Recenzje i omówienia. Autor zrecenzował materiały dwóch konferencji kulturoznawczych, poświęconych archiwom w kulturze, opublikowane na łamach czasopisma „Konteksty”. Podjął jednocześnie próbę pokazania zasięgu i zawartości tego obszaru badawczego współczesnego kulturoznawstwa i jego punktów styczności z archiwistyką historyczną. W dziale Studia i materiały wyróżnić należy także artykuł Hadriana Ciechanowskiego (Funkcja naukowa archiwów – próba definicji i systematyzacji) nawiązujący do opublikowanych w tomie 120 studiów poświęconych działalności naukowej archiwów i nauce w archiwach.

Tom zawiera także inne tradycyjne działy: Recenzje i omówienia oraz In Memoriam. W dziale Kronika naukowa zamieściliśmy tylko jeden komunikat (Beata Żelazek, Archiwum Pandemii A.D. 2020. Społeczna kolekcja dokumentów czasu pandemii SARS-CoV-2), albowiem większość ważnych archiwalnych inicjatyw naukowych zostało odwołanych bądź przeniesionych na przyszły rok. Autorka zrelacjonowała akcję archiwów państwowych podjętą z myślą o udo kumentowaniu okresu pandemii: „Archiwum Pandemii A.D. 2020. Społeczna kolekcja dokumentów pandemii wywołanej koronawirusem (SARS-CoV-2)”.

Społeczna izolacja wywołana epidemią koronawirusa uświadomiła również, jak duże znaczenie we współczesnej archiwistyce odgrywają najnowsze technologie. Uważa się, że w ostatnim roku procesy informatyzacji znacząco przyspieszyły w niemal wszystkich obszarach aktywności ludzkiej, a impulsem, który to spowodował, stała się konieczność ograniczenia kontaktów bezpośrednich w celu ochrony przed zakażeniem. Życie społeczne, kulturalne, gospodarcze i polityczne jest i będzie w coraz większym zakresie dokumentowane w formie cyfrowej. Rozmiary tych zbiorów informacji – zbiorów wiedzy o przeszłości – będą rosły. Stawia to przed archiwistami pytanie: w jaki sposób bezpiecznie przechowywać wielkie zbiory danych, jakie technologie przechowywania takich zbiorów rozwiną się i będą stosowane w perspektywie 10–20 lat? Na potrzeby tomu 122 „Archeionu” zapytamy specjalistów, jak wyobrażają sobie magazyn archiwalny przyszłości; jakie nośniki archiwizacji informacji będą ich zdaniem stosowane w perspektywie najbliższych dziesięcioleci? Czy będzie to zapis w technologii cyfrowej utrwalonej na taśmie światłoczułej, jak w Światowym Archiwum Arktycznym na archipelagu Svalbard, czy nośnikiem tym będzie DNA, czy trwałe szkło kwarcowe? Temu nieco futurystycznemu zagadnieniu – najnowszych trendów w dziedzinie nośników przechowywania wielkich zbiorów danych i technologii archiwizowania i magazynowania wiedzy – chcemy dedykować część przyszłorocznego tomu. Jednocześnie cały czas zachęcamy Autorów do podjęcia problematyki najnowszych kierunków rozwoju archiwistyki na świecie. Zapraszamy do współpracy.

Redakcja

Legal provisions significantly affect archival activities, including the state of preservation and availability of archival materials. This article presents the provisions of generally applicable law in Poland as of 1 September 2020, taking into account provisions directly related to the structure of archival institutions, the protection of archival materials and the processes of shaping, developing and sharing of archival resources. These provisions can be found in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, the Act on National Archive Resources and Archives of 1983 with secondary legislation, a range of other acts and secondary legislation to them, numerous international agreements and legal acts of the EU. It is particularly interesting that there is an increase in the number of regulations which treat archives together with other cultural assets, which locate the activities of archives in the area of general access to information. A major challenge is the dispersion of these norms across many legal acts, as well as frequent and fragmentary amendments to them. Some areas of legal regulations require more in-depth research, especially in terms of their actual impact on the activities of archives. This reflection may be useful in methodological discussions, educating archive staff at all levels and formulating proposals for legislative amendments.

The article presents the problem of ownership relations in the area of archival materials. This issue is not easy, also due to the political transformations that took place in Poland. The author does not believe that a new law on archives should be enacted. Nevertheless, the current law (Law on National Archival Fonds and Archives) requires thorough amendment. In the article, the author tries to indicate which provisions should be changed. These provisions concern various legal issues, not just the fundamental structure of the national archival fonds. The legal regulations related to what happens to archive materials following bankruptcy and liquidation are not less important.

This paper focuses on signalling the most important problems related to sharing the special group of archive materials consisting of sound and image recordings in the context of the information needs of users, including school and university students. The author lists specific possibilities that archives have in the light of the existing legislation, including the Law on Archival Fonds and Archives (as amended) and the Copyright and Related Rights Law. He also draws attention to the need to adapt the existing solutions in the area of sharing audiovisual materials to the actual needs of users and suggests abandoning the solutions that come down to sound and image presentation (i.e. descriptions only) in favour of improving the appeal of the existing websites and, first and foremost, interacting with users. The author also presents the services offered by national archives in terms of reprography of sound and image materials, and he addresses the inconsistency between such offering and the declaration to provide them. The author addresses the use of audiovisual materials by national archives, arriving at a conclusion that this special type of archive materials receives relatively poor promotion. He also identifies the most urgent legislative changes required to allow archives to use sound and image in order to perform their statutory tasks of sharing and promoting archival fonds and building a positive image of archives.

In December 2018, Minister of Justice issued an order with instructions on the organization and scope of activities of institutional archives, e.g. in courts of general jurisdiction. It must have been welcomed with enthusiasm because the previous archive instruction came into force in 1985. The changing political system in Poland, a significantly higher level of social awareness on the significance of documentation management, also in courts, and the development of modern technologies made the 30-year old instruction outdated, which started causing considerable problems to archivists employed in court archives. The aim of this article is to review legal and normative acts implemented in the years 1985–2019 which concerned documentation management in institutional archives in courts of general jurisdiction. Due to the variety of cases considered by courts and the fact that these institutions compile documentation in massive numbers, the number of applicable legal acts is also impressive. The author analyses in detail key excerpts from the current archive instruction and Minister of Justice Regulation of 5 March 2004 on storing case files and transferring them to state archives or to be destroyed.

