Oman-funded records training in Seongnam

The interior ministry said Monday it would hold a records-management course for 14 staff from Oman's National Records and Archives Authority at the National Archives' Seongnam branch. Participants include officials responsible for digital records management and working-level staff.

The ministry said the course was tailored to the Omani authority's requirements after preliminary analysis and consultations between the two sides. "We have established the first training model in which a partner country bears the entire cost of coming to learn our records-management technology, departing from conventional free official development assistance," Lee Yong-cheol, head of the National Archives, said.

The training followed an April visit by Zakariya Hamed Hilal Al Saadi, Oman's ambassador to South Korea, who toured the National Archives' preservation, restoration and digital archiving operations. He showed interest in Korea's system for applying records-management procedures from the point government agencies create records, and Oman formally requested staff training less than a month later to introduce the Korean model.

Instruction will cover Korean records-management laws and their application, preservation and restoration of damaged materials, digitization by record type, and preservation facilities and environments for important records. The program also includes digital records-preservation and management systems, trends in AI-based public services, practical paper-record restoration and digitization work, and tours of advanced facilities and equipment.