Introduction to Archives and Museum

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Foreword The present work is a collection of articles written by senior archivists, reprographist and curator on 'Archives and Museum' with special reference to the State Archives of West Bengal. Through this collection we intend to give an appropriate coverage to the study of Archives Administration and Musicology recently introduced in Graduate and Postgraduate level as compulsory course work. The comprehensive essays published here offer an overview on the various aspects of Archives and Museum. The work is divided into two sections with a detailed introductory note.

The first section contains five articles relating to Archives and Museum with an abstract translation in Bengali whereas the second part represents a brief description of holdings of the major government record repositories of India i.c. the National Archives of India, New Delhi, its Regional office at Bhopal and three Records Centers at Jaipur, Pondicherry and Bhubaneswar, the State Archives of Maharashtra and the State Archives of Tamilnadu.

The first article 'Records and Archives' traces the system of record keeping in India, the definition of Archives, its development, similarities and differences between Archives and Library and also describes various types of repositories, found in India.

Archives and Museum both depend heavily on conservation. Therefore, the second article 'Some Aspects of Conservation and Archives: An overview' describes the conservation policy prevalent in West Bengal State Archives.

The next article takes up 'Digitization, its Use and Utility in Archives'. The West Bengal State Archives is a treasure trove of information, preserved over the years, for administrative assistance as well as scholars/users' service. Despite towards conservation applying all the available methods, much of the records having grown excessively brittle overtime seriously restrict their accessibility. Therefore since 2008, the State Archives has initiated program to digitize crore of records primarily for preservation and electronic data sharing.

Introduction From the days of English East India Company through the period of direct British take over till the transfer of power, day to day activities of the successive governments created enormous amount of administrative records, Most of these records both in manuscript and printed forms had been preserved in the record room at Calcutta. These records form a major historical source for the reconstruction of the period.

Although the English word Archives is a derivative of the Greek word arche meaning government or magistracy, all ancient and medieval cultures the world over had evolved their own methods of record preservation like the ancient Athenians. But in so far as an independent institution of record keeping is concerned, it was only in France after 1789 that the first National Archives was established. This initiation resulted in three major accomplishments in the archival field -- an independent national archival administration was established, the principle of public access to government records was proclaimed and the responsibility of the state for the care of valuable documents of the past was recognized. Thereafter, throughout the nineteenth century, repeated efforts had been made to induce the government to take better care of its public records. In 1838, the Central Archives was established in England. The United States Government established the National Archives in 1934.

The institutionalization of the archiving system in India started with the establishment of the Imperial Record Department (IRD) at Calcutta, the predecessor of present day National Archives of India. GW. Forrest, a college professor in the Bombay Educational Service became the founder head* of the record office of the Government of British India in March 1891.

**Contents and Sample Pages**