Archives

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Science, Technology and Culture, Business Statistics
Søren Østerballe
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Archives 2023

The purpose of the statistics is to provide a comprehensive overview of the Danish archives. Initially, only the activities of the National Archives were included. However, from 2017, the statistics have been augmented by data on the activities of town and local archives. Time series concerning the National Archives dating back to 1980 can be found in the Statistical Yearbook.

Statistical presentation

The statistics contain data on the Danish archives' conventional collections' size and the accession of records, number of visitors in the reading rooms and number of queries via letters or email. Additionally, manpower is listed by the number of full-time employees, distributed by regular employees, voluntary employees and subsidized employees. For the national archives, the electronic collections' size and homepage visits are also included.

Statistical processing

Data is collected from a spreadsheet with data on individual archives sent from the National Archives. Data validation is performed by comparing values with previous years' data collection for individual archives as well as on an aggregated level. Data from the other archives is reported by ODA and SLA thorough SLA in spreadsheets with data from individual archives. Double entries are deleted and missing or obviously false values are imputed from previous reports.

Relevance

The statistics is developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and may be used for a broad overview of Danish archives’ level of activities and staffing. The statistics are assumed to meet the needs of several user groups as to a comprehensive an accessible account of Danish archives.

Accuracy and reliability

Data for the National Archives / Government Archives are drawn directly from their operating systems for inventory of their own activities. On the other hand, the City and Local Archives are based on reports from many and very small entities, which in many cases are run by volunteers, not professionals.

Timeliness and punctuality

Given a reporting and processing period of approximately four and a half months, the annual statistics are expected to be available in May. The statistics are expected to be published without delay.

Comparability

There are no data breaks in the individual tables. No comparison with similar statistics from other countries has been made.

Accessibility and clarity

These statistics are published in the StatBank under Archives. The figures feature in a yearly Danish publication on Culture in Denmark. For more information, see the subject page on Archives.