Q&A with the UNHCR Archivists: Behind the Scenes
It is one thing to give advice about the UNHCR’s archives from a researcher’s perspective, but it is something else to understand the processes behind the scenes. In the process of writing the blogpost, we consulted with the UNHCR archivists about their work and routines, resulting in this Q&A.
Q: How would you define your role within the UNHCR as a larger organisation?
A: In the first place, the archivists are information managers, record keepers and custodians of much of the material that UNHCR has produced and still produces during the conduct of its affairs. Many researchers do not realize this, but our public service is only a small part of our daily job.
A huge amount of hidden work goes into getting the content into the archives in the first place. Whilst globally we have a team of 15 staff, only 4 are part of the research-end of the archives, the rest work on records management (organizing active recordkeeping systems) web archiving and digital preservation.
However, our main reason for existing as a Section is to support the operations and protection functions for current UNHCR staff. Indeed, our services are in very high demand internally within UNHCR. It is one of the major reasons why our external capacity is low and why we are only open to external researchers in the mornings – the afternoons are reserved for UNHCR colleagues.
Q: Can you tell us something more about the restriction rules?
Many researchers focus on the disappointment of finding that documents or files have been closed by the archivist due to confidentiality and access restrictions. However, it is the archivist that is usually the only person actively pushing to secure access rights for a researcher within the organization – usually persuading senior managers, lawyers and data protection officers to commit to a policy of (controlled) openness and doing the work to ensure that which can be opened is accessible. Are we secret-keepers or research partners? In fact, like in any archive, it’s a bit of both, the duty is to the organization’s needs but bearing in mind professional ethics – so if we redact something there’s always an indication of the policy clause under which it was removed.
I know of no archive that would open records unrestricted to the public without a policy as to how confidential content is protected. In fact, many international organisations do not open their archives for research at all, either because they see too much risk, too much work/expense, or do not see the strategic interest in opening their written memory for analysis/external scrutiny. UNHCR started the conversation in the 90s, when our former HC Sadako Ogata was herself an academic with an interest in opening up the records. Some other organisations have not (yet) had that awakening – and in fact there is no UN directive saying that all agencies must open their archives, so it’s nearly always a goodwill service rather than an obligation (as it is in national archives, or in memory organisations). In organisations where declassification authority is retained by the originating units, or legal departments, access is usually more restricted.
Q: UNHCR also has a large collection of digital data. What does that collection entail?
Our website might give the impression that our digital collection is limited to what is available and visible online in the web archive. However, one must bear in mind that over the course of the last decades UNHCR has – like all institutions – evolved into a paper-less organisation, where content is mostly (if not exclusively) born digitally. There is a huge amount of work involved in acquiring and preserving digital content.
Digital preservation is a very challenging task, because unlike paper, digital files have expiration date due to inbuilt obsolescence of all technology. As soon as the software and hardware expires, you have to transfer the data and metadata to new carriers, which is a time-consuming process that requires policies, planning and specific technology. Having said that, at the UNHCR archives, we have over twenty years of experience. Our Digital Preservation System and Web Archive holds almost 100 Terabytes of data spanning time and media (digital documents, websites, social media, etc.). UNHCR’s Records and Archives Section has been awarded the Global Digital Preservation Award in 2020 to honour these efforts.
Q: Is it possible to access some of the digital records?
Most of the digital material has not yet passed the 20-years threshold for declassification, so it is still mostly confidential and only available to internal researchers at this point in time. In fact, the same access rules apply to digital content as to “regular” paper documents. We can open up digital-born content that meets the same conditions, though few digital born records have been catalogued for public research yet besides the web content.
We are aware that the non-public digital archive, and in fact the non-public physical archive, is (understandably) little understood by researchers. We could be more transparent about that and hope to add some more context to our catalogue about closed and on-the-way collections as we go forward.
Q: Talking about the catalogue, is it true that the catalogue is incomplete?
Whilst UNHCR is still creating information material on a day-to-day basis, there will always be a level of incompleteness to the catalogue – our challenge is to process material in such a way as to ensure that the records of research value are ready to browse as soon as possible after the date that they would become available for research under the access policy.
Some collections are indeed under- or undocumented, but the content of the catalogue has expanded, and there’s more to come. We received a few earmarked grants to catalogue undocumented and under-documented collections, which resulted in the Registry 1986-1994 and the archives of HC Ogata going online in 2023. The catalogue of the Registry 1985 and the working files of the Division of International protection, 1950s-1990s will follow in 2024.
However, researchers should also keep in mind that many records in the archives are still within their confidentiality period which is the reason for their non-availability. It is not common, also not in other archives, to publish catalogues of confidential material. Especially material relating to individual refugee cases is not – and will not be in the foreseeable future – available for external researchers due to privacy issues of refugees, displaced and stateless people during their lifespan.
Q: UNHCR has a digitization service. How does it work?
As you know, we have limited capacity of one researcher at a time. Digitization requests are processed in parallel for those that can't make it due to capacity, but also, we find we can reach researchers without travel grants in different geographic regions, especially the Global South, where our researchers are traditionally underrepresented.
However, a physical visit might still be the quickest way to access our services. Due to high demand, we also have a waiting list for digitization. Anyone who is interested in visiting should definitely email us, since we do get reschedules and cancellations that open up spots.
Q: Perhaps related to that, one last question about the availability of spots for external researchers. Why aren’t there more seats in the reading room?
One researcher at a time is not in response to demand, it's response to capacity. UNHCR’s reading room actually comprises one desk in our staff offices. We can't offer a basic level of service to too many researchers at a time on top of the demands placed upon us by UNHCR's research needs.
However, we are trying to be flexible with offering researchers more than one visit during a year. It was in response to a spike in demand after the Covid closure, now if people want to make a few visits we're open to it if the availability is there. Like said before, due to reschedules and cancellations spots might open even quicker than you had imagined!
The UNHCR Records and Archives Section is responsible for the acquisition, management, preservation and accessibility of UNHCR’s history, captured in records created by UNHCR staff and partners during their work to assist and protect people forced to flee, and by the refugees themselves. The central Archives in Geneva holds more than 10km of physical files, with a further 135 terabytes of digital information managed in archival systems and platforms globally.
Header image shows the Garage des Nations in Geneva. Хрюша, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
