The National Archives and Abu Dhabi Customs Organize an Awareness Workshop on the Basics of Document and Archive Management

The National Archives has organized, in collaboration with Abu Dhabi General Administration of Customs, an awareness workshop entitled: “Basics of Document and Archive Management in Accordance with Federal Law No. 7 of 2008 concerning the National Archives and its Bylaw”. The workshop, which was held at Abu Dhabi General Administration of Customs’ headquarters, was part of the NA follow-up of the government entities’ archives organization and development projects. It aims to enable these archives to adopt the international standards in documentation and archiving, promote archivists’ performance and allow them to cope with the standard, technical and legal developments in their field of work.

The awareness workshop, which lasted for a day, tackled a number of topics, namely the definition of the Public Document stipulated in Federal Law No. 7 of 2008 concerning the National Archives. The public document is any document related to government entities’ works in the legislative, judicial or administrative field or otherwise. A record, a government entity receives and incorporates in its documents, for its relevance to its work or if it is necessary to manage its work, is considered a public document.

The workshop also discussed the document life cycle, the establishment of an integral system for paper and electronic document management and the working procedures of current and intermediate documents management system. The workshop also discussed the requirements for keeping archives in a safe environment to protect them from hazards in their current or intermediate stages in accordance with the international standards. The workshop showed the types of risks and disasters that threaten documents and the preventative procedures to be followed in this regard.

The National Archives has praised the great attention Abu Dhabi General Administration of Customs has taken to organize its archives, improve the skills of its archives staff members and enhance their experience in light of legislations approved in the UAE, the international standards and best practices followed in archives and in paper and electronic document management.