| Abstract: | CONCLUSION. Why collect data on the accessibility of archives at the management level? The answer is very short. In our experience, this is the only way of getting a long-term conservation program on paper and into practice. It is also a way of forcing the management to think about selection for treatment. If you calcu¬late the costs of conservation, restoration, and dea-cidification, based on the results of the surveys, it is obvious that one has to make selections for treat¬ment. The total costs are far too high to even consi¬der a total program. In the case of the National Archives of the Netherlands, using the survey resulted in a collection maintenance plan. In this plan, selections are made, based on several criteria. The collection maintenance plan covers a period of 4 years and will be reviewed every year. At the National Archives of Hungary, the most fre¬quent damage types relate to the previous life of the documents and show the necessary preservation steps. The evaluated data of each repository or archival department throw light upon the special problems of different collections, eg the storage difficulties of family archives containing docu¬ments with a wide variety in material, size, formats, etc. Having the results and knowing the causes of the damage means that a comprehensive preservation policy can be drawn up containing measures for both general and specific problems. It is generally necessary to vindicate the preservation considera¬tions in the rules for research and reprography. An example of a specific task is to launch a microfil¬ming program for brittle paper records. The storing conditions and the improper use of the records is the main contributor to the cause of damage. Thus, the technical conditions of the archi¬val building must be controlled with special atten¬tion to the factors affecting the climate in the repo¬sitories and the way in which the archival materials are used. These two factors cause the most direct damage to the documents. Because there are not enough financial resources and manpower available at the National Archives of Hungary (like many other institutes) to fulfil all the duties, the preservation priorities have to be defined in close cooperation with the archivists. It is vital that the experts of different parts of the archival functioning (preservation specialist, prac¬ticing conservator, archivist, and the financial management) have a good collaboration. In this way, their shared considerations can result in an effective preservation action plan. The management of the National Archives of Hungary is squarely behind the measures for improving the preservation conditions at the insti¬tute. This gives a fair chance of perceptible changes within some years. The aspects gathered from the appraisal of the results to date will be comprised in the archive's preservation action plan. In the wor¬king plan of the institute for 2002, the survey's results are considered high priority. Some routine archival activity, eg the boxing program, will be improved by using additional protective covers inside. Just after the first shocking findings about the condition of the documents, we succeeded in installing special heat and light reflecting shutters on the windows in repository D, which is directly under the roof. This made a big difference to the climate inside. We hope that the same changes will also soon be possible in the most endangered repo¬sitories of the Hess András Building. The planned repair of all the control units of the radiators has begun. We should mention that the effectiveness of preservation training became obvious during the surveys, and we have recently arranged for the enti¬re staff of the National Archives to be retrained. Their knowledge in preservation issues is some¬times inadequate or incorrect, and disregard for the condition of the archival materials can even occur. It is also a fact that direct contact with the archi¬vists, which occurred during the action, is promi¬sing for the future. Most of them were interested in the survey and wanted to know what was done and why. Defining the final resolutions and the mea¬sures necessary for improving the preservation conditions for the archival collections will be joint¬ly decided with them. At the National Archives of Hungary, the mainte¬nance plan is in development on the basis of the results of the UPAA standard and acidity surveys. This means that the preservation conditions will be remarkably improved within a short time. The cooperation between the two National Archives has been fruitful; not only in making the UPAA more widely usable through collecting expe¬rience in different archival collections, but also in changing opinions on several common preservation problems. |
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