The objective of the article is to present the processing of the Bill on Archives of 1995 by focusing on the removal of the “separated state archive” status (currently “separated archives”), especially in the context of the resistance of the Ministry of the Interior. The conflict was related to an issue that was especially important at the time: the introduction of non-ministry supervision and control over separated archives, especially archives of the department of the interior (including special services), by the General Director for Polish Archives. The study shows the scale and the dynamics of the cross-institutional dispute, which involved the Ministry of Education and the Head Office of State Archives on one side and the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the other. Ultimately, despite attempts at mediation within the Office of the Council of Ministers and the Social and Political Committee of the Council of Ministers, no compromise was reached and the bill was never enacted. The study also identifies the dissents, related in particular to homeland security, between the circles representing national archives and the environment of the separated archives, and presents how they perceived each other.

France was the first country to establish a system of modern archives. The functioning of such facilities was supported by legal provisions to regulate both their organisation and the process of sharing the archival materials. The French solutions have been used by many archival services all around the world. The echoes of French provisions can also be found in the Polish Act on National Archival Resources and Archives. The current French law on archives was included in the Heritage Code, which encompasses other provisions regulating the protection and handling of cultural assets.

Laws on archives lay down the purposes and tasks of archives. Modern archival legislation began to develop as early as at the time of the French Revolution. According to Elanie Goh, the development of archives and the enactment of archival law was either revolutionary or evolutionary. The federal political system of Germany is also reflected in its law on archives, in the organisation of archives, in record management and in its archival fonds. This results, for example, from the variety of archive traditions and from the past political systems in Germany, which is why the country archival legislation relies on both enactment trends. Up until the 1980s, the issue of archival fonds and archives in the Federal Republic of Germany, a democratic state, was not regulated by laws on archives (Archivgesetze) but by other regulations instead, usually administrative orders. This changed due to personal data protection and confidentiality legislation. The first domestic law on archives was adopted by Baden-Württemberg in 1987, and the federal act (Bundesarchivgesetz) was signed in January 1988. By 1997, all the states received archival legislation, which was either amended or re-enacted over the next two decades. A new federal law on archives was announced in 2017. German laws on archives are concise documents that address the main aspects of archival fonds, record management (also for electronic records) and archive organisation. Being so laconic, the legislation does not require vast modifications during the creation of other laws that influence archives (for example, personal data protection laws).

This article presents the legal system of the Spanish archives. Due to the specific nature of Spanish legislation, the article begins with a short introduction characterizing the sources of the Spanish law which regulate the activity of archive facilities. Since certain legal acts introduced back in the 19th century have an impact on statutes and decrees today, the main part of the text is preceded by a short historical analysis discussing legal acts devoted to archiving. The next part of the article analyses applicable nationwide legislation, starting from the Constitution of 1978, which identifies 17 autonomous regions and divides the competences to manage archives between central and regional authorities. Due to the decentralization of the Spanish archive network, the central archive network managed by the state administration and autonomous networks were characterized separately. The text is based on the available source literature and legal acts passed by the central government and autonomous authorities in Spain.

Bronisław Gorczak (1854–1918) was a Leopolitan and a student of Ksawery Liski (1838–1891), who created a school of “didactic” type in Lviv. This gifted graduate of the Franciscan University was employed in the early 1880s by Prince Roman Damian Sanguszko as a conservator of the archives in Slavuta, Volhynia. Not only did he organize and did an inventory of rich archival collections, but he also prepared source publications financed by the prince and monographs of the Sanguszko family. At the beginning of the 1890s, he also took over the management of the Slavuta library. The previously unused correspondence of Gorczak with his Lviv friend and a professor at the University of Lviv, Ludwik Finkel (1858–1930), allows us to ask questions not only about the individual fate of the Volhynia historian and archivist, his ambitions, cares and dramas, but also to treat him as a representative of a guided by specific ethics in the performance of their professional duties. It was influenced by political, socio-economic conditions and ideological currents in Poland after 1864. Gorczak tried to realize the values he had reinfused during his studies in Lviv. Critical of the surrounding reality, he managed to preserve much of youthful idealism and faith in the sense of the work of a historian and archivist.

The body of work of historians regarding the Polish countryside and agriculture in the first half of the 20th century is relatively extensive. The majority of studies on farming primarily address the post-war period, discuss the interwar period to a lesser degree, with barely touching upon the Nazi occupation. The situation is similar when it comes to publications regarding particular areas of agriculture and the means of production. Unfortunately, what those publications have in common is that none of them uses materials connected to agricultural banking. The objective of the article is to encourage those who study or intend to study the economic history of the Polish countryside and agriculture of the first half of the 20th century to research the records of the State Agricultural Bank (1919–1949) kept by the National Archives. Analysis of the publications related to the State Agricultural Bank (hereinafter the PBR) and the archive materials connected with its activity, kept by the National Archives, suggests that: 1. The BPR had a key role in implementing the farming policy of the national authorities and was crucial to the development of agriculture and the countryside; 2. the legacy of the PBR in the National Archives is remarkably vast (tens of thousands of archive units) and covers a wide range of issues, from banking through the development of farming to the situation in the countryside in the first half of the 20th century; 3. the vast credit records of the PBR kept by the National Archives offer a wide range of possibilities for the researchers focused on the economic history of the Polish countryside and agriculture, as they provide a plethora of interesting information on the situation of agriculture and farmers between 1919 and 1949.

