Report on the 1st Annual Conference of ICA in Brussels and the visit to the National Archives of France
1. 1st Annual Conference of ICA
On November 23 and 24, 2013, the 1st Annual Conference (AC) of the International Council on Archives (ICA) was held in Brussels, Belgium. AC was introduced to replace the International Conference of the Round Table on Archives (CITRA) which had been held for 57 years until 2011. Unlike CITRA, which was open to Category A and B members only, all ICA members, from institutional to individual, are welcomed to participate AC. This time, there were over 500 people from 100 countries took part in the event.
The theme for AC 2013 is "Accountability, Transparency and Access to Information." With this, the professional program comprised keynote addresses and 5 sessions, and more than 60 speakers delivered presentations.
In a session titled "Records Management, Governmental Approaches," Takeo Katoh, President of the National Archives of Japan (NAJ), also took the rostrum. In his presentation "Enhancing Government Accountability and Transparency for Current and Future Generations: Challenges of the Japanese Government," President Katoh gave an overview of duties Japanese administrative organs and NAJ were imposed under the Public Records and Archives Management Act. Also referred to were the government's integrated document management system and the Digital Archive of NAJ.
In parallel with the professional program, ICA governance meetings were also held. Among them, NAJ executives attended the Forum of National Archivists (FAN) and the Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Fund for the International Development of Archives on November 22, and the ICA General Assembly on November 23.
At the FAN meeting, it was discussed how FAN should tackle with challenges surrounding archives such as data protection, privacy and copyright. Here, they agreed to develop position papers to better approach influential government figures and to promote cooperation with industry. Then, presentations with the same theme as the professional meeting were given. In the following panel discussion, opinions were actively exchanged with a focus on the issue of classification periods.
At the General Assembly, Internal Regulations, which provide for detailed rules to manage the organization, were newly approved in the first place. Proposed regulations put at the meeting this year were actual weights for the new voting system at the General Assembly, procedures for the election of ICA officers, and ICA fellowships, all of which were ratified in the end. As regarding the voting weights, each Category A member (federal/national archives) got 4 votes, each Category B member (professional associations) got 2 votes, and each Category C member (local archives and international organizations) got 1 vote. This new rule was applied immediately after the ratification. Other agenda items included host cities of future ICA meetings. Mozambique was formally approved as the host of AC 2015. Then, Girona, Spain gave a presentation as the host city of AC 2014 and announced that it would be held from October 11 through 15, with the theme of "Archives and Cultural Industries."
2. Visit to the National Archives of France
After AC 2013 was over, President Katoh visited the French National Archives in Paris on November 25, and its new building in the Paris suburb of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine on the next day. Since its inauguration on February 11, 2013, it has been functioning as new headquarter of the Archives.
* Further details of the Annual Conference in Brussels, as well as the visit to the National Archives of France, are reported in No. 52 of our journal "Archives" published in March 2014.
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Opening Ceremony of the Annual Conference
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President Katoh giving his presentation
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Stack area of the National Archives of France in Paris
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Appraisal section at the National Archives of France in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine
3-2 Kitanomaru Koen, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0091
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