A Finding Aid of Archives: the Concept Content and Features of its Presentation on the Websites of Central State Archives of Ukraine

Abstract

The aim of the article is to highlight the content of the concept “a finding aid” of archives, and peculiarities of its presentation on the websites of central state archives of Ukraine. Research methods: scientific analysis, synthesis, generalisation. The terminological analysis helps to clarify the essence of concepts related to the archive finding aid. Structural and systemic approaches allow to consider the finding aid of archives as a system of interconnected archival directories. The scientific novelty of this research lies in the fact that different definitions of the finding aid as a set of archival directories and an auxiliary element of any archival directory are revealed; the conducted analysis of the websites of the central state archives of Ukraine shows a number of shortcomings; recommendations regarding the presentation of the finding aid on the websites of the central state archives of Ukraine are offered. Main conclusions. The war in Ukraine and the optimisation of the system of central state archives led to their reduction (7 archives were created o ut of 9). Reducing the number of archives should improve the organisation of their websites, but we have to note the lack of standardisation in the presentation of the archives’ finding aid. The concept of “the finding aid” can be considered, firstly, as a set of archival directories in any form, and secondly, as an auxiliary element of any archival directory. The analysis of the websites of the central state archives of Ukraine proved the following: the absence of a unified representation of the finding aid apparatus on the websites; the dispersion of elements of the finding aid on the website; collections of archival documents often do not have an explanation of what kind of collection they are, as well as for what purpose they were created. Such a situation does not improve search capabilities of archive users, and makes it difficult to find the necessary information. In our opinion, it is necessary: to unify the presentation of the finding aid apparatus (to separate printed and electronic ones); submit short abstracts for document collections.