The purpose of the article is to analyse the materials of the Szczecin National Archives created by the regional administration units responsible for religious matters as the sources regarding the history of the relations between the state and the Roman Catholic Church between 1945 and 1989. It defines the group of entities implementing the religious policy at a central and regional level, with a special focus on administration. It analyses the contents of the archival fonds that included materials created by organisational units responsible for religious issues. The following methods were used to address the research problem: a historical method, an institutional & legal method, the system method and case study. The files of the religious administration unit can be found in the Szczecin archives in the following fonds: the Szczecin Regional Office, the Executive Committee of the Regional National Council in Szczecin, Regional Office in Szczecin. The materials from those fonds make it possible to recreate various aspects of the religious policy pursued by the state: hindering the pastoral work and religious education for children and teenagers, limiting the property of the church, attempting to create a rift between the clergymen. They contain important information about the social and political attitudes of priests.

In the article, the author presents a diocese-wide records management project in Germany that began in 2010. Also, the results of the processes are discussed, as well as the various steps in implementing a new file plan. The need for a new file plan in the diocese’s parishes has a historical context in the history of the German Catholic Church over the last two decades. Because the Catholic Church has the same administrative system from the Vatican to diocese to parish in almost every country in the world, the article’s findings can be transferred into the parish records management processes of the dioceses of other countries.

Archival Science is currently the most important archive journal, published in English since 2001. The aim of this article is to analyse articles published in that journal in the years 2011–2020. Four types of issues were analysed: the authors’ affiliations, geographical characteristics of articles, research methods and the subject of the published texts. As a result, it was noted that authors of articles come mostly from English-speaking countries (which confirms the trend from the years 2001–2010, studied by Eric Ketelaar in 2010) and when the subject of an article focuses on a specific geographical area, it concerns English-speaking countries as well. It was observed that many research articles do not present specific research methods and those that do mention not only traditional methods, such as archival research and a literature review, but also methods characteristic of social sciences (e.g. an interview, observation, survey). Ten most popular subjects described in the analysed texts include: digital issues, the underprivileged, state archives and documentation, the history of archives, human rights, decolonisation, ethics, preparing archival materials, social archives, the profession of an archivist and documentation manager.

The aim of the article is to present the latest achievements of the world archival science and draw attention to academic achievements, projects, problems and challenges which were discussed by the international archive community at Designing the Archive 2019, a conference of the International Council on Archives which took place in October 2019 in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. Designing archives is not only the main topic of the conference, but also a trend which has become visible in direct actions taken by archives. It generates certain problems and challenges for archives, but also gives them opportunities to grow. Since the article refers in particular to innovations in archives, it discusses solutions adopted e.g. in Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United States and Australia, and refers also to Costa Rica and China, paying particular attention to innovative working methods in archives, which make use of experiments to design ICT tools, inspire creativity in archive employees and develop IT tools in harmony with people’s needs and expectations, which in practice results in developing special theme applications. The article also makes a reference to the latest research in designing and using the space of archive buildings, as well as designing research laboratories and the public space to satisfy the needs of 21st century users and attract new ones. The article also discusses the role of marketing and digital economy in the functioning of archives in this context. New trends in the world archival science are also silent archives and research on archive trauma, whose foundation is a new approach towards judging the value of documentation, popular in the United States and based on the feminist approach. Silent archives are a difficult subject, but international research shows that archivists meet the needs of the oppressed.

The subject of ICT systems currently in use in public administration units in Poland is incredibly extensive. On the one hand, it can be considered in the formal and legal context and on the other from a strictly technical point of view, related to the architecture or structure of applications, as well as software and hardware solutions used in them. The author has made an attempt to analyse issues related to the functioning of ICT systems, paying particular attention to domain-specific systems implemented in public administration units. The main matter under consideration are legal regulations concerning the essence of ICT systems, as well as handling electronic documentation stored in them. Domain-specific systems are independent ICT systems developed to provide services for a specific area of activity of a given institution, intended for carrying out strictly defined and specialised tasks. Such systems should make it possible to carry out all activities arising from legal provisions which concern the processing of data or compiling and storing documentation, which is managed in a way that reflects the whole decision-making process. The author made an attempt to present the most important issues related to the functioning of such ICT systems in public administration units in Poland. The article discusses legal regulations concerning such systems (and the way in which they are presented in applicable office and archive provisions), attempts to systematise and classify them and characterises their structure and basic tasks. The article presents issues of utmost importance from the point of view of state archives, related to the possibility of taking over archive materials. Attention was drawn not only to formal, legal or technical possibilities, but also organizational ones. The author characterises the manner and methods which can be used to judge the value of documentation coming from such systems. The author pointed out the most important research areas which concern the discussed issues: the place of domain-specific systems in modern offices and in electronic office administration, storing and securing electronic documents and shaping national archival resources. Nowadays, when we are dealing with a dynamic growth of various types of ICT systems, it is extremely important to protect documentation of a historical value, compiled in such systems.

Web archiving, that is activities aimed at collecting and preserving Web resources, has been carried out for almost 25 years. During this time, many projects have been created to fulfill that task, as well as several organizations, such as the International Internet Preservation Consortium, that support it implementation. The article presents the development of activities in this area, and then presents the conclusions of the analysis of the functioning of selected European national Web archives, based on publicly available materials concerning them. This analysis was intended to examine how the Web is currently archived in this part of the world. Three main issues were considered: gathering, describing and access to the resources of the former WWW. The first of them covers the scope of archiving, namely determining what materials are subject to it, as well as the gathering strategies used for this purpose, which shape the archival collections. The second concerns the metadata and other elements used to convey information about what was collected during that process. The last element of the analysis includes the scope of access to archival WWW resources, existing restrictions and their causes, as well as the tools used for this. During the research, the author also became interested in the software used in individual projects. The obtained results show that the model of Web archive has been developed and the activities of the analyzed initiatives in Europe are very similar.

