Translated by Me
THE
HISTORY OF ARCHIVES MANAGEMENT IN INDONESIA
by:
Yulianti L. Parani
The archives institutions are conservator
institutions based on written legacy of the past. One of written heritage is
“archives”, namely, scripts being made and accepted by state agencies for the
purpose of the implementation of government activities.
The National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia keeps
and preserves archives from the administrative relics of agencies and
organizations having authorities as Indonesian government. The history of
Indonesian record keeping discusses on the origins of records and archives as
well as their management of which become the basic responsibilities of the
National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia. The National Archives of the
Republic of Indonesia obtains responsibilities to preserve the administrative
relics of agencies and organizations since they reflect the life of our nation
and motherland.
The history of records and archives management in
Indonesia cannot be separated from the history of Indonesian administrative
governance whose paths were written in news as a result of administration
activities. Likewise, it also cannot be taken apart from the condition of
socio-politics as well as organizational structure of agencies or organizations
for the archives that they left. The oldest archives preserved at the National
Archives of the Republic of Indonesia are from Vereenigde Oest Indische
Compagnie. It is an organization called VOC, established in Netherlands in
the year 1602 and ended in 1799. The organization structure of VOC had been set
up by its central leadership. Therefore, this influences the archives
arrangement in Indonesia. V.O.C. is an organization from trade associations in
Netherlands obtaining oktrooi right given
in the year 1602 by Staten General of the Netherlands. They have full rights for both trading in the East
and taking care of the region and lands in the East.
Thus, VOC acquired political authority and
functioned as a government and gained full power as a representative of the
Government of the Netherlands especially when dealing with the kings and
sovereigns in the East.
On November 27, 1609 the Governor General Raad van
Indie was stipulated as the highest authority in Indonesia. During the period
of VOC occupation, the power of Raad van Indie was bigger than the Governor
General that all daily activities in conducting the responsibilities and
functions needed to be resolute or discussed. Hence, archives produced from the
resolute process and other archives related to the activities. The arrangement
system of these archives were well known as: Resolutiestelsel and classified based on “types of archives”,
for example: resolute, missieven (official letters), bijlagen (attachments),
ingekomen stukken (incoming letters), copi utgaande stukken (copies
of outcome letters), orders (commands), dagregister, rapporten,
memorie van overgave, adviezen and others. All activities, responsibilities and functions
being resolute was grouped in “series” and its attachments were in different
series. All important events were written in a diary (Dagregister).
These VOC careful activities of archival
administration were triggered as organization having oktrooi rights with such great power, they had to make annual
reports for every action taken at the Staten
General of the Netherlands. The administration holdover of VOC preserved at
ANRI contains series of “resolution”-books arranged chronologically and
attached by topic index at every last page of it. The attachments were arranged
appropriately with the chronological order. The resolution books and their
topics are entries to the attachments, namely letters and other scripts.
By the time Indonesia officially became Dutch Colony
in the 19th Century (VOC was disbanded in 1799), the authority of
Governor General became more important and stronger than Raad van Indie. As a
result, the discussion habits in order to pass the resolutions or any similar
activities were disposed off. All government activities related with policies
and decisions were done by the Governor himself accompanied by an agency known
as Algemeene Secretarie (State Secretariat). The position of state
secretary was held by two persons named Algemeene Secretarie and Gouvernements Secretarie. The
archives arrangements were in accordance with their creations at that time.
We can see similarities from the attitude conducted in the Netherlands namely, state
structures had changed from a kingdom where all governance activities were
centralized by the king himself.
The archives arrangement used was closed with ‘verbaal
system’ from Netherlands in the year 1823 and after that it was developed
another sysem “sistim dossier” which was based on besluit (decision). This
19th Centuries of archives arrangement is more similar with register
system or known in the Netherlands as “Registratuurstelsel”. The system
has been comprised by direct entries, such as agendas, klapper (a register for names, places and other various subject heading arranged
alphabetically and functioned as entries to only index books). The
classification is often arranged based on types of archives, namely, VOC era,
for example: besluiten series,
minute meetings, verslagen, rapporten, handelingen, etc.
The classification was called physic classification.
Information kept in archives was put in indexes. Towards the end of the-19th
century, archives from Algemeene Secretarie has been arranged based on topics and being indexed by number codes and
letters. The development of state and office administration in Indonesia
by the 20th century had led to new movements in archival arrangement
especially among agencies having status as departments; whereas for the Algemeene
Secretarie there was no further development, only archives from NICA year
1945-1949 was extended.
We can see the model of archives arrangement in the
19th Centuries from archives Departement van Binnenlandsh Bestuur
1910-1940 which was handed over according to the procedures after World War
II to the National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia. The archives were arranged
when they still functioned as records. Departement van Binnenlandsh Bestuur had asserted a registration handbook especially
in arranging agendas, recording archives in correspondentie kaarten.
The handbook was actually a classification handout in which the legislators
have to consider the location of archives (incoming and outgoing mails). Secret
archives were given x sign at the back of every code numbers. Untuk arsip-arsip
rahasia diberi tanda x di belakang tiap nomor kode. Main problems were
divided into 18 problems and arranged alphabetically according to its codes.
Main problems were the combination of problems
related with facilitative activities and substantive activities (activities
related to tasks and functions). Each of the main problem was divided again
based on sequence and non alphabetically. Main problems were coded by big
letters, and number codes for problems which were more than one. That was
description of Departement van Binnenlandsh Bestuur archives which were handed over to the
National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia.
Since 1916, there had been introduced and developed
an archival system in Indonesia by KAUL BACH, which were known later as Kaulbach
system by archival experts in Indonesia. The Kaulbach system was actually a
Register system using cards as registers and no books were used. From 1916, the
Register system utilized cards to agencies in the Hindi Netherlands Governments
which was then applied fully or in combination with other systems in the era of
the Republic of Indonesia. Algemeene Secretarie archives still used agendas equipped by indexes and klapper
as a register at the era of NICA. Things that were altered in the archives were
classification and codification. Algemeene Secretarie archives from the era of NICA were
classified by problem and matter (subject and case). There had been
separation among the archives based on facilitative activities and substantive activities.
After the Independence Day, the agencies having
authorities in the field of archives tried to control the archival activities
in our country. Since 1973, the National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia (ANRI)
and National Institute of Public Administration (LAN), had been introducing a
new pattern in records.
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