The Paper Chase
23
The main function of the P.R.O. is the conservation of all government records of permanent value for official reference and private research. More specifically, this means all documents which possess value for:
(i) documenting the constitutional and legal basis of government;
(ii) documenting the origin, development, organisation, functions, policies and substantive activities of government departments;
(iii) protecting the rights and privileges of private citizens and organisations; and
(iv) research into political, social and economic affairs and the history of the community.
You will notice from this, by the way, that archives are not preserved solely in the interests of historians. The scope of modern government is wide and there are few aspects of human activity and environment to which official records do not refer. A government's archives, therefore, are potentially of research value to every academic discipline.
Archive institutions, like libraries, museums and art galleries, need to be located in places where they are easily accessible to the public. The trouble is that archives, and especially government archives, need a great deal of storage space; so that in cities like Hong Kong, where office accommodation is at a premium, the housing of archives has special problems. Stored archives are immensely heavy and this limits us to ground floor accommodation or to buildings especially constructed to withstand high floor-loadings. Again, if one provides at the outset for long-term space needs this means tying up large building areas which will remain under-utilised for a long period. The alternative, of providing only for short-term requirements, means constant removal to new premises. We have had to compromise. The P.R.O. is housed at present* in temporary premises in Garden Road with accommodation for 5,450 shelf-feet of records. In about April this year we shall be moving to the Murray Road Multi-storey Car Park Building where we shall have room to accommodate about 15,000 shelf-feet of records. The new premises will be equipped with, among other things, a document repair section and bindery, a photographic laboratory and, I
* January 1974.