In previous works concerning science and archives, archivists focused on the scientific activities of archives. In particular, they reflected on what should be included as scientific activities undertaken by archives and what significance they have for the other areas of activity of such institutions. In general, no attempts were made to view the scientific function in a broader context, one not limited to activities undertaken by state archives, or to discover its essence. The aim of this article is an attempt to fill this gap by providing a general characteristic for the scientific function of archives that covers all archives, regardless of their affiliation to any network or organisation, owners or size. In view of the above, the reflections presented in the article are purely theoretical and offer an opportunity for a more extensive discussion on the significance of the scientific function of archives. The article was prepared on the basis of source literature supplemented with elements of sociological thought and reflections on the meaning of the terms considered to be of the utmost importance in the analysis of this issue, such as science, research, function and role. The reflections presented in the article lead to a definition of scientific function, which the author understands as any activity of archival institutions whose aim is to enable an increase in the body of knowledge gathered, and/or use of scientific method to increase this knowledge. The author also proposes a systematisation of the activities undertaken by archives as part of their scientific function, which he divides into those carried out by the archive outside the institution, inside it, and mixed activities.

Ever since 1960, the Ecclesiastical Archives, Library and Museum Centre of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin has been microfilming primarily ecclesiastical archive materials and partially also the historical collections of church libraries. The descriptions of the resulting microfilms were published over the years in the journal Archiwa, Biblioteki i Muzea Kościelne. Subsequent groups of microfilms were assigned consecutive publication numbers and were referred to as microfilm catalogues. The current status of the work is presented in a printed catalogue by Maria Dębowska, PhD. The catalogue brings together descriptions of 5,593 microfilms. Created in the Ecclesiastical Archives, Library and Museum Centre, the microfilm collection is a unique resource for studies on the history of the Church in Poland.

The author discusses the double issue of Konteksty, a magazine with materials from two conferences whose theme was the archiving of culture and cultural archives: International Conference of Institute of Polish Culture of the University of Warsaw “Les écritures des archives II. Writings of Archives II” (11–13 December 2017) and the 9th Anthropological Meeting in Zakopane “Archives. Deeds and conversations shall be (?) written down” (5–8 December 2019). The author states that the cultural dimension of archival reflection makes it possible to see beyond the horizon set by the borders of traditional archival studies. At the same time, the article makes the reader think about the need to re-evaluate commonplace terms used in archival studies and to answer the questions of what an archive is and what function it fulfils in extremely varied contemporary culture.

The author discusses the double issue of Konteksty, a magazine with materials from two conferences whose theme was the archiving of culture and cultural archives: International Conference of Institute of Polish Culture of the University of Warsaw “Les écritures des archives II. Writings of Archives II” (11–13 December 2017) and the 9th Anthropological Meeting in Zakopane “Archives. Deeds and conversations shall be (?) written down” (5–8 December 2019). The author states that the cultural dimension of archival reflection makes it possible to see beyond the horizon set by the borders of traditional archival studies. At the same time, the article makes the reader think about the need to re-evaluate commonplace terms used in archival studies and to answer the questions of what an archive is and what function it fulfils in extremely varied contemporary culture.

Szanowni Czytelnicy,

oddajemy w Państwa ręce 121, kolejny w roku 2020, tom naszego czasopisma. Tym samym udało się po raz pierwszy od dłuższego czasu doprowadzić do sytuacji, w której tom za dany rok jest publikowany w tym właśnie roku. I to jest dobra informacja, a Redakcja zobowiązuje się, że publikacja kolejnych tomów będzie się odbywała bez żadnych opóźnień. Jest to tym bardziej warte podkreślenia, że okoliczności, w jakich przyszło nam wszystkim funkcjonować w mijającym roku, były dość szczególne. Pandemia koronawirusa SARS-COVID-2 odcisnęła negatywny ślad na wszystkich dziedzinach naszego życia. Przez większość 2020 r. tradycyjne formy funkcjonowania, nie tylko archiwów, ale całej administracji, czy instytucji kultury, uległy znacznemu ograniczeniu. I choć wiele z wcześniej zaplanowanych przedsięwzięć zostało odwołanych, istotnemu ograniczeniu uległy prace naukowe, zawieszone zostały badania archiwalne, zredukowano współpracę międzynarodową, to archiwa państwowe przez cały ten czas były otwarte i starały się w jak najpełniejszy sposób wypełniać swoją misję. Jak nigdy wcześniej, szeroko zaczęliśmy korzystać z nowoczesnych technologii i sposobów komunikacji. Do codziennego stosowania weszły takie formy jak webinaria, czy konferencje realizowane w formie online. Obsługa kwerend użytkowników, przedsięwzięcia edukacyjne i promocyjne przeniosły się niemal w całości do sieci rozległych. Pewne ograniczenia dotyczące bezpośredniego dostępu do zasobu archiwów państwowych spowodowały, że użytkownicy znacząco częściej niż dotychczas korzystali z naszych zasobów informacyjnych i cyfrowych w  Internecie. W oczekiwaniu na „powrót do normalności” zapraszamy zatem do lektury aktualnego tomu.

