Operation of the Historical Arhives

The document collection of the Historical Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece is one of the largest in Europe, covering the period from the war of liberation(1821) to the present. Unlike most state records, which are kept at a central depositories, the diplomatic records of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are kept at the Ministry. The same guidelines apply for the Greek Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Public Order. Following a recent Ministerial decision (April 1998), Greek diplomatic records are open to researchers after 30 years and not 50, as was previously the case, although some restrictions do apply. Access to the diplomatic records is allowed following submission and approval of an application describing the nature of the topic of research. The Ministry provides a 24 seat reading room to researchers which is open from Monday through Friday from 9:30 to 14:30. The reading room is closed on weekends, national and religious holidays and the entire months of August and November. The use of pencil for note taking is permitted while ink pens are not allowed. There is, however, the capacity for the use of laptop computers. Finally, researchers are allowed up to fifty (50) photocopies which are free of charge, provided that the researcher supplies the paper for the photocopies. The main method of retrieving document groups is through an index catalog which is located in the reading room of the Historical Archive. The catalog index dates from 1822 to 1946, for the records for the year 1947, the researcher must access a computerized indexing system. This electronic retrieval system is gradually being applied to all future as well a past record groups in order for researchers to access the index by either using key words or phrases. This project is currently under way, and although already operational, it does not cover the entire collections of documents