The Development of Record Services in Turkey

This study examines the development of archival practices in Turkey over a period of seven centuries but with the major emphasis on the 20th century. The archival practices of the Ottoman Empire are evaluated as a background to the establishment of the Turkish Republican Archives and its current problems. The administration of the records of the Republican period is also evaluated in relation to the current arrangements for administering the records of the Ottoman Empire. This study shows that archives were considered an important component of administration during the classical period of the Ottoman Empire. However, as the Empire declined its archives were neglected. After the establishment of the Republic a succession of regulations were issued pertaining to the elimination of unnecessary documents, but they were never implemented. This led to the accumulation of large quantities of non-current records in government agencies. The research revealed that many of these records have been destroyed by administrators in order to gain storage space for newer records. The Republican Archives was established in 1976, more than half a century after the establishment of the Republic, but to date no records have been transferred to there. There is a separate archives in Istanbul to house the surviving records of the Ottoman Empire. There is no collaboration among these two institutions although they are under the same General Directorate. Although the Republican records are not even in custody, both archives face a problem of large backlogs of unappraised and undescribed records. Among these, unaccessible, are the documents which record Turkey's history. This study stresses the necessity of a records management system within the public administration which will ensure that the current and semi-current records are managed in such a way that records are well-structured from the outset, that they are retained only as long as they have value to users and that they are transferred to the Archives at the appropriate point. Legal, organisational and procedural systems must be set in place to address these problems.