Zgodnie z zapowiedzią, jego tematem wiodącym są szeroko rozumiane kwestie współczesnego prawa archiwalnego. Dział otwiera artykuł Marka Konstankiewicza (Regulacje prawa polskiego mające znaczenie dla działalności archiwalnej), prezentujący szeroką panoramę aktualnych przepisów z  różnych działów prawa, odnoszących się do działalności archiwalnej, a także dokumentu jako przedmiotu regulacji prawnych oraz gromadzenia i użytkowania zbiorów dokumentalnych w toku działalności. Autor nie tylko porządkuje i systematyzuje wiedzę o obowiązującym stanie prawnym w zakresie ogólnie rozumianego zarządzania dokumentami i archiwami, ale też wskazuje obszary, w których należy podjąć działania, aby ten system przepisów prawnych udoskonalić i lepiej dostosować do wymagań współczesności. Temat wiodący podjęli również: Adrian Niewęgłowski, który zajął się zagadnieniem własności materiałów archiwalnych w rozumieniu prawa cywilnego (Własność materiałów archiwalnych. Kilka uwag o potrzebie zmian regulacji prawnych) i Kacper Pencarski, który zwrócił uwagę na prawne aspekty udostępniania w Internecie archiwaliów audiowizualnych (Prezentacja nagrań audio i wideo w Internecie przez archiwa państwowe wobec wybranych problemów wynikających z poszanowania praw autorskich i praw pokrewnych. Kilka uwag środowiska akademickiego). Z kolei dwie prace poruszają zagadnienia niezwykle wrażliwe z punktu widzenia prawa archiwalnego: postępowania z aktami sądowymi na przedpolu archiwalnym (Dorota Drzewiecka, Przepisy regulujące zarządzanie dokumentacją na przedpolu archiwalnym bliższym w sądach powszechnych w Polsce w latach 1985–2019) oraz funkcjonowania archiwów wyodrębnionych (Piotr Borysiuk, Próba likwidacji statusu „archiwów państwowych wyodrębnionych” w projekcie ustawy – Prawo archiwalne z 1995 r.). Ponadto publikujemy trzy prace ukazujące prawo archiwalne innych krajów w ujęciu historycznym: Francji (Krzysztof Stryjkowski, Od praw Rewolucji do Kodeksu Dziedzictwa (przemiany francuskiego prawa archiwalnego)), Niemiec (Paweł Gut, Ustawowe podstawy działania archiwów niemieckich. Federalne i krajowe ustawy archiwalne) i Hiszpanii (Zuzanna Jaśkowska-Józefiak, System prawny archiwów hiszpańskich). Prezentowane prace z pewnością nie wyczerpują materii współczesnego prawa archiwalnego i potrzeb w zakresie jego reformy. Jest to bardzo szeroki obszar problemowy i trudno byłoby wyczerpać go w jednym tomie czasopisma. Mamy wszakże nadzieję, że studia te przyczynią się do lepszego rozumienia kwestii prawnych w środowisku archiwalnym i poza nim. Staną się także impulsem dla badaczy do częstszego podejmowania zagadnień prawno-legislacyjnych zarówno w kontekście historycznym, jak i współczesnym. Będziemy zachęcać autorów do podejmowania takich badań i publikacji ich rezultatów na łamach kolejnych tomów „Archeionu”.

Dział Studia i materiały obejmuje 9 prac. Dotyczą one kilku dziedzin archiwistyki. Pierwsze trzy: Marioli Hoszowskiej (Bronisław Gorczak – historyk i wołyński archiwista (1854–1918)), Mirosława Kłuska (Archiwalia Państwowego Banku Rolnego jako źródło do badań nad historią gospodarczą polskiej wsi i rolnictwa w pierwszej połowie XX w.) oraz Krzysztofa Kowalczyka (Materiały jednostek wojewódzkiej administracji wyznaniowej w Archiwum Państwowym w Szczecinie jako źródło do dziejów stosunków państwo-Kościół rzymskokatolicki w latach 1945–1989) reprezentują tradycyjne archiwoznawstwo. Dwie prace: Maika Schmerbaucha (Establish a new file plan in a diocese of the German Catholic Church) i Dariusza Makowskiego (Archiwa a systemy informatyczne w administracji publicznej. Wstęp do problematyki), z pozoru poświęcone odmiennej tematyce, odpowiadają na to samo pytanie: o organizację współczesnego przedpola archiwalnego.

Archiwistyka się zmienia, zmienia się również podejście do jej podstawowych pojęć; do głosu dochodzą nowe rozumienia terminów, takich jak archiwum, archiwizacja, działalność archiwalna. Chcemy, aby „Archeion” stał się bardziej otwarty na problemy współczesnych nauk humanistycznych i technicznych. W tomie zamieściliśmy zatem prace, które rzucają nowe światło na tradycyjnie rozumianą archiwistykę. Magdalena Drewniak (Czasopismo „Archival Science” w latach 2011–2020 – analiza treści artykułów naukowych) nie tylko przeprowadziła kilkuaspektową analizę tematyki prac publikowanych na łamach „Archival Science” – prestiżowego międzynarodowego czasopisma archiwalnego, lecz także naszkicowała współczesne horyzonty badawcze archiwistyki europejskiej i światowej, których śladem powinni podążyć polscy archiwiści. Katarzyna Pepłowska (Najnowsze trendy w archiwistyce światowej. Na marginesie obrad Międzynarodowej Rady Archiwów w Adelajdzie „Designing the Archive 2019”) w sposób bardzo wszechstronny i wyczerpujący przybliżyła najnowsze kierunki rozwoju i postępu nauki o archiwach na świecie, zaprezentowane podczas tytułowej konferencji. Perspektywy archiwizacji stron internetowych z punktu widzenia dostępnej dzisiaj technologii i potrzeb społecznych zaprezentował Bartosz Konopa (Archiwizacja Webu w Europie – narodowe archiwa Sieci). Do prac, których autor wychodzi poza widnokrąg tradycyjnej archiwistyki należy artykuł Konrada Szuby (Archiwa we współczesnej kulturze. Rec. kwartalnika „Konteksty. Polska Sztuka Ludowa”, nr 1–2 (328–329): Archiwa. Spisane będą (?) czyny i rozmowy, Instytut Sztuki PAN, Warszawa 2020), umieszczony w dziale Recenzje i omówienia. Autor zrecenzował materiały dwóch konferencji kulturoznawczych, poświęconych archiwom w kulturze, opublikowane na łamach czasopisma „Konteksty”. Podjął jednocześnie próbę pokazania zasięgu i zawartości tego obszaru badawczego współczesnego kulturoznawstwa i jego punktów styczności z archiwistyką historyczną. W dziale Studia i materiały wyróżnić należy także artykuł Hadriana Ciechanowskiego (Funkcja naukowa archiwów – próba definicji i systematyzacji) nawiązujący do opublikowanych w tomie 120 studiów poświęconych działalności naukowej archiwów i nauce w archiwach.

Tom zawiera także inne tradycyjne działy: Recenzje i omówienia oraz In Memoriam. W dziale Kronika naukowa zamieściliśmy tylko jeden komunikat (Beata Żelazek, Archiwum Pandemii A.D. 2020. Społeczna kolekcja dokumentów czasu pandemii SARS-CoV-2), albowiem większość ważnych archiwalnych inicjatyw naukowych zostało odwołanych bądź przeniesionych na przyszły rok. Autorka zrelacjonowała akcję archiwów państwowych podjętą z myślą o udo kumentowaniu okresu pandemii: „Archiwum Pandemii A.D. 2020. Społeczna kolekcja dokumentów pandemii wywołanej koronawirusem (SARS-CoV-2)”.

