Digital Deliveries : A comparison between the National Archives in Sweden and the United Kingdom reflecting the challenges for higher archival collaboration within the European Union

Abstract:   The European Union has lead to higher collaboration between the European countries, more exchange of information and a tendency to centralize more political decisions. There is also a tendency to try to create legislations that are more similar in each nation.   This paper aims at giving an idea about the challenges that the nations might meet when working towards higher archival collaboration within the European Union. The report by the European Commission “Report on archives in the enlarged European Union - Increased archival collaboration in Europe: action plan” from 2005 states that there is a need for higher European collaboration within the field of archives. The goal is to create a gateway for the citizens to have easy access to archival information from the different member states.   There are some obstacles for this to easily work. To start with the member nations have different cultural traditions and legislations when it comes to freedom of information. It has also got to do with technical issues such as which computer systems, file types and structures et c that are allowed.   This paper takes its starting point in the field of digital deliveries to the national archives of Sweden and The United Kingdom. A comparison has been made to show the difference of how these countries proceed with their archival work to give an idea about how these differences can affect the wish for higher collaboration within the European Union.