Institutional issues in educational standards in archiving. A view from Bulgaria

Abstract

The article presents the role of the institutional problematics in the structure of archival education in accordance with the Central and East European tradition, as well as in accordance with the series of analysis and strategic approaches prepared by the International Council of Archives, the Group of European Archivists, and the Society of American Archivists. There is a sustainable and, in its nature, conservative methodological concept, that is also vital within the present technological environment. Its core is the classical archival principle of the provenance and an idea of integrity of documental complexes.
The author makes a short review of the role of the institutional problematics history in the Bulgarian archival education starting with several elements at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries and ending with the contemporary specialty “Archive and Document Management” at the Sofia University. Nowadays, the selection of the educational content is focused on the understanding the relation between the institutions and their archives, and, on the other hand, on the acquisition of practical skills for exploring and analysing the documents of a structural nature. From a wider perspective, it is also necessary to understand the regime of the functioning and the related access and archive usage regimes and the memories regimes. The students acquire classical information literacy, as well as specific professional thinking and attitude.
An important mission of the institutional problematics is not only to give certain knowledge, but also to form an adequate ethical attitude, as well as the overall identity of good professionalism.