Społeczna izolacja wywołana epidemią koronawirusa uświadomiła również, jak duże znaczenie we współczesnej archiwistyce odgrywają najnowsze technologie. Uważa się, że w ostatnim roku procesy informatyzacji znacząco przyspieszyły w niemal wszystkich obszarach aktywności ludzkiej, a impulsem, który to spowodował, stała się konieczność ograniczenia kontaktów bezpośrednich w celu ochrony przed zakażeniem. Życie społeczne, kulturalne, gospodarcze i polityczne jest i będzie w coraz większym zakresie dokumentowane w formie cyfrowej. Rozmiary tych zbiorów informacji – zbiorów wiedzy o przeszłości – będą rosły. Stawia to przed archiwistami pytanie: w jaki sposób bezpiecznie przechowywać wielkie zbiory danych, jakie technologie przechowywania takich zbiorów rozwiną się i będą stosowane w perspektywie 10–20 lat? Na potrzeby tomu 122 „Archeionu” zapytamy specjalistów, jak wyobrażają sobie magazyn archiwalny przyszłości; jakie nośniki archiwizacji informacji będą ich zdaniem stosowane w perspektywie najbliższych dziesięcioleci? Czy będzie to zapis w technologii cyfrowej utrwalonej na taśmie światłoczułej, jak w Światowym Archiwum Arktycznym na archipelagu Svalbard, czy nośnikiem tym będzie DNA, czy trwałe szkło kwarcowe? Temu nieco futurystycznemu zagadnieniu – najnowszych trendów w dziedzinie nośników przechowywania wielkich zbiorów danych i technologii archiwizowania i magazynowania wiedzy – chcemy dedykować część przyszłorocznego tomu. Jednocześnie cały czas zachęcamy Autorów do podjęcia problematyki najnowszych kierunków rozwoju archiwistyki na świecie. Zapraszamy do współpracy.

Redakcja

Legal provisions significantly affect archival activities, including the state of preservation and availability of archival materials. This article presents the provisions of generally applicable law in Poland as of 1 September 2020, taking into account provisions directly related to the structure of archival institutions, the protection of archival materials and the processes of shaping, developing and sharing of archival resources. These provisions can be found in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, the Act on National Archive Resources and Archives of 1983 with secondary legislation, a range of other acts and secondary legislation to them, numerous international agreements and legal acts of the EU. It is particularly interesting that there is an increase in the number of regulations which treat archives together with other cultural assets, which locate the activities of archives in the area of general access to information. A major challenge is the dispersion of these norms across many legal acts, as well as frequent and fragmentary amendments to them. Some areas of legal regulations require more in-depth research, especially in terms of their actual impact on the activities of archives. This reflection may be useful in methodological discussions, educating archive staff at all levels and formulating proposals for legislative amendments.

The article presents the problem of ownership relations in the area of archival materials. This issue is not easy, also due to the political transformations that took place in Poland. The author does not believe that a new law on archives should be enacted. Nevertheless, the current law (Law on National Archival Fonds and Archives) requires thorough amendment. In the article, the author tries to indicate which provisions should be changed. These provisions concern various legal issues, not just the fundamental structure of the national archival fonds. The legal regulations related to what happens to archive materials following bankruptcy and liquidation are not less important.

This paper focuses on signalling the most important problems related to sharing the special group of archive materials consisting of sound and image recordings in the context of the information needs of users, including school and university students. The author lists specific possibilities that archives have in the light of the existing legislation, including the Law on Archival Fonds and Archives (as amended) and the Copyright and Related Rights Law. He also draws attention to the need to adapt the existing solutions in the area of sharing audiovisual materials to the actual needs of users and suggests abandoning the solutions that come down to sound and image presentation (i.e. descriptions only) in favour of improving the appeal of the existing websites and, first and foremost, interacting with users. The author also presents the services offered by national archives in terms of reprography of sound and image materials, and he addresses the inconsistency between such offering and the declaration to provide them. The author addresses the use of audiovisual materials by national archives, arriving at a conclusion that this special type of archive materials receives relatively poor promotion. He also identifies the most urgent legislative changes required to allow archives to use sound and image in order to perform their statutory tasks of sharing and promoting archival fonds and building a positive image of archives.

In December 2018, Minister of Justice issued an order with instructions on the organization and scope of activities of institutional archives, e.g. in courts of general jurisdiction. It must have been welcomed with enthusiasm because the previous archive instruction came into force in 1985. The changing political system in Poland, a significantly higher level of social awareness on the significance of documentation management, also in courts, and the development of modern technologies made the 30-year old instruction outdated, which started causing considerable problems to archivists employed in court archives. The aim of this article is to review legal and normative acts implemented in the years 1985–2019 which concerned documentation management in institutional archives in courts of general jurisdiction. Due to the variety of cases considered by courts and the fact that these institutions compile documentation in massive numbers, the number of applicable legal acts is also impressive. The author analyses in detail key excerpts from the current archive instruction and Minister of Justice Regulation of 5 March 2004 on storing case files and transferring them to state archives or to be destroyed.

The objective of the article is to present the processing of the Bill on Archives of 1995 by focusing on the removal of the “separated state archive” status (currently “separated archives”), especially in the context of the resistance of the Ministry of the Interior. The conflict was related to an issue that was especially important at the time: the introduction of non-ministry supervision and control over separated archives, especially archives of the department of the interior (including special services), by the General Director for Polish Archives. The study shows the scale and the dynamics of the cross-institutional dispute, which involved the Ministry of Education and the Head Office of State Archives on one side and the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the other. Ultimately, despite attempts at mediation within the Office of the Council of Ministers and the Social and Political Committee of the Council of Ministers, no compromise was reached and the bill was never enacted. The study also identifies the dissents, related in particular to homeland security, between the circles representing national archives and the environment of the separated archives, and presents how they perceived each other.

