The Department for Preservation of Documents and Collections was established on July 5, 1938.
According to the Regulations on the Department, its tasks are:
- organization of storage and preservation of documents in archival repositories;
- centralized accounting of the state of preservation of archival documents and organization of their preventive and restoration-conservation processing;
- identification and preservation of particularly valuable documents, organization of work on creating an insurance fund of copies of unique and particularly valuable documents and a user fund;
- acceptance of archival documents for storage;
- issuance of files from archival repositories to the reading room of scientific workers, to archival departments and for temporary use of the institution;
- definition of the main directions and analysis of the archive’s work on ensuring preservation, preparation of proposals for their improvement;
- study of the best domestic and foreign experience in the field of document conservation, its implementation in the practice of the department, archive;
In accordance with the assigned tasks, the department:
- prepares proposals for draft programs, long-term and current plans for the archive’s work in specific areas of the department, ensures their implementation, prepares reports on their implementation;
- analyzes the state of conservation work, prepares proposals for its improvement, prepares proposals on the main areas of scientific and methodological work of the archive in the field of document preservation;
- ensures the preservation and rational arrangement of documents;
- organizes the creation and maintenance of optimal conditions and modes of storage of documents, compliance with safety regulations and fire safety in the premises of archival storage facilities and work premises of the department; ensures, together with the chief engineer’s service, the proper condition and operation of premises and equipment in the department and the archive;
- participates in determining the archive’s need for equipment for storing and protecting documents, creating databases of archival documents, maintains a computer database of the state of documents; together with the department of information retrieval systems, considers issues of financing archival documents;
- determines the need and sequence for checking the availability and condition of documents, organizes and coordinates this work in archival storage facilities, maintains a file of the cycle of checking the availability and condition of documents; organizes and controls the work on accounting and searching for missing documents;
- organizes and coordinates the work on determining the physical condition of documents, including on film media, the insurance fund and the use fund, keeps records of documents requiring disinfection, disinsection, restoration, binding, restoration of faded texts, transfer of documents to another base, combing, numbering of letters, encryption and other work to ensure the safety of documents;
- organizes and coordinates the work on preparing documents for disinfection, disinsection, restoration, binding, interacts in this direction with the Central Laboratory of Microfilming and Restoration of Documents of the National Archival Fund;
- carry out combing, dust removal, restoration of the third and fourth categories and binding of documents, numbering of letters, encryption of storage units, design of covers of storage units, labels;
- organizes and carries out work on identifying, describing, recording and ensuring the safety of particularly valuable documents, as well as work on creating an insurance fund of copies of unique and particularly valuable documents and a user fund;
- ensures compliance with the rules for issuing files, microfilms of the insurance fund and the user fund from archival storage facilities, monitors compliance with the rules for the safety of issued files, their timely return to the archival storage facility;
- participates in the development of research topics;
- prepares and reviews regulatory and methodological documents on issues of ensuring the safety of archival documents, implements them in the practice of the department, as well as best practices in the specialized field;
- conducts an economic analysis of the department’s work, analyzes the level of compliance with production standards, prepares proposals based on the results of the analysis;
- participates in and prepares materials for consideration at meetings of the directorate, the expert and methodological commission and other advisory bodies of the archive on issues of ensuring the safety of documents, monitors the implementation of decisions made.
Head of Department: Galina Nikolaevna Kutukova.