Eveniment

The NATO Archives

Interview with Paul Marsden, NATO Archivist
Multimedia
Video interview
Audio file .MP3/1923Kb

Q: You're the NATO Archivist, could you tell me what your role is?

PAUL MARSDEN (NATO Archivist): Yes, well I'm responsible for the entire organisation in terms of the Archives and the management of archives at NATO and that means, like most public sector organisations, the acquisition, the preservation and the making available to public... making accessible to the public, the records of NATO. So, that means in this case, I do that with a team of about, I think, there's about ten people in my team here at NATO Headquarters.

Q: Could you tell us specifically what information is held in the NATO Archives?

MARSDEN: Well principally it's the... I think the best way to describe it is to break it down into two categories.

First of all, we have the records which are produced by the North Atlantic Council and all its subordinate committees as well as the records of the International Military staff, that is the records of the Military Committee. Those make up a large volume of our holdings and they represent the minutes, the decision sheets, documents and the various products of the works of the Council in those committees.

The second category are the subject files produced by the divisions of the International Staff and by the offices of the Private Office. Those are records which deal with the negotiation, the communication between NATO here in Brussels and the capitals and that is the information that's used to support the decision making process here at the Headquarters.

So there's approximately five kilometres of records in those two categories and as well we hold some very... we're beginning to hold records of NATO agencies and some of the NATO operations as well, but principally we're in those two first categories.

Q: And are NATO Archives actually available to the public?

MARSDEN: Well because we're dealing with an organisation that is 26 members and we work by consensus, we have formulated an approach to the access to the, let's start with the committee documents, those documents are the product of 26 nations sitting around the table, so as a result all 26 nations have to provide input as to the declassification and accessibility of those records. So, we're working with the 30-year rule, and how we do it is we circulate the list of documents, and in some cases, actual documents to the nations to ask for their opinion as to the declassification and access to the documents. That takes, as you can imagine, a long time to circulate amongst the 26 capitals but it has had some, we've had success with it and until now we've been able to make accessible the documents from the birth of the Alliance in 1949 up until 1965 and with the military documents we've been able to make them available up until 1969.

Q: And how can these archives be accessed?

MARSDEN: Well up until... most of the access up until now has taken place through researchers coming to Brussels. On our website you will find a form in which an individual researcher can fill out the request to come and consult records here.

Because the access to and from the Headquarters requires some warning or some notice we ask people to give us about two weeks notice to fill out the form before they arrive. But increasingly we also are taking more and more requests over the Internet, people asking for specific documents or a very focus research request, we also want to be able to serve those people too because we recognise that not everyone can come to Brussels to consult the Archives.

Q: And are you collaborating with other institutions and research institutes in the management of NATO's Archives?

MARSDEN: Yes in fact we've just, just started on this avenue. We've formed a collaborative project with the Parallel History Project which is hosted in Zurich, Switzerland, and on that website we have made available documents from the subject files dealing with the Harmel Exercise in 1966-67 in which, really represents the birth of détente and NATO's approach to détente and its in that period and so we've put up some 250 to 300 documents on that site in collaboration with that team.

Q: Would you say that it's more difficult to keep records in the age of electronic documents and if so what are some of the challenges?

MARSDEN: Certainly that's the challenge that faces most archives around the world is that as paper filing systems disappear and computers replace them, archivists cannot wait for the end of the process to see whether there's going to be some records left as in the old days with paper files and much of my job right now is occupied in going out to the commands in the various offices in NATO and beginning to have people understand the requirements that are necessary to ensure that there are archival records at the end of the lifecycle of documents... document lifecycle; and that is, that as I say, is a major challenge but it's not, we're not alone in that challenge.