France was the first country to establish a system of modern archives. The functioning of such facilities was supported by legal provisions to regulate both their organisation and the process of sharing the archival materials. The French solutions have been used by many archival services all around the world. The echoes of French provisions can also be found in the Polish Act on National Archival Resources and Archives. The current French law on archives was included in the Heritage Code, which encompasses other provisions regulating the protection and handling of cultural assets.

Laws on archives lay down the purposes and tasks of archives. Modern archival legislation began to develop as early as at the time of the French Revolution. According to Elanie Goh, the development of archives and the enactment of archival law was either revolutionary or evolutionary. The federal political system of Germany is also reflected in its law on archives, in the organisation of archives, in record management and in its archival fonds. This results, for example, from the variety of archive traditions and from the past political systems in Germany, which is why the country archival legislation relies on both enactment trends. Up until the 1980s, the issue of archival fonds and archives in the Federal Republic of Germany, a democratic state, was not regulated by laws on archives (Archivgesetze) but by other regulations instead, usually administrative orders. This changed due to personal data protection and confidentiality legislation. The first domestic law on archives was adopted by Baden-Württemberg in 1987, and the federal act (Bundesarchivgesetz) was signed in January 1988. By 1997, all the states received archival legislation, which was either amended or re-enacted over the next two decades. A new federal law on archives was announced in 2017. German laws on archives are concise documents that address the main aspects of archival fonds, record management (also for electronic records) and archive organisation. Being so laconic, the legislation does not require vast modifications during the creation of other laws that influence archives (for example, personal data protection laws).

This article presents the legal system of the Spanish archives. Due to the specific nature of Spanish legislation, the article begins with a short introduction characterizing the sources of the Spanish law which regulate the activity of archive facilities. Since certain legal acts introduced back in the 19th century have an impact on statutes and decrees today, the main part of the text is preceded by a short historical analysis discussing legal acts devoted to archiving. The next part of the article analyses applicable nationwide legislation, starting from the Constitution of 1978, which identifies 17 autonomous regions and divides the competences to manage archives between central and regional authorities. Due to the decentralization of the Spanish archive network, the central archive network managed by the state administration and autonomous networks were characterized separately. The text is based on the available source literature and legal acts passed by the central government and autonomous authorities in Spain.

Bronisław Gorczak (1854–1918) was a Leopolitan and a student of Ksawery Liski (1838–1891), who created a school of “didactic” type in Lviv. This gifted graduate of the Franciscan University was employed in the early 1880s by Prince Roman Damian Sanguszko as a conservator of the archives in Slavuta, Volhynia. Not only did he organize and did an inventory of rich archival collections, but he also prepared source publications financed by the prince and monographs of the Sanguszko family. At the beginning of the 1890s, he also took over the management of the Slavuta library. The previously unused correspondence of Gorczak with his Lviv friend and a professor at the University of Lviv, Ludwik Finkel (1858–1930), allows us to ask questions not only about the individual fate of the Volhynia historian and archivist, his ambitions, cares and dramas, but also to treat him as a representative of a guided by specific ethics in the performance of their professional duties. It was influenced by political, socio-economic conditions and ideological currents in Poland after 1864. Gorczak tried to realize the values he had reinfused during his studies in Lviv. Critical of the surrounding reality, he managed to preserve much of youthful idealism and faith in the sense of the work of a historian and archivist.

The body of work of historians regarding the Polish countryside and agriculture in the first half of the 20th century is relatively extensive. The majority of studies on farming primarily address the post-war period, discuss the interwar period to a lesser degree, with barely touching upon the Nazi occupation. The situation is similar when it comes to publications regarding particular areas of agriculture and the means of production. Unfortunately, what those publications have in common is that none of them uses materials connected to agricultural banking. The objective of the article is to encourage those who study or intend to study the economic history of the Polish countryside and agriculture of the first half of the 20th century to research the records of the State Agricultural Bank (1919–1949) kept by the National Archives. Analysis of the publications related to the State Agricultural Bank (hereinafter the PBR) and the archive materials connected with its activity, kept by the National Archives, suggests that: 1. The BPR had a key role in implementing the farming policy of the national authorities and was crucial to the development of agriculture and the countryside; 2. the legacy of the PBR in the National Archives is remarkably vast (tens of thousands of archive units) and covers a wide range of issues, from banking through the development of farming to the situation in the countryside in the first half of the 20th century; 3. the vast credit records of the PBR kept by the National Archives offer a wide range of possibilities for the researchers focused on the economic history of the Polish countryside and agriculture, as they provide a plethora of interesting information on the situation of agriculture and farmers between 1919 and 1949.

The purpose of the article is to analyse the materials of the Szczecin National Archives created by the regional administration units responsible for religious matters as the sources regarding the history of the relations between the state and the Roman Catholic Church between 1945 and 1989. It defines the group of entities implementing the religious policy at a central and regional level, with a special focus on administration. It analyses the contents of the archival fonds that included materials created by organisational units responsible for religious issues. The following methods were used to address the research problem: a historical method, an institutional & legal method, the system method and case study. The files of the religious administration unit can be found in the Szczecin archives in the following fonds: the Szczecin Regional Office, the Executive Committee of the Regional National Council in Szczecin, Regional Office in Szczecin. The materials from those fonds make it possible to recreate various aspects of the religious policy pursued by the state: hindering the pastoral work and religious education for children and teenagers, limiting the property of the church, attempting to create a rift between the clergymen. They contain important information about the social and political attitudes of priests.

In the article, the author presents a diocese-wide records management project in Germany that began in 2010. Also, the results of the processes are discussed, as well as the various steps in implementing a new file plan. The need for a new file plan in the diocese’s parishes has a historical context in the history of the German Catholic Church over the last two decades. Because the Catholic Church has the same administrative system from the Vatican to diocese to parish in almost every country in the world, the article’s findings can be transferred into the parish records management processes of the dioceses of other countries.

