The Technical Process to Preserve an Archive

To guarantee the organization, conservation, availability, integrity and expeditious location of the documents that are generated every day by an entity, an adequate document and administrative management process is necessary.

Firstly, they are protected according to the legal provisions that may exist on the matter originated in the document, and secondly, according to the needs of use and consultation of the document in an immediate term. During this first stage it is recurrent that the file is of daily use and necessary for the exercise of the powers and functions of an agency and is usually kept in said file for a period of between three and five years.

The process begins in the processing file, where the documents of matters that remain in force, that are part of constant and permanent processes or that are required to continue with other functions and that are therefore kept in the various offices of the institution.

In the second phase of the document's life cycle, these are organized by files, transferred from the processing file to the concentration file. This action is known as a primary transfer. Only the files with documents whose procedures or matters have been concluded but which must be kept accessible for verification or consultation purposes are transferred for the development of other functions, but their use is no longer recurrent.

That is, they are documents that are no longer required for the exercise of the functions of the areas, but that have information about a decision or action that was important for the institution or for society and that is why they decide to keep in a way permanent.

Once the period of a file in the concentration file has ended, the documentation that does not have historical values ​​is deregistered and eliminated.

Upon receiving the secondary transfers previously reviewed and compared with their respective control instrument, which is the transfer inventory, the historical file proceeds to the organization of the documentation in three  processes: classification, ordering and description.

Preservation and restoration make it possible to establish correct planning and programming of all kinds of activities related to the deposit and installation of materials, training of personnel, programs and action plans related to the protection of the documentary heritage.

Instruments and means of consultation are provided so that users can recognize the composition and content of historical documents and thus can identify the information of interest and request said documents.

The Unit registers the loan in the loan form in the database, leaving records in the spaces of the documents loaned.