Use of archival material

Use of archival material

The archival material is used in the reading room of the Archives of Serbia and Montenegro building, at No. 33, Vase Pelagica St. Researchers have a specially equipped reading (search) room at their disposal, containing all kinds of finding aids for the archive groups and materials of the Archives - guides, inventories, card files, lists and similar, as well as files of users of records - lists of researched topics, bibliographies of works published on the basis of records from the Archives, registers of researched archival material of foreign provenance, etc.

The Archives has a specialized library with about 17,000 inventory units - books, magazines etc. from the fields of history, law, sociology, political science, archive administration and other related disciplines, intended to aid researchers in using archival records as well as archivists in the classification and processing of holdings.

On account of all these facilities, since 1958, the year when the Archives made its records available for public use for the first time, over 6,500 researchers, of whom 150 foreigners from 20 countries, have done research in the Archives. As a result of such research over 2,400 books, monographs, articles, features have been published and about 700 doctoral and master's theses prepared. Originals or copies of documents from the Archives have been displayed at over 250 exhibitions and have also served for the production of over 60 television programmes.

The rights and conditions of use of archival material have been specified under relevant legislations (laws, rules, instructions, etc.). The manner and procedure of archival records use have been spelled out in detail by special regulations.

Either original or microfilmed documents are used, if they have been microfilmed for this purpose.

Archival records which are not in order or are in the process of classification or those in an unusable condition without prior treatment (conservation and restoration) may not be used and if they are outside the Archives (exhibitions and similar), are not issued for use.

Archival documents are made available for use every weekday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

During working hours a user may obtain for his use at the maximum four basic registers or four box files or ten inventory units (units of description, subjects, documents) or two microfilm rolls.

At the request of the user, documents can be mimeographed, observing the requirements prescribed in the Archive rules.

In addition to its basic purpose - its use for scientific research purposes, archival material is also used for the operational needs of governmental bodies and organizations as well as for the satisfaction of the legal and other interests of physical and legal persons.

More detailed information on the records and the conditions of their use can be obtained from the Department for supervision, protection and use of archival material (phone ++ 381 11 3690-252/108), while specific queries can be addressed to the reading room clerk (phone ++ 381 11 3690-252/119).