Archival Science is currently the most important archive journal, published in English since 2001. The aim of this article is to analyse articles published in that journal in the years 2011–2020. Four types of issues were analysed: the authors’ affiliations, geographical characteristics of articles, research methods and the subject of the published texts. As a result, it was noted that authors of articles come mostly from English-speaking countries (which confirms the trend from the years 2001–2010, studied by Eric Ketelaar in 2010) and when the subject of an article focuses on a specific geographical area, it concerns English-speaking countries as well. It was observed that many research articles do not present specific research methods and those that do mention not only traditional methods, such as archival research and a literature review, but also methods characteristic of social sciences (e.g. an interview, observation, survey). Ten most popular subjects described in the analysed texts include: digital issues, the underprivileged, state archives and documentation, the history of archives, human rights, decolonisation, ethics, preparing archival materials, social archives, the profession of an archivist and documentation manager.

The aim of the article is to present the latest achievements of the world archival science and draw attention to academic achievements, projects, problems and challenges which were discussed by the international archive community at Designing the Archive 2019, a conference of the International Council on Archives which took place in October 2019 in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. Designing archives is not only the main topic of the conference, but also a trend which has become visible in direct actions taken by archives. It generates certain problems and challenges for archives, but also gives them opportunities to grow. Since the article refers in particular to innovations in archives, it discusses solutions adopted e.g. in Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United States and Australia, and refers also to Costa Rica and China, paying particular attention to innovative working methods in archives, which make use of experiments to design ICT tools, inspire creativity in archive employees and develop IT tools in harmony with people’s needs and expectations, which in practice results in developing special theme applications. The article also makes a reference to the latest research in designing and using the space of archive buildings, as well as designing research laboratories and the public space to satisfy the needs of 21st century users and attract new ones. The article also discusses the role of marketing and digital economy in the functioning of archives in this context. New trends in the world archival science are also silent archives and research on archive trauma, whose foundation is a new approach towards judging the value of documentation, popular in the United States and based on the feminist approach. Silent archives are a difficult subject, but international research shows that archivists meet the needs of the oppressed.

The subject of ICT systems currently in use in public administration units in Poland is incredibly extensive. On the one hand, it can be considered in the formal and legal context and on the other from a strictly technical point of view, related to the architecture or structure of applications, as well as software and hardware solutions used in them. The author has made an attempt to analyse issues related to the functioning of ICT systems, paying particular attention to domain-specific systems implemented in public administration units. The main matter under consideration are legal regulations concerning the essence of ICT systems, as well as handling electronic documentation stored in them. Domain-specific systems are independent ICT systems developed to provide services for a specific area of activity of a given institution, intended for carrying out strictly defined and specialised tasks. Such systems should make it possible to carry out all activities arising from legal provisions which concern the processing of data or compiling and storing documentation, which is managed in a way that reflects the whole decision-making process. The author made an attempt to present the most important issues related to the functioning of such ICT systems in public administration units in Poland. The article discusses legal regulations concerning such systems (and the way in which they are presented in applicable office and archive provisions), attempts to systematise and classify them and characterises their structure and basic tasks. The article presents issues of utmost importance from the point of view of state archives, related to the possibility of taking over archive materials. Attention was drawn not only to formal, legal or technical possibilities, but also organizational ones. The author characterises the manner and methods which can be used to judge the value of documentation coming from such systems. The author pointed out the most important research areas which concern the discussed issues: the place of domain-specific systems in modern offices and in electronic office administration, storing and securing electronic documents and shaping national archival resources. Nowadays, when we are dealing with a dynamic growth of various types of ICT systems, it is extremely important to protect documentation of a historical value, compiled in such systems.

Web archiving, that is activities aimed at collecting and preserving Web resources, has been carried out for almost 25 years. During this time, many projects have been created to fulfill that task, as well as several organizations, such as the International Internet Preservation Consortium, that support it implementation. The article presents the development of activities in this area, and then presents the conclusions of the analysis of the functioning of selected European national Web archives, based on publicly available materials concerning them. This analysis was intended to examine how the Web is currently archived in this part of the world. Three main issues were considered: gathering, describing and access to the resources of the former WWW. The first of them covers the scope of archiving, namely determining what materials are subject to it, as well as the gathering strategies used for this purpose, which shape the archival collections. The second concerns the metadata and other elements used to convey information about what was collected during that process. The last element of the analysis includes the scope of access to archival WWW resources, existing restrictions and their causes, as well as the tools used for this. During the research, the author also became interested in the software used in individual projects. The obtained results show that the model of Web archive has been developed and the activities of the analyzed initiatives in Europe are very similar.

In previous works concerning science and archives, archivists focused on the scientific activities of archives. In particular, they reflected on what should be included as scientific activities undertaken by archives and what significance they have for the other areas of activity of such institutions. In general, no attempts were made to view the scientific function in a broader context, one not limited to activities undertaken by state archives, or to discover its essence. The aim of this article is an attempt to fill this gap by providing a general characteristic for the scientific function of archives that covers all archives, regardless of their affiliation to any network or organisation, owners or size. In view of the above, the reflections presented in the article are purely theoretical and offer an opportunity for a more extensive discussion on the significance of the scientific function of archives. The article was prepared on the basis of source literature supplemented with elements of sociological thought and reflections on the meaning of the terms considered to be of the utmost importance in the analysis of this issue, such as science, research, function and role. The reflections presented in the article lead to a definition of scientific function, which the author understands as any activity of archival institutions whose aim is to enable an increase in the body of knowledge gathered, and/or use of scientific method to increase this knowledge. The author also proposes a systematisation of the activities undertaken by archives as part of their scientific function, which he divides into those carried out by the archive outside the institution, inside it, and mixed activities.

Ever since 1960, the Ecclesiastical Archives, Library and Museum Centre of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin has been microfilming primarily ecclesiastical archive materials and partially also the historical collections of church libraries. The descriptions of the resulting microfilms were published over the years in the journal Archiwa, Biblioteki i Muzea Kościelne. Subsequent groups of microfilms were assigned consecutive publication numbers and were referred to as microfilm catalogues. The current status of the work is presented in a printed catalogue by Maria Dębowska, PhD. The catalogue brings together descriptions of 5,593 microfilms. Created in the Ecclesiastical Archives, Library and Museum Centre, the microfilm collection is a unique resource for studies on the history of the Church in Poland.