Standards Development

Scope

This International Standard specifies guidelines for the archives community on the collection and reporting of statistics for the following purposes:

— strategic planning and internal management of archives;

— aggregating and comparing operational and performance statistics at regional, national, and international levels;

— reporting to stakeholders such as funding institutions, oversight authorities, internal governance bodies, politicians, researchers, and the general public as appropriate;

— promoting the role and value of archives for advancing learning and research, education and culture, social and economic life, organizational knowledge, and innovation support;

— improving the management of processes, reinforcing transparency, supporting good governance, and enabling digital transformation.

This document does not apply to records centres managing records still in the legal custody of their creating organization, even if co-located with archives. When applying this document to archives that also perform records management functions, the archives can exclude statistics related to those functions. These include measures concerning holdings and their usage and preservation, funding and expenditures, space and facilities, as well as staffing and management. The document does not provide a comprehensive list of the categories of archives. The indicators may need to accommodate the circumstances of archives that are not included in the document.