Archives

   Since the mid-19th century, record keeping by state insti tutions has been organized on both central and communal levels. The Act concerning Archives (Archiefwet, 1995) obliges central and provincial authorities to transfer their archives in a well-ordered state to the public records office (originally Algemeen Rijksarchief; as of 2002, called Nationaal Archief) in The Hague or to a provincial records office. Under similar obligations are the communal authori ties and the boards of the waterschappen, public bodies that are re sponsible for dikes, rivers, and water treatment. Most government documents can be consulted without official permission after 20 years. For consulting more recent documents, people can make an appeal to the Wet Openbaarheid van Bestuur, the 1980 act that regu lates the public nature of the Dutch government. One of the pioneers in organizing the state archives was historian Reinier Bakhuizen van den Brink. Recently, several provincial and communal archives have merged, in some cases with other documentary institutions as well. Another trend is the availability of archives inventories on the Internet.

   